Mouthpiece characteristics

[Mary Ann]

Not asking about sound.

Are there general characteristics of mouthpieces such as:
size and shape of the backbore
depth of cup
size and shape of cup
etc

That affect intonation? There has to be more to it than just sound. Like, is a bowl-shaped cup likely to have an intrinsically sharper high register, compared to a funnel-shaped cup? Does a funnel-shaped cup tend to make the slots feel wider? ....etc.

This isn't intonation, but... when I put a Lawson bell on my Schmid double, for me AND others on their Schmid doubles, suddenly the notes slotted amazingly better in the high range (where it is most slippery by nature.) I learned that Walter Lawson really knew about tapers. So, mouthpieces have tapers too, or at least "can." Funnel and cup are tapers, it seams. I use a Lawson mouthpiece for the same reason....it works amazingly well with my horn.

This would be a good Klaus question, were he still around.

[KingTuba1241X]

I think throat and back bore tapers can affect intonation more than cup "shape".

[Mary Ann]

yup, but how?

[KingTuba1241X]

yup, but how?

Being able to control the air stream by focusing the pitch with steady air and vibration. As that throat bore and back bore get larger and larger it's harder to sustain pitch and intonation (as well as unusually small), somewhere in the middle is always a good starting point if you've never played Tuba or coming back to it after a long hiatus. Fine tuning is the way to go, and whatever works for you personally based on your lung power and ability to vibrate your lips more efficiently.

[Stryk]

I have a 186 that plays badly out of tune with some mouthpieces and almost spot on with a couple others. Some folks say it is me, but I think some mouthpiece characteristic have a lot to do with it. My other horns don't seem to care what I plug into them, but the 186 does.

[KingTuba1241X]

I have a 186 that plays badly out of tune with some mouthpieces and almost spot on with a couple others. Some folks say it is me, but I think some mouthpiece characteristic have a lot to do with it. My other horns don't seem to care what I plug into them, but the 186 does.

Which mouthpiece style/shape/etc have you found works best on your 186?

[Stryk]

Which mouthpiece style/shape/etc have you found works best on your 186?

This 186 likes the Sellmansberger Solo. Push in for mid line D and pull 4th for Db below the staff is about all I need to do. Other mouthpieces are real wonky above second space C. I have never had that kind of issue with any other horn....and I have a bunch of them. Difference with tone, yes, but not with pitch. VERY odd.

[peterbas]

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[Mary Ann]

All that was about sound characteristics and what I was asking about was the effect on intonation.

[kingrob76]

My own personal observations:

- smaller mouthpieces tend to raise the pitch on my instruments.
- a shank with a smaller backbone / throat on the same cup / rim plays higher for me.
- a smaller cup on the same shank as a larger cup plays higher for me.
- funnel shaped or bowl shape doesn’t seem matter much to me

Now as to why - I presume it has strictly to do with volume because that seems to be the commonality, but, I don’t have enough precise data to say “these two have exactly the same cubic volume but different shapes” for comparison to prove or disprove that statement.

I’ll ask Ivan Giddings, with whom I’m friendly, what he’s seen across the spectrum of mouthpieces he’s done. I’m sure Joe has his own observations. Ivan has described the design process as something of an dark art in terms of going from idea to finished product with LOTS of adjustments along the way.

[peterbas]

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[jonesbrass]

Bob Tucci would be a great resource on this question, as well.

[iiipopes]

Long, long ago, in a universe far, far away, bloke commented on this topic.

As for me, my choices in mouthpieces have taken his musings into account, especially the throat. I have found that a .323/8.2mm/P sized throat at this point in my playing fits me best for breath support. I like a more rounded cup, like my Kanstul/Jim New custom 18 in a 1.28" interior rim for a sousaphone for projection, and more of a deeper V, like Bloke's Imperial with a spacer or the Miraphone Rose Orchestra, for my Bessophone for indoor concerts.

I like more of a tapered throat than a "barrel" throat, as to me it seems to keep the intonation consistent as well as consistency in air support. I have not had the pleasure of a "reverse" throat.

I agree that different horns can be finicky. A large bugle sousaphone I played years ago sounded best with a PT82, and all over the place intonation-wise and tonally with anything else. A Besson New Standard I used to have sounded best with a Wick 1, and like "our American cousin" with a Kelly 18.

When my 186 had the detachable bell, a Curry 128D was the best mouthpiece for it in terms of both intonation and tone; after switching the stack out to the Besson bell, it sounded nasal and pinched.

By contrast, the King tubas and souzys I have played over the years seemed to not care what mouthpiece I used.

I could go with the personal anecdotes and observances, but I've used up enough bandwidth for now.

[Mary Ann]

Actually, since this is in reference to my Sterling Perantucci, perhaps I should also ask Dave Werden as well as Mr Tucci.

It is entirely possible that since I basically have to hit notes with air, that the fact that my high range tends sharp could be that I'm just blowing the notes to the top of the slot, while in the low register I'm considerably more relaxed and may actually be letting the notes sit in the lower half of the slot, although I do seek resonance intrinsically.

[donn]

Makes sense to me. My intonation problem is mostly the exact opposite - run a little flat in the high range when the air isn't enough. So I was thinking that, in general, if a mouthpiece seems to have an inherent intonation characteristic, that's another way of looking at how it interacts with the player's intonation. That effect is really inherent in the combination of player and mouthpiece, and one can derive rules for this only insofar as all players are the same.

[iiipopes]

Makes sense to me. My intonation problem is mostly the exact opposite - run a little flat in the high range when the air isn't enough. So I was thinking that, in general, if a mouthpiece seems to have an inherent intonation characteristic, that's another way of looking at how it interacts with the player's intonation. That effect is really inherent in the combination of player and mouthpiece, and one can derive rules for this only insofar as all players are the same.

Indeed. Decades ago, Conn published a small monograph, "Conn's little blue booklet" that talked exactly about this and how different mouthpiece characteristics cause different players to play differently in both tone and intonation on a given instrument. Link: https://cderksen.home.xs4all.nl/images/ ... ooklet.pdf"

Oh - and by the way - the book talks about how the physical aspects of a player influences intonation.

[jtm]

Those frequency response measurements and plots were not trivial to make in 1963.

[donn]

The whole thing reflects an investment in effort by talented and educated people, that would be remarkable today.

It ends with a discussion of the systematic configuration of their Connstellation mouthpiece series ... unfortunately however, not the tuba mouthpieces, which continued to be just 1, 2 and 3 (I assume they continued to make 1 and 3 in that era.) I don't see a hint of recognition that other instruments exist besides the trumpet, and it seems to me that would have been an interesting point to follow up. Some of the physical factors may scale with the size of the instrument, if they're related to the primary wavelength acoustics, but others don't - your mouth isn't 4 times as wide as a trumpet player's mouth, for example, but also some of the physical parameters like air flow. Very likely the result is that much of these findings hold true, but just become a little less significant when applied to a larger mouthpiece, but it would be interesting to know.

[peterbas]

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[Mary Ann]

As an aside to that, there is at least one person making violins here in the US who is right up there with the old masters. I've heard one, and they are truly fantastic. Someone figured it out. (Can't remember where it is, but think it's "back East" somewhere.)