A Different Mouthpiece Saved The Day
All I can say is ….Wow! I have been frustrated all this time for nothing. *Smile* I’ve been struggling with getting a nice clean tone and truly felt like giving up yesterday. Today I was focusing my attention on learning all the scales and getting more familiar with the fingerings for Trumpet when I came across a rather basic article about mouthpieces. The article wasn’t anything spectacular and I’d read several other articles about mouthpieces before. At the end of this article it said “I often play a 3c – just a nice all round mouthpiece, sharper rim than the 14B4, and a bit bigger cup than a ’standard 7c’ this is a very nice mouthpiece – those returning to the horn might want to consider the 3c over the 7c.” For some reason today, this caught my attention.
Up until this point I was forcing myself to use the standard 7c because I figured I “should” be able to play well using it. I mean, it’s standard right? Maybe this is true, maybe not. I have a couple of Jet Tone mouthpieces. I’m not sure why I have them. I remember buying them but I don’t remember my reason for doing so. *Smile*
A couple of days ago, I pulled out the Jet Tone MF and Jet Tone DS. I couldn’t play at all on the MF but played better on the DS than I did on the 7c. But I still struggled to the point of frustration with just playing the notes I wanted consistently. I would pick up the horn with a note in mind and set my lips up to play it and something else would come out or nothing at all.
After reading the article today, I decided to bring out all the mouthpieces I have. I’d bought them years ago when I thought I was going to be diligent in learning the trumpet. *Smile* Among them was a red, plastic 3c mouthpiece (I also have a clear, plastic 5c I haven’t tried). I tossed the 3c into the Buzzmaster. It felt more comfortable but it didn’t really sound any different than the others. I decided to use it on my horn and like magic I was whizzing up and down the scales, hitting every note I wanted and that airy/brassy ugliness was gone and I was no longer jamming the horn hard against my lips. What an awesome moment!
Lesson of the day: Try different things! I should have been trying all of my mouthpieces and not being so rigid about forcing myself to learn on the 7c. My lips fit very nicely in the 3c. When I was using the 7c I found myself putting all of my bottom lip into the mouthpiece and only a tad bit of the top lip and of course this meant the top lip would slip out causing me to lose my buzz. I knew I couldn’t keep playing like that. I also found myself “playing the top part” of the mouthpiece. Where I was literally forcing air only across a very small surface area at the top of the mouthpiece. It felt as if I was developing some bad playing habits right at the start of my quest and I didn’t want that.
So now I’m excited. Now that I’m passed the hump of simply producing a clear steady repeatable tone, I feel I can move on to other important basics.
The Magic Article: http://www.trumpetstudio.com/mouthpieces.html
P.S. The 5c is even better. *Smile*
Here’s the kicker to a bigger mouthpiece, it allows your lips to flex more… this is NOT a good thing for range or endurance overall. Here’s what most don’t tell you, or don’t know. As we ascend into the upper register, we are basically causing the air to move faster – 2 ways of accomplishing this.
1) pinching down on the aperture to make the hole smaller
2) HOLD the lips in a small centered setting and use your abs to push the air speed up as it hits resistance at the aperture.
Smaller rimmed mouthpieces are not as forgiving with aperture movement as larger mouthpieces are. Therefore, a vast amount of players choose to stay on a larger mouthpiece and have (in some cases certainly not all) limited range and endurance. I think some of it has to do with muscle structure – but not with full fleshy lips. I held this belief for a long time… until I saw the mouthpiece Cat Anderson played.
Just my thoughts…
Keith Fiala
I disagree. Lip size does matter. I’m living this reality. I think the 7c was hard to play because of the size and structure of my lips. It seems like a pretty straight forward concept but I feel like I understand because I felt it and most importantly, I felt the difference when I moved to the 3c and 5c.
“Maybe the most important parameter for a mouthpiece is the rim diameter. This is related to the players lip size. A 3C might be a big mouthpiece for a player with thin lips, but for myself having huge lips, it is rather small. ” – http://www.trumpetthink.com/mpiece.htm
I also disagree about range and endurance on larger mouthpieces. If what you are saying is true, then Tuba players would barely get through a piece without tiring. I mean the tuba mouthpiece is quite large isn’t it? Yet skilled tuba players can play as long as any other brass player and can also achieve great range.
You’ll also notice that Cat Anderson pulls his lips in when he plays so you’ll notice by looking at him, you would not see that he has large full lips. I don’t do this and don’t plan on it. I’ve tired and it puts a great strain on my face. I would also imagine that’s why he used such unique mouthpieces as well.