Posted by Paul on April 14, 1999 at 19:28:36:
Gentlemen, thanks for the responces.(not for you Rob please see next para)
I seem to have offended you Sean, and your friend Ken K. this was not my intension. if you check my posting you will see that I fully recognized the importance of a properly fitted 'piece for the professional ie. 5+ hour a day user ie. bread winner user. So you may relax I was not impuning your right to these necessities sir. What I wanted to know was if this was of such importance to a good sound and healthy developement WHY IS THERE NOT MORE ATTENTION PAYED or INFORMATION PROVIDED TO THE YOUNG STUDENT ( not quite virtuoso calibre)PLAYER'S FITTING? I realise that high school band funding is not what it should be so don't get on that horse.
Rob, I hope got your name speeled right I was typing from memory. Your responce was most informative indeed I had never known that the mouthpiece played such a large part.
In fact now that I think about it I always seemed to get a better sound (from the Four 'pieces I played 3 of which I still have) from the larger one I think it was an older King . It had a large deep bowl with a thin hard edge and there seemed to be less material in the sides of it. The bowl, as I said, had a lot of depth towards the shank it tapered like a champagne flute kind of. The shank as I remember was set for a wide bore reciever .
It was my favorite of the ones I have. Yes I kept it. Yes I know there is an ugly 8 letter word for that, but since they asked me to gig for a year after graduation sans deneros I figured some necessary gear in lieu of $$$ would'nt hurt...
Besides I found the good one on the floor under the back shelves in the back room under a colony of dust bunnies and bugs. (took three 4 min. boiling treatments, two viniger dips, a gin flush, and two days polishing) before I even thought of playing it and the teacher said he liked my 'new' 'piece when he saw it ...
Anyway nice chating with you tanx fer the info. I'll look up those books you mentioned.
Hope to hear back soon (from all of you) TUBAS UNTER ALLES PAUL.