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I hav efound that the 24AW works well, but should be moved away from quickly if it allows the players to used too much pressure.

I do not like the Conn Helleburg as a beginner mouthpiece. It is usually too much for a young player to handle.

Other good mouthpieces are the Miraphone C4, the corresponding Schilke 67C4, if the players are a bit older, a Bach 18 or 12 might be appropriate. I have started a young girl who played on a 24AW who would have been better suited for a Bach 32E due to her size and the size of her chops.

When I was teaching, I kept an arsenal of some of the different units. I found that we would try a few and go by the initial feel and sound that came out. After they progress, if they feel the outhpiece is limiting, we can go through the process again.

Again, this poll greatly depends on age. I have started players in the fifth grade. For these students, you need something fairly small so that they simply don't fall into the mouthpiece. If I were to ever have a student younger than the fifth grade, I might even be tempted to have the parents rent a baritone and have the student play on a 12C for a short period of time to get down some basics. You can have them read the music with the same fingerings and whatnot, sort of like an inverse of the cello - bass relationship. Plus, this way they can get used to blowing through a horn they have to hold onto and just buzzing in general. If they are still interested and things are going well, then they can move to the real deal. Still, I would slowly increase the size of the mouthpiece in relation to their muscular development and physical chop size.

I say to use it as a decorate pencil holder.

Thanks for reminding me of the Bach 25, Joe. You're right, it probably is better for young folks than the 24AW.

I'm not a huge fan of the 24AW, but it always pops up in band rooms and the back rooms of music shops. Because a lot of parents don't always understand that this hunk of metal can cost $80 for certain models and only $35 for others and there are no moving parts to make 'em fancy, I didn't move 'em from what they came with to their first lesson until I saw problems like purple lips when they stopped playing.

I personally think the best "starting" mouthpiece may be the 67C4 or Miraphone C4. They have a wide enough rime to be comfy, small enough bore to yeild backpressure, and a shallow enough cup to let the students get a little "edge" on the sound, which isn't always bad. However, Band Directors think Schilke is too fancy of a name even though they don't cost much more than a Bach.

I also think that the deep cup that takes a lot of edge out of players sounds is the reason the 24AW is so popular with band directors. It reigns in a lot of tone issues that they don't want to spend time fixing.

Of course, now that institutions of higher education are turning out "better" music ed majors, a lot of new band directors think every student should start on a conn helleberg. Not even the 7B. While the rim size isn't too out of control, the mouthpiece doesn't yeild much information back to young players and the rim contour isn't all that inviting either, but it seems to make cleaner articulations and also muffle begginers' sounds, making a lot of directors happy and content.

Joe Sellmansberger wrote:Why not shove it in a junker Conn 10J and go sell it at a flea market?

...or cut off the rim and use it as a thumbring.

I had one and turned it into a visualizer by cutting away most of the cup.

My understanding is that this is concerning a good mouthpiece for a beginner. Maybe the beginners are larger kids where many of you are! I personally play on huge mouthpieces, but the 6th graders I start out here are small-enough that I wouldn't think of initially putting them on a 67, Helleberg or 18. Most of my beginning tuba students are able to do better much sooner, playing on a 32E. The local middle school band director has been quite pleased with the development of the low brass players there over the last two years.
As they develop, I try to move them towards the appropriate size and shape mouthpiece for that point in their development.