Posted by olituba on July 13, 2001 at 15:05:37:
In Reply to: another mouthpiece question posted by David McRoberts on July 12, 2001 at 17:32:51:
In general you might wanna think about some of these points when a mouthpiece-purchase is coming up: How much air do you have to give away? How thick are your lips? how steady is your lip-buzz?
A rather cup shaped one helps response. funnels do the opposite. Cups consequently use slightly less air. Tone color depends on cup shape, quality of your buzz, the amount of air you use, positioning of thhe mouthpiece, size of the Mp, your personal sound-concept, relation between lip-thickness and both width and depth of the Mp-cup. How big is the bore of your current Mp which you obviously wanna get rid of. U wanna go bigger or smaller? longer cup or shallower? more of an apple shape or rather go for a funnel? larger bore or narrower?
Lots and lots of questions, I know! But - I havent played a normal series Mp for the past 6 years, and have never ever regretted one of the custom made ones so far. Before I went into custom MPs I changed about every other year, both Bass and contrabass tuba Mps. Now, after giving ample thought about all these points, I havenīt changed my f MP since 98 and had my new BBb Mp made up this last may after getting its predecessor in 97.
Iīve never since changed Mps without knowing fairly exactly what Iīd be expecting from the new one. One simple reason for this being that customized those bummers cost abut 3-4 times as much, and you donīt wanna waste that, do you!
Now, you donīt have to go off serial MPs, but still these thoughts will save you time and money.
for what itīs worth,
oli*well known at tilzīs*tuba