Just to reiterate Milton's point and give it a +1... I recently bought a new horn (Dieter Otto 180K - I love it by the way!!! If you're in the market for a custom German horn but don't want to blow all of your money - try the Otto. IMHO, it blows the doors off of other German custom horns costing many thousands more... It's a lot like the Kuhn only a tad lighter and more smooth than notchy).
When I was in Scott Bacon's shop, I noticed a couple peculiar notes on the horn. Particularly, middle C felt *different* (not bad, not good, just wildly different) than on any horn I'd ever played. Also, high G (at the top of the staff) slotted completely differently than any horn I'd ever tried. I considered this to be a slight negative as it slotted amazingly high. I assumed I'd have to get used to that. Sure enough, the mouthpieces that I had were all American taper and the mouthpipe on the Otto was a German taper (sorry, I don't know the correct terms for the various tapers). When I tried the horn with a few various German taper mouthpieces, those problems simply went away. The rest of the horn played as fine as it did when I made the decision to purchase it, but those two notes were back to normal. I've since done a LOT of experimenting with different mouthpieces and leadpipes on that horn and ultimately decided to replace the pipe with a Kuhn pipe with an American taper. Since the pipe only cost me a few hundred dollars, versus the time, excess of money and effort it would have taken to convert all of my existing mouthpieces over to the other taper (and being stuck with them in that taper...), I decided the pipe was the way to go. I guess I should explain the "all of my mouthpieces" bit - I only have 4 mouthpieces - all are identical or darn near it. The rim on all of them is the same - the cup on one as well as its backbore are a tiny bit smaller to work better on my single Bb and the others are in various stages of plating (or decay of plating). I've found one mouthpiece I'm happy with and have stuck with it for a LONG time. The spares are for when one needs to go into the shop for replating. I don't make changes in my mouthpiece lightly - I've used the same rim since 1993 and the same cup almost as long. It wasn't until about 2 years ago, I got a cup from Tom at Moosewood that I've made my primary cup (although it's amazingly similar to my other cups, just a tiny bit larger cup with a slightly smaller bore). When I was in high school though, I owned or planned to own almost every mouthpiece under the sun. I would swap them in concerts for things like "this mouthpiece works on higher stuff - I'll use it on this piece..." etc. I can't tell you how much time was spent/wasted for my lips to adjust from one mouthpiece to the next. Just some thoughts - Happy new year! Jeremy -----Original Message----- From: Milton Kicklighter [mailto:kicklighg...@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 7:54 PM To: horn@music.memphis.edu Subject: [Hornlist] mouthpiece Joe, Just a quick one from me. I have been away from my computer for some time and didn't have time to read all the "mouthpiece" replies to you. BUT: How the shaft of the mouthpiece fits into the lead-pipe is critical!!!! I have two Alexanders, and I use the exact same mouthpiece for both horns: rim. bore etc. However the two lead pipes are totally different diam and even though both mouthpiece's will fit both horns, the sound, response, register, etc. is awful if I don't use the correct mouthpiece shaft with its horn. Meaning: if the shaft doesn't fit, then the mouthpiece won't work as it should. If someone else already said this forgive. As I said I didn't have time to read all of the other responses. Happy New Year All Milton Milton Kicklighter 4th horn Buffalo Phil _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/jeremy%40sublymerecords.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
