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I am a euphonium player and want to know what type of mouthpiece I should be using to play on Tuba. I will be practicing on either a BBb or an F tuba. Please give me your insights on this situation. Thank you!

Really, until you find a better way to approach this question, I think you might as well leave the tuba alone!

Try this website:

http://www.mouthpieceexpress.com" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Try the models that are described as best for all around playing. Right now, avoid the biggest or the smallest models. The most important thing is to get a horn and a mouthpiece and play a lot of tuba. Enjoy the experience.

bloke wrote: If (??) you're hoping to find a tuba mouthpiece that seems somewhat familiar to you, playing a tuba with a euphonium-like mouthpiece is going to be just about as successful as playing a euphonium with a tuba-like mouthpiece (ie. "not very").

I understand the sentiment here, but don't think that the situation is as symmetric as suggested. Surely it depends (in the second case at least) on what you expect to do with the euphonium (and indeed on what sort of euphonium it is). If, for example, you want to view the euphonium as a tenor tuba (or a "high tuba") and it's a large bore compensating horn or a large bore 5-valve horn, then playing it with a "tuba-like mouthpiece" seems not at all inappropriate -- partly depending on how tuba-like the mouthpiece is. Something like a Schilke 60 is pretty unusual (though not unheard of) as a euphonium mouthpiece. Really enhances the low range. Then what about a Rath CBO (that's a 31.2mm cup and an 8.1mm throat -- around the size of a PT-24 or TU-05; and the Roger Bobo TT is a 32mm cup on a bass trombone shank)? And if you've gone that far, you're right on the edge of a "tuba mouthpiece". I've also seen references to someone named "Bloke" who reputedly has (or had) a "mini-Helleberg" for the bass trombone or euph. Don't know about that.

Maybe starting on a smallish (31-32mm rim) tuba mouthpiece that isn't too deep wouldn't be a bad idea. But this is, once again, the old "What tuba mouthpiece should I start with?" question. No shortage of answers there. (By the way, if anyone out there has actually tried one of the Raths on a euph, I'd be interested in hearing what they thought. I tend not to like Bobo-mouthpieces.)

I am very sorry for my lack of communication skills. What I meant to say is: I am a euphonium player with no prior knowledge or experience performing on Tuba. I am going to be starting this next semester out doing minor applied lessons on Tuba and need some advice on choosing a mouthpiece to start out on. The Tuba I have been using over the winter break is a Meinl-Weston 4 valve BBb Tuba with a Perantucci PT-88+ mouthpiece. I don't know if this mouthpiece is one I should be starting on or not and need some advice for my future students just starting out. I may start playing an F Tuba as well and want to know what type of mouthpiece I should start out on that one. Thanks for the help and advice everyone! I hope this clarifies my post up a bit.

You don't have to apologize. Your communication skills are fine. Don’t pay any attention to individuals who respond in a rude or condescending manner to a legitimate question.
The tuba and mouthpiece that you have available are fine. Use them to put in some quality tuba time. What to have a young beginner use is IMHO a very different question. Perhaps, some of the many outstanding teachers, who actually teach young beginners, who visit site this, would respond.

I'm going to step outside of what seems to be the consensus here - which for some reason is to refuse to answer your question - and make some very specific recommendations. I'm a bass trombone player who doubles on tuba, so I think I can speak from experience that has some similarity to yours.

I find a piston valve tuba to be much easier to play than a rotary tuba. For my way of blowing the horn, nearly every rotary instrument I've played feels uneven with the different valve combinations (particularly 2+3, which always feels strange to me). I know, I know...many tuba players feel the opposite and sound fantastic on rotary valves. But I'm not a tuba player, and neither are you. I assume you're used to piston valves on your euph, and I'm willing to bet that a piston valve BBb with fairly small bore through the valve section will be the easiest doubling horn for you. I play a CC tuba because of what I need it for - mine is a Conn 3J. The 4J and 5J are BBb models, and they're great. The King 2341, both the new generation and the older ones, also fits this category.

With these piston valve instruments, I like small Helleberg-style mouthpieces. I find that there's a limit to the inner rim diameter I can handle before scooping into pitches becomes a problem. I found the very inexpensive Yamaha 66 to be a very easy mouthpiece to start with. The Conn Helleberg 7B is just slightly bigger and also pretty easy to play with a full tuba sound. Now I play either a Floyd Cooley Helleberg or a Warbuton TG3, both of which are about the same size but more expensive - and for me they are both worth the difference in price for the more consistent intonation and response.

glangfur wrote:I'm going to step outside of what seems to be the consensus here - which for some reason is to refuse to answer your question -

Here's a reason, see what you think of it. Reading through your specific recommendations, it looks to me like the things that work for you, also work for me - the Helleberg style mouthpiece, etc. - so ... are we onto something here? Well, no.

I'm too lazy to count up the mouthpieces you'd see at the mouthpiece express site suggested above, but let's say over 50. Pick any one of those mouthpieces, and there's someone out there who could have answered this question and very reasonably said, with the same logic, "this one might work for you, because it works for me." Now that you've proposed a funnel style mouthpiece, there are bound to be a fair crowd out there wondering if they should chime in, because they could never make a funnel shape work as well as a bowl shape. When you bring the piston vs. rotor thing into it, it begins to look like you're really putting us on.

As simple a question as it would seem to be, there isn't any answer that's much better than any other answer, so to me there's no answer at all.

That isn't to say that there aren't some answers that are a little worse than average. I don't know the PT mouthpieces, but I note that the 88+ is 33.5 mm wide, which is about as wide as they come. It's plausible that this would be a good starter for someone, but one might guess that there would be few such individuals, and for F tuba particularly it seems like the wrong way to go.

Maybe an answerable question derived from this, for those who have any teaching experience - is it better to confront a beginner with a collection of different types of equipment, because everyone's different and we all learn best on something individually suited to us? Or take this tuba, and this mouthpiece, and start practicing, and later we'll talk about whether something else might work better for you?

Donn wrote:

glangfur wrote:I'm going to step outside of what seems to be the consensus here - which for some reason is to refuse to answer your question -

Here's a reason, see what you think of it. Reading through your specific recommendations, it looks to me like the things that work for you, also work for me - the Helleberg style mouthpiece, etc. - so ... are we onto something here? Well, no.

Is it really necessary to turn this into an argument? I know I don't post a lot here, but those on tubenet who know me know that I'm a professional player and teacher with real experience.

I'm too lazy to count up the mouthpieces you'd see at the mouthpiece express site suggested above, but let's say over 50.

Well, I'm not too lazy to have tried a bunch of different things, because I had to learn to play tuba in order to take it to a professional situation, as my profile here would imply. I also make it clear that I'm NOT primarily a tuba player but a doubler coming from a smaller instrument, like the OP.

Pick any one of those mouthpieces, and there's someone out there who could have answered this question and very reasonably said, with the same logic, "this one might work for you, because it works for me."

What I recommended were very standard, very middle of the road mouthpieces, not just a shot in the dark because it happens to work for me.

Now that you've proposed a funnel style mouthpiece, there are bound to be a fair crowd out there wondering if they should chime in, because they could never make a funnel shape work as well as a bowl shape. When you bring the piston vs. rotor thing into it, it begins to look like you're really putting us on.

I specified the piston tuba because most (not all) of the professional tuba players I know who play piston tubas play funnel-shape mouthpieces on them, and most (not all) who play rotary tubas play bowl-shaped mouthpieces, and I find the same thing to work for me. I suppose I should have stated that.

As simple a question as it would seem to be, there isn't any answer that's much better than any other answer, so to me there's no answer at all.

There are answers that are better than others, and I gave some that I think are better suited to this particular person asking this particular question, based on my own similar experience, not to mention the professional standards I hold myself to.

That isn't to say that there aren't some answers that are a little worse than average. I don't know the PT mouthpieces, but I note that the 88+ is 33.5 mm wide, which is about as wide as they come. It's plausible that this would be a good starter for someone, but one might guess that there would be few such individuals, and for F tuba particularly it seems like the wrong way to go.

Now this is a useful observation. I though the PT-88 was a pretty big piece and probably more than the OP should be trying to handle. Thank you for confirming that.

Maybe an answerable question derived from this, for those who have any teaching experience - is it better to confront a beginner with a collection of different types of equipment, because everyone's different and we all learn best on something individually suited to us? Or take this tuba, and this mouthpiece, and start practicing, and later we'll talk about whether something else might work better for you?

That's exactly what I did when I started, and then quickly moved on to other choices that made everything easier. In the OP's case, maybe we can agree that the tuba he's got is probably fine for now, but the mouthpiece is probably too big?

horsielion wrote:I am very sorry for my lack of communication skills. What I meant to say is: I am a euphonium player with no prior knowledge or experience performing on Tuba. I am going to be starting this next semester out doing minor applied lessons on Tuba and need some advice on choosing a mouthpiece to start out on. The Tuba I have been using over the winter break is a Meinl-Weston 4 valve BBb Tuba with a Perantucci PT-88+ mouthpiece. I don't know if this mouthpiece is one I should be starting on or not and need some advice for my future students just starting out. I may start playing an F Tuba as well and want to know what type of mouthpiece I should start out on that one. Thanks for the help and advice everyone! I hope this clarifies my post up a bit.

What kind of euphonium mouthpiece do you use? Do you want a similar shaped tuba mouthpiece? Do you want a mouthpiece for both Bb and F tuba?

Have you tried a Bach 18?, 24?, 25?, or a Conn 7b?

(If your answer is no to the above 4 mouthpieces, go borrow some of those and try them out before you buy an expensive mouthpiece you might not like)

Here are my thoughts. The PT-88/88+ is a very, very large mouthpiece, typically meant for very strong tubists attempting to get very large sounds out of very large tubists. It is a challenging mouthpiece to use for these intended applications, and is even more difficult to use on an F tuba, unless you are trying to make an F tuba sound like a larger tuba (another topic of discussion that has been discussed on this forum at length). As you don't know for sure exactly what sort of horn you will be using, your best bet will be a middle of the road mouthpiece that can function well on both kinds of horns. For this, a Helleberg would probably be ideal, as some incredibly successful players have used that mouthpiece for either type of horn, and in some cases both.

That's what makes the most sense to me.

From one euphoniium player that doubles (once a year for a church Christmas orchestra) to another ...... get a 24AW. It's what came with the tuba when I bought it and it works fine for me. My understanding is that this is the size that beginning band students start out with. I like "blokes" advice too .

I'll speak from my own experience. I was a professional euphonium player but wanted to work more on really good air support. I was able to get a Sovereign EEb tuba to work with, and pretty soon I realized I wanted to learn it well enough to use it as a double. My goal was never to become an orchestral-level player, but rather to develop a good sound for quintet playing or solo playing.

I began with a Wick 5, which I soon found to be too small. So I switched to the mp I am now using, which is a Schilke 67. I have also tried the Kellyberg stainless steel mouthpiece, which is just a bit smaller-feeling/sounding than the Schilke, but still has a very respectable sound. You can see it here: http://www.kellymouthpieces.com/kmstain ... /index.asp (I don't make any $$ on this, just being helpful.)

For what it's worth, I think tuba is a better double for euphonium players than trombone. When I was in the CG Band I played lead trombone in the jazz ensemble for a while (which was part-time, and the rest of the day/week I was on euphonium). While it was great to use the same mouthpiece (I had one that worked well on both horns), the slide is obviously a different deal. But mostly I didn't like what trombone playing did to my airstream. It's just too different in focus for me to handle easily. For me. For me.

But with my tuba double, it enhances my euphonium sound/concept. The really unexpected thing is that it also seems to help my strength over the whole euphonium range, include the high range! Who'd have thunk it?

The mouthpieces mentioned above work for me. For me. But they might be a good place to start if you are still seeking direction.

dwerden wrote:But with my tuba double, it enhances my euphonium sound/concept. The really unexpected thing is that it also seems to help my strength over the whole euphonium range, include the high range! Who'd have thunk it?

My exact experience. Maybe it's the cylindrical/conical thing between euph and trombone, but with the trombone I feel like I'm blowing down a hosepipe, and find centering difficult after the euphonium. An EEb tuba is a perfect double for a euphonist IMO. They feel like a big/little brother natural relationship, and I can switch from one to the other effortlessly. I've had the same experience with improvement to range on the euphonium, particularly in the higher register. Can't thunk why either, but it happens!