Small horn, BIG mpc??

[SplatterTone]

The blat comes from the lips slapping instead of just vibrating. They slap because the muscles aren't there to prevent it, or one is blowing too hard. My experience has been that mouthpieces with thick rims and smaller internal diameters help compensate for lack of muscles. Examples are Yamaha 66D4, Wick 3XL. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

If somebody were obnoxiously blatting in my ear, I would move. I would explain to the music director why and leave the ball in his/her court.

I've not noticed any special preference of tuba size versus mouthpiece size. What my face and embouchure could handle has always been of far more importance.

I have noticed that one can use the smaller mouthpieces on small horns to get greater control without sacrificing much low end fundamental because the small horn doesn't have much low end fundamental no matter what one uses. That is, one can use a monster mouthpiece on a small horn and get a little more low end fundamental at the cost of a lot of control. Or one can use a smaller mouthpiece and get a lot more control at the cost of a small amount of low end fundamental.

[ai698]

I use a Dillon G3B on my little Weril CC. Works for me. I tried my Bayamo and a PT88 on it, too woofy, but the Dillon works except when it's really cold then it's too flat. I would like to try a Laskey 30H on it one day.

[Rick Denney]

My personal experience is that "blattyness" is more associated with lack of embouchure control NOT air flow.

I mean lack of air power. Here's what I think I know:

A compressor can use a little power to produce a high pressure and a low volume. To do that, it has to push that little bit of air through a small orifice, which is the same as a strong embouchure.

A compressor can use a little power to produce a high flow with no orifice at all. The average window fan moves a lot more air than one of these 200 psi inflation compressors, even though both consume about the same power. At low power, you can have volume or pressure, but not both.

If you point that window fan into a duct and try to force it through that small orifice, the motor will just stall, because it doesn't have the power to move that much volume at the pressure imposed by the small orifice. There's a reason why compressors are properly measured in horsepower, and why measuring them in terms of either pressure or flow is only half the story.

To make a loud sound, the pulse expelled must create the a waveform with a large amplitude and a good shape. The shape and amplitude of the waveform is controlled by the intensity of the pulse, and that is controlled by shape of the opening and the air flowing through it. A strong embouchure allows the lips to open cleanly with good shape. That's why we keep the corners firm even when playing low. It's the volume of air that will create and fill that shape. (It is also required that the reflection of the pulse coming back from the bell is timed to reinforce the next pulse, which emphasizes how important it is for the player to be playing in the center of the instrument's resonance to get all it has to offer.)

What makes air power? A large volume of air AND a strong embouchure. It's the embouchure that produces the shape of the waveform, and the volume that fills it up.

A weakness in the embouchure will undermine the resonance of the sound by robbing the pulse opening of it's good shape. That will produce spurious frequencies and noise. A lack of air will prevent that shape by keeping it from being properly filled up. A lack of power will cause the waveform to be truncated (for one reason or another) at the limit of that power, creating a corner on the waveform. That corner includes transients and high-frequency harmonics (aka, spurious frequencies and noise), and we hear that as blattiness.

It takes both to make a big, loud sound that isn't blatty. It's an impedance issue. The volume and the embouchure have to be coordinated to make the most resonant sound.

In my experience, the lack of air is the earlier problem. As I improve my air movement, the weaknesses in my embouchure become more apparent and I can work on them, too. Without the air supply, I never noticed weakness in the embouchure.

So, when I say air power, I mean both the embouchure to create a clean pulse opening (i.e., strong embouchure), and the air to fill that opening. The opening will suffer without both.

When it comes to the old air versus embouchure debate, I agree.

Most teachers seem to emphasize one issue or the other, but my understanding of the physics insists that both are required, but the air has to be there first.

Rick "who could well be wrong" Denney