Posted by Rick Denney on November 26, 2002 at 13:04:26:
In Reply to: Re: BAMs without BATs posted by Jay Bertolet on November 25, 2002 at 21:27:15:
When you talk about size, do you mean rim diameter, cup volume, throat diameter, or some combination of the three?
As an experiment last night, I tried playing the Yamaha again with a mouthpiece that I originally could make no use of--the 67B4 that came with it. I found that it was much more usable to me now that it was when the horn was new, though it still seems to hold the horn back in the lower register.
I believe I've had a bit of a breakthrough on this whole topic, resulting from my (thus far failed) attempts at making usable music on that King Flugabone. I found that instrument to be extremely sensitive to even slight breakdowns in the embouchure corners, with the result that the sound loses center and resonance below about an F on the staff. When I gave up and switched to the Besson euphonium with the SM4 mouthpiece, the sound blossomed and I felt like I could make music again, though it didn't sound like a trombone, of course. But the Besson worked considerably better when I brought some of that King fight with me. This has taught me yet again that I must do something to strengthen my embouchure.
The mouthpiece I use on the York Master is quite large. The rim is about the same as a PT-48, and the cup is actually quite a bit deeper. The throat is much larger than I ever thought I would play. When working up to this mouthpiece, we started with a Conn Helleberg, which Doug thought sounded pretty good, actually. But the rim didn't fit my face very well, and the slightly larger rim is much more comfortable. The large cup and backbore really opened up the instrument, but now I'm wondering if it just works better with my flabby embouchure.
I'm always looking to reduce pressure, and I think pressure is the natural reaction to a weak embouchure--we get through the music on the stand however we can. I have this feeling that when my embouchure gets stronger (if I work hard enough to make that happen), many of my typical problems will fade, especially problems with flexibility.
(As to whether this is related to focal dystonia, I think there may be an element involved. Toby Hanks talked extensively about it at the Army conference last year, and he categorized it as a cumulative over-use injury, which is not at odds with Joe's wonderings. The notion of a large instrument, however, seems to me to be about efficiency as opposed to being at odds with it, and the practitioners of the big tubas that I have known use them because they make their job easier, not harder. I'm sure I'm not qualified to make a determination.)
Your notion that a mouthpiece should be the smallest that gets the sound went the opposite direction I did. I started with a mouthpiece not known for being huge, and added size until things started breaking down. With each addition of throat diameter, the sound improved noticeably, until we went too far and the tone spread along with loss of manageable intonation. Are we looking at two sides of the same coin?
Rick "not at all interested big for the sake of big" Denney