Posted by Jay Bertolet on December 09, 2000 at 09:41:57:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: effective ranges of BBb CC EEb F posted by Carl L on December 09, 2000 at 09:10:06:
You know, this is another one that is relative. In the past, I've always felt that a good mouthpiece was sized to the particular player primarily. For me, that was a Bach 18. Also, I'd only owned my Rudy 4/4 (a rotary tuba with a relatively large bore). I pretty much stayed away from piston tubas because I'm not crazy about the feel. Then I ran into my Willson Eb and then the Nirschl CC and suddenly I was forced to look at mouthpieces again that would work well with a piston tuba that has a very short leadpipe. The Bach 18 didn't work particularly well for me on either of those tubas. What I found that worked for me was using a mouthpiece that helped "balance" the tuba. What I mean by that is that I now use a smaller mouthpiece on a bigger tuba. But I found this only works (for me anyway) on my piston instruments. I tried using the same mouthpiece I use with my Nirschl on the Cervany 601 I'm selling and it didn't work as well as what I was using (standard Helleberg). I spoke with Floyd Cooley and Warren Deck about this and they both agreed that the smaller mouthpiece was the ticket for the Nirschl. Floyd was using a Helleberg 7B and Warren suggested (though he had not yet tried it) the Laskey which I currently use. Both are relatively smaller mouthpieces that help to focus and center the sound. I tried the 7B myself and I didn't like the feel at all. So here is my new theory:
Every player has a spectrum of mouthpieces (small to large) that they feel comfortable with. I tend to choose a mouthpiece from that spectrum for a given tuba that is physically the inverse of the particular tuba when the tuba has a short leadpipe which (I'm guessing here) makes changes in the mouthpiece much more noticable.
I don't really have a theory like that for my rotary tubas because I already have what works and haven't really needed to experiment. Maybe someone has a similar theory for that type of situation? My primary focus with instruments like the Willson and the Nirschl is to get the best quality signal into the tuba at the mouthpiece and then let the horn do the rest of the work. This is different from my approach on a horn like my Rudy 4/4, where I feel I have to work harder to get the louder stuff and the measuring stick for those types of instruments is how much push they can take and still hold together. I suspect this approach requires a different style of mouthpiece (like the Bach) but I haven't really tested that theory too much because the current setup work pretty well for me. Unfortunately, my theories are just that, broad generalizations. Some specific experimentation with player, mouthpiece, and horn are still required to achieve success. My hope in developing such ideas was to maybe limit the field of mouthpieces somewhat and perhaps help to produce successful results in a more timely manner.
My opinion for what it's worth...