Looking into mouthpiece. Advice?

[bubba42200]

Your looking at a good mouthpiece, but two questions,

What does your private teacher think?

How many mouthpieces have you actually tried?

My teacher suggested this among other mouthpieces, but his suggestions seemed to be almost all from GW.

I have tried a Shilkie 67, but that was so long ago I don't even remember how it feels. I own a Conn Helleberg, which I use to warm up on and personally find it easy to play on, but not easy to play on with good tone, if that makes sense. The Bayamo is easy to make good tone on, but it's rim is too large and its not very clear, even if it is deep and rich. I guessed that the reason the Bayamo sounded better was the material, could be wrong.

If I say something stupid, lemme know. I'm still not geared enough in the nuances to tell which mouthpiece is slightly better, but I can tell big differences (i.e, the Helleberg is a huge step up from a Bach 18, and the Bayamo has some qualities that are better than the Helleberg by a lot and some that aren't.)

<== I love this emote.

[bubba42200]

Are you close enough to a reputable store, (or can you go to a conference), where you can try many mouthpieces to find out which one sound/feels the best for you? As a developing musician, the journey is more than half the fun

I have been intending to ask the upperclassmen if I can test some of theirs, and I was going to ask my teacher if I could test drive some of his next week, but there aren't any stores that I know of that let you try them, and I'm not exactly in the best position to go anywhere out of the way to try some.

[bubba42200]

Thank you all for the wonderful advice. You've given me some new options to explore, and almost unanimously suggested I try out a bunch of mouthpieces before I buy one, especially one that's so expensive. I can ask around if I can try out mouthpieces, and I will definitely be borrowing the first chair's Baer.

Again, thanks, and happy playing.