Posted by Barry Guerrero on August 10, 2001 at 04:57:30:
hey folks,
It's me with another esoteric question. I just picked up a Marcinkiewicz CH (concert hall) H4 mouthpiece. I got it for a reasonable price from the Tuba Exchange. Just to give a bit of background, I was looking for a good all-around, quintet m.p. for my eefer. The H4 is supposed to be a standard Helleberg, but with a shallower cup. To me, it feels almost as big as my Bach 7, and it's kind of shaped like it too. Anyway, was I ever in for a shock, as I've never played a heavy weight m.p. before. Are they all like this? The "cash resister" was terrific. All of the notes slotted like gang busters, and the tone color was completely uniform on every single note. However, the extreme highs and extreme lows were not easy to play. I put away some music that I was struggling with, and just worked out of the James Stamp warm-up book. Since my horn is an "eefer", I greatly noticed the difficulties in the extreme highs and lows on a four octave E-natural arpeggio. I really had to blow to make the high E come out, and that's using just the 2nd valve too. I can get to the high G OK, but it's a real struggle. I have to really blow up to it.
Any advice? Should I keep working with this mouthpiece? Do the rewards of playing a heavy weight outstrip the drawbacks? Do other people give up on these monsters for the very same reasons? Will the high register improve, if I just keep working out of the James Stamp book, or something? Is there another model m.p. that I should consider instead? Maybe heavy weights aren't a good match for a horn that's already made of heavy gauge metal (Besson)?
Thanks in advance,
Barry Guerrero