Hi eveyone

[GhostlyBoy08]

Hi im ghostlyboy and im a young tubist and trombone player and i hope i get to meet alot of people here. i also have a question. Band season is coming up and i was looking at tuba mouthpieces and was wondering which one would give me a heavy sound something this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvwomav1ICA or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmvoTFgK9HQ. Im torn in between a mike finn 3b and perantucci 88 and a dennis wick heritage 1l. If you are in a marching band or were in a marching band tell me your experience with these. I want pedals and to be able to hit high notes. i play a conn 20k and a king 2350 and im a sophomore at my school. but anyways thats all. Thanks

[dmeacham5]

Hello and welcome, If you could try any of the mouthpieces first it would help but anyway I play the pt-88 and it is one of my favorite I use a Loud Lm-5 and the pt-88. The pt-88 lets me go very high but I will tell you its not all about the mouthpiece its about practice practice practice. A mouthpiece can help but you can't get out of the practice. I haven't played any of the other mouth pieces but I can play pedal Bb and a bit lower (Not right fingering but that's not the mouthpiece) to I've hit the C above middle C on it so it's a great mouthpiece I would recommend it and I hope you make a good choice for you. Though one word of precaution what works for me may not work for you.
Dmeacham5

[TubaRay]

Hi im ghostlyboy and im a young tubist and trombone player and i hope i get to meet alot of people here. i also have a question. Band season is coming up and i was looking at tuba mouthpieces and was wondering which one would give me a heavy sound something this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvwomav1ICA or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmvoTFgK9HQ. Im torn in between a mike finn 3b and perantucci 88 and a dennis wick heritage 1l. If you are in a marching band or were in a marching band tell me your experience with these. I want pedals and to be able to hit high notes. i play a conn 20k and a king 2350 and im a sophomore at my school. but anyways thats all. Thanks

Welcome to TubeNet!

By heavy sound, I assume you mean a big sound. I believe any of the three mouthpieces you listed might accomplish that. From my own experience, I would suggest that you not invest a great deal of money in a mouthpiece that you will use in marching band. That activity can be very rough on mouthpieces. If it is possible to do so, I'd have a mouthpiece that I would use only for the King. That is where I'd be willing to spend money. You might consider a Kellyberg for marching. It would do the job, without costing you too much. Best of all, it can handle a certain amount of abuse(read that: marching band).

[GhostlyBoy08]

Im not really into kelly mouthpieces and i practice alot so i have achieved the sound i wanted but i just need something that projects and opens up my low register. i can play high notes very well. im looking for something that projects sound that also sounds fat and very big you know. im not in a dci corps im in a program like an hbcu marching band.

[royjohn]

Hello GhostlyBoy,

Here we go again with this blatty sound. I don't find either of the clips you posted particularly deep or sonorous or wonderful in tone. I wonder if you wouldn't do better getting this kind of sound with a shallower mpc, but IDK, as it isn't something I try for.

My advice, if you have to aim for tone like this, is to order one or more of the candidate mouthpieces from a mail order house like Dillon Music and try them. You can return anything not damaged for credit within a trial period, which I think is about ten days. If you have a credit card that can stand the $150 to $250 balance until you decide which you want, just order all three and A-B-C test them against each other.

I have the Wick 1L and it is pretty deep and produces a dark tone.

It is my fervent hope that someday you get interested in playing a tuba with beautiful tone instead of just honking to get folks riled up in a football stadium. Anybody who can play the tuba well can also do this if needed. However, if this is the only way you know how to play, you've probably developed some pretty bad playing habits.

[GhostlyBoy08]

Well i dont really play like this i can have a very good tone when im in concert band. i dont puff my cheeks by the way i play from my diaphram.

[royjohn]

Kiltie,

I don't think I belittled anybody and I hope it wasn't taken that way. Someone posts an interest in certain videos, so I assumed they had an interest in playing like that, because they said so. Is this a big stretch?

I don't particularly like that kind of playing and I think it's OK to state such. Bearing in mind the thread referred to, I think a lot of folks voiced the same opinion. Maybe I wouldn't like your playing. If I said so, would I be belittling you or being frank?

[GhostlyBoy08]

Im a pretty good player if i want to i can have a good tone and i can play loud if i need to. all i need is a mouthpiece that opens up pedals while projecting sound. Maybe ill post a vid one day of me playing

[ginnboonmiller]

It won't be the mouthpiece that does that for you. I also don't know what mouthpiece you're using now, so I don't know what to recommend. I need a baseline.

But the trick with fat pedal tones is actually to back off the air (at first), use a lot of air but move it slowly and just let your lips flap. You can't really force out pedal tones. You just have to be kind of zen with them. No mouthpiece can provide sufficient zen, though.

(You'll see a lot of old jerkfaces yelling at you on this forum. Don't sweat them.)

[royjohn]

Kiltie,

I think you are seeing what you want to see. I have read my post over several times and don't see where I accused anyone of playing with blatty tone, just posting clips with blatty tone and possibly liking it. I don't see this as a big personal assault or issue and the OP is welcome to tell me if he thinks it is.

[Tuboss2]

Oh man oh man! Dude, I got you. This is my thing that I mainly am really good at. Alright, let me start with pedals: mouthpieces don't matter for these dude. They really dont. Now there are some that make it easier to play low. But with practice you can play some nice fat pedals at FFF(took me a while, now I do it all the time, poor band mates think it sounds "bad"). Really drop your jaw. And loosely buzz your lips. By doing that you'll easily be hitting lower pitches. Then from there, learn to control and be able to hit them accurately.

Big sound. Ah, if you haven't yet, refer to the Edgy Sound thread. 36 pages. For your case, it's something you need to read. I was in your situation couple months ago. I can play really loud. Big? I can do that as well...it's different then playing loud though. I struggle with it because I think loud instead of big a lot. Here's what ya do:
Open up, a lot. Then pushing abunch of air through the instrument. The hardest part(I struggle with this as well some times) is controlling and not playing too loud. I basically have the reputation as the loudest tuba player in my band right now. Honestly, I'm glad I got that. It does get annoying when u get abunch of wusses sayin you play to loud some times. Or the famous "you sound bad"(now that gets annoying, most of the time I'm just playing at FFFFF and not actually sounding bad, idiots.)

But alright, main thing is: mouthpiece doesn't matter dude. It doesn't. Practice practice practice! And who knows, I think it'd be cool if you posted a sound clip of a video of you playing something(preferably one of your stand tunes as loud as you can control) that way I can further help ya. Because I was in your same situation.

And last thing: I'm a sophmore as well. So about out!

[royjohn]

Since I've been misunderstood by one person, let me say that I think this is a great thread and I think it's great to get some HS players on here talking to each other. I don't think it is a great surprise to them that some folks over 30 are not greatly taken with this style of music, nor does it seem that they care when they want to play that way. It's the same tuba no matter what you play and I'm sure that they can play it however they want in later years. Maybe they'll be the first generation in history to feel the same at 68 as they do at 18. . . LOL.

In my neck of the woods, I watch my football and hear the bands on TV, since I'm way past wanting to battle 100,000+ people to get to my seat in Knoxville. I do sometimes go to basketball games and our pep band does play with a somewhat edgey tone in fight songs, as is appropriate. They are also capable of wonderful tone in the low brass when they play their signature tune, "The Tennessee Waltz" after the game is over. It is almost worth going just to hear that song.

I think it is good for people to know what most tuba players think about this subject and we have, as Tuboss2 noted, 36 pages of discussion on this for folks to read. I worked with young people for 30+ years and was not accused of belittling them or their parents. They are our great hope for the future, but they do need to know what we think. . .

[GhostlyBoy08]

You know tuboss thats acually what i was going to do. i was gunna try dropping my jaw and pushing air through. but i practice and play all the time so ill try that

[Tuboss2]

You know tuboss thats acually what i was going to do. i was gunna try dropping my jaw and pushing air through. but i practice and play all the time so ill try that

Ya man. Give it a try and see what happens. If you do it your youll sound really fat and thick. Which I believe is what you're looking. It took a while before I started sounded fat. But once I did, it's hard to stop playing like that because if sounds so cool. My band director gets pissed though so...gotta hold back.