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Hey guys. It's my first post to the forum...

Anyways, I'm a euphonium player in high school looking to major in performance and music ed. at either UGA or North Texas. I play on a Yamaha 642 with a BB1 mouthpiece. I recently played my brother's mouthpiece just for the heck of it (he plays a Schilke 51, not 51D) and I noticed ALOT of the problems that I was experiencing with the BB1 were gone. I had always assumed it was me, but the 51 had better upper and lower registers than the BB1, especially on high B natural. It slotted well, whereas the BB1 is often impossible to settle. Also, I tend to have a lot of air in the sound from D above the staff to the F just above that. Practice never really helped, but the Schilke fixed many of those issues. Could I be overblowing? Has anyone had similar experiences with the mouthpieces or just the same problems that I experienced with the BB1?

Thanks ahead of time,
Christian

There is nothing that says you have to use a Marianas-trench deep mouthpiece for anything. Many mere mortals like me either don't have the time or the breath support to get everything out of a mouthpiece like that. For example, on my recommendation, a friend of mine uses one size even smaller, a Schilke 50, as a comeback player on his Jupiter 4-valve up euph, and sounds great, blends well in section, and really enjoys it. For him the 51D was also wayyyyy too large.

And for me, I use moderate to moderately deep 1.28 cup diameter tuba mouthpieces with moderate throats and backbores for the same reason. The largest I use is the Wick 1, but only because there is more inherent resistance from the comp block on my Besson.

Hi Christian,

Everyone's need for a mouthpiece can be different. It depends on a lot of things... size of your lips, movement of air, air support, etc. I wouldn't be concerned that you played better on the Schilke 51. I think I recall that the 642 comes with a Yamaha 51 in it's case -- which is close to a Schilke 51 and Yamaha's choice for best match-up. I know that my 641 came with a 51.

You might like reading Dave Werden's forum on euphonium mouthpieces. Here's a link:
Euph Mouthpieces

BTW, the high B natural is notorious for being one of the toughest notes to play on euphonium. I think Yamaha is one of the worst. On my 641 it's almost non-existant, the 642 was a bit better as was the 842 better still.

Thanks again to everyone who responded.

I did a blind test with my teacher today, and the Schilke won on all fronts. As far as it being too big, I won't go crazy or anything. I used to think the Schilke 51s and 51 D were far too big (perhaps because I was bitter due to the fact that I wanted more euphonium-only mouthpieces ) but I suppose over the past couple of years I've developed in that area.
I had an idea about the BB1, though. Because it was made for the 2900, which is an intermediate shank, could that take away from its performance with large shanks? It's significantly lighter than many mouthpieces, and I wonder if the fact that it was made for a smaller bored horn could have any impact on it...

I have an alternative theory - the mouthpiece was too big for you. Bigger isn't better for everyone. It sounds like you are finding better options for your embouchere. I'd even recommend you try something like an SM4 or SM5. Try a lot of pieces till you hit the sweet spot in terms of tone and flexibility.

...post from a former SM3.5 user who has discovered the joy of the simple Bach 5G.