mouth piece shopping

[Captain Sousie]

I'm amazed that nobody has thought of saying this yet, even though this was the stock response on the old tubenet. Talk to your private lesson teacher. If you don't have one, find one. If you can't find one, look harder. If you still can't find one, you should get a brasswind catalogue, open it to the low brass mouthpiece page, close your eyes, point to a random place on the page and buy whatever mouthpiece that your finger lands on. Youhave a better chance of finding a good mouthpiece this way than you do fumbling around without any professional assistance.

Sorry if this sounded harsh but it's for your own good.

Sousie

[Captain Sousie]

Sorry, my mistake. I will try to have some idea what I am talking about next time I open my big mouth . If it makes any difference, I liked my Bach megatone 24AW when paired with either a midsize BBb or my 4/4CC.

Sousie

[The Impaler]

Now this thread has migrated down to my neck of the woods. The current tubist in the Midland-Odessa symphony is Scott Roeder, a very fine tubist and a good friend of mine. He's studied with Mickey at Illinois, and has also been a Falcone semi-finalist. He also, just by chance it seems, is teaching one day a week as an adjunct professor at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas. That would cut Scott's 3-hour drive to have a lesson with Kevin Wass at Tech down to about a 2-hour drive to study with Scott once a week. As far as I know, he does not have a terribly large load of students there, and if you'd be interested, I have no problem putting you in contact with him. In fact, he'll probably catch this thread on his own.

As an added response to ole Schlep, I studied at WTAMU for six years, and lived in Amarillo for four of those, and one of the biggest things our studio didn't like was the absence of a specialized tuba-euph professor. Joe Cox is a wonderful musician and teacher, and his students have gone on to very successful careers. His students have gone on to study with Brian Bowman, Sam Pilafian, and Patrick Sheridan, have been a semi-finalist in the Falcone euph competition, and have played in the Military Academy Band at West Point. However, there really is no substitute for a specialized tubist/euphist on your staff. I can only hope that WT brings someone on in that capacity in the near future so that I can keep sending students up there. With a new Fine Arts Building nearing completion, it'd be a shame to move into without a very fine tuba/euph studio.

*thanks for reading, I'm off the soap box now*

[tclements]

I'd answer these questions first:

1 - WHY do I want another mouthpiece
2 - What is my current mouthpiece NOT doing
3 - What do I hope to accomplish with a new mouthpiece

[Rick Denney]

1. i need a new mouthpice because my old vencient bach A.W. 24 got stolen ... i've played on a conn-helleberg and i coulden't get over a high c.

2. there was another reason before it got stolen, i coulden't get a c above the staff and my high range sounded grungy i guess you could say like i was flutter tounging and not meaning to, it wasn't as smooth as i would like it to be...

3. what i hope to accomplish with a new mouthpiece is to get a better high range and a smoother playing ability.

Well, if your mouthpiece got stolen, then you really do have to get another one, heh, heh. But your symptoms remind me of me too much not to make some comments. I hope I'm not being too presumptuous in offering some suggestions not relating to the mouthpiece.

I would suggest that if you can't get over a high C on a Conn Helleberg, then you can't properly get over a high C on any mouthpiece. Your description of your upper range on your former Bach mouthpiece confirms this in my mind. For much of my playing life, I used too much mouthpiece pressure in the upper register and too little air, with the result that my tone spread and lost its core and focus, espcially in the extreme low and high part of the range. This is, pure and simple, a lack of both air flow and embouchure strength and using more mouthpiece pressure in place of that air and strength.

Try buzzing a note on the tuba, and, while continuing to buzz, pull your face away from the mouthpiece slowly. At some point, you'll lose the effect of the mouthpiece pressure and your buzz will fall apart. Keep at this until you can maintain the buzz with your mouth off the mouthpiece for a few seconds and then maintain it as you bring the mouthpiece back to your face. The point is not to make a good free buzz, which isn't important to me, but to have sufficient chop strength to make a given buzz without aid from mouthpiece pressure. It's a challenging test and one that I still can't do very well.

Easier variations include holding the mouthpiece to your lips with just two fingers, and buzzing notes. You may have to drape your little finger over the end of the mouthpiece to provide some restriction until you are moving enough air. Good chop strength and a healthy air flow go hand in hand--one is useless without the other.

From there, do lip slurs by playing up the harmonic series (no valves) from F to high Bb (top fo the staff) and down to low Bb (below the staff). Don't press the valves or use your tongue--make your chops and air change the notes (hint--air is more important here than chops). Here's a simple exercise: If the low Bb is 2, F at the bottom of the staff is 3, Bb on the staff is 4, D on the staff is 5, F on the staff is 6, and Bb at the top of the staff is 8, then play the following 4-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-4-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-5-4-6-5-4-3-2-3-2 and then hold. (The numbers are the harmonics.) Write this out on music, and then play it all without using the valves. Play them as eighth notes with quarter=60. Do it again with the second valve down, then the first, and so on until you are playing it all on the 2-4 valve combination. Again, slur all these--no tonguing, but breathe when necessary. Consciously minimize pressure while doing this, so you don't have to think about it when playing music.

These two things (buzzing and lip slurs/flexibility exercises) have really helped me move more air and reduce mouthpiece pressure, with resulting big improvemets to my tone, especially in in the upper register. I still have a long way to go. Others may suggest other things, but lack of air flow and too much pressure seem to be the biggest problems faced by those of us who never had lessons, and these exercises will expose the problem immediately.

Okay, back to mouthpieces.

I also started out on a 24AW, but I don't really think it's a great mouthpiece. The two classic mouthpieces are the Conn Helleberg and the Bach 18. Nearly every other mouthpiece traces its heritage through one of these two mouthpieces, at least in part. You can hardly do worse than to start with one or the other of these.

An advantage to the Helleberg is that it has a sharp rim that will remind you not to use too much pressure. The wide rims on the Bachs (especially the 24AW) make it too tempting to use too much pressure.

You can also get a Helleberg-like mouthpiece with a little less edge on the rim, but they are more limited and cost more. One example is a Perantucci PT-36, and another (that is even more expensive) is a Laskey 30H. But were I you, I'd start with the Conn Helleberg and solve my problems using that mouthpiece. Then, you'll be selecting mouthpieces to enhancement your skills rather than to solve basic problems.

Rick "who has been down this road" Denney

[Rick Denney]

Rick's advice is right-on for the most part, although from personal experience I would disagree with one part (not sure if it's disagreeing or simply clarification).

...

No real argument from me, and I don't think it really conflicts with what I said.

I will say that some of the top pros discussed the notion of the timing between the small pulse of air and the changing of the embouchure needed to make a lip slur happen, so I'm not so sure that there is no involvement from those air pulses. But without sufficient air flow, no lip slurs are possible.

Rick "certainly in no position to argue details" Denney

[Tubatoad]

umm, i REALLY appriciate all your help in my buying of a new mouthpeice but, it seems that it was in a coat that i haven't worn in about a month.

thanks again
scott

A trifle embarrassing perhaps, but on the bright side, look at all the great advice on lip slurs we got out of it!

[MaryAnn]

Well, as long as we're discussing it.....one of the most beneficial mouthpiece exercises I've found is buzzing sirens. That is, start in the middle of the range and then buzz without break as low as you can go and as high as you can go. This is a great way to extend your range and to get over "breaks" in your embouchure.

And to those of you who have pressure problems....I have a very simple solution. Any and all tuba mouthpieces are about as wide as my entire mouth, so that the corners are invisible when I'm playing. It is impossible to use pressure to play, because all I'm doing is pushing on the bones of my face! So....go find a mouthpice that covers your entire mouth, and your pressure problems will disappear!!

MA

[TubaRay]

Mary Ann, you don't seem to grasp how large some tuba players' mouths are! Ugh, I mean ...

[Rick Denney]

Mary Ann, you don't seem to grasp how large some tuba players' mouths are! Ugh, I mean ...

Well, I'm following her advice and ordering the new PT-109 with the 77mm rim. Of course, I had to make a mold of my face so that it would not leak past my ears.

Rick "noting a strange lack of concern for what leaks through the empty head cavity" Denney

[MartyNeilan]

Been there, done that. Funny, though in the last year almost every time I loose something it turns up in my son's toybox a couple of days later. hmmmmmmmmmm