Well Steve, the latter question is harder for me to answer, especially
since I have only been playing for seven years and am only a senior in
high school. However, in response to your first question, I got the
impression from the article that the ability to buzz without a
mouthpiece is facilitated by thinner lips. Those with fleshier lips need
the pressure of the mouthpiece to create a buzz. I am personally much
thicker-lipped, and find it difficult to buzz without a mouthpiece;
however, I am in no way out of shape. Thus I don't believe that the
ability to buzz accurately without a mouthpiece necessarily denotes
the strength of the player. As for your second question, I too have been
in search of a characteristic sound, and I have also tried the
Giardinelli C series mouthpieces. However, I find that I am able to get
the velvety yet powerful sound of a big symphony horn player with a
mouthpiece of larger bore, thinner rim, different rim shape, and
different cup shape. I am currently very happy with the Stork M6 and my
Conn 8D (yes, very American-sounding, I know). My experience, however,
has been to wait awhile before worrying about equipment issues. I bought
this mouthpiece after studying mouthpiece design and experimenting
around in metal shop class, but the purchase could easily have been put
off for years. I also play tenor saxophone in my school's jazz band, and
I went out and bought the most expensive and jazzy sounding metal
mouthpiece I could find in my first year of playing. Unfortunately, I
wasn't anywhere strong enough for this to have any effect on my sound,
and I am still working on being able to tame this beast. Perhaps your
embochure technique needs tweaked specifically to achieve the sound that
you're looking for, but I have no way of knowing. I don't honestly know
if visiting Mr. Stork would be worthwhile; if I had the means, I would,
if for no other reason than to try to absorb some of the man's vast
knowledge. I hope this helps some, but please email me at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] if you wish to discuss this further.
Regards,
Adam Watts
--------Original Message---------------------
message: 8
date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:28:17 -0500
from: "Steve Freides" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
subject: RE: [Hornlist] Buzzing without the Mouthpiece
Adam, this article and your synopsis of it are fascinating to me. I have
few questions for you and anyone else who cares to comment.
Do I understand you're suggesting that those who like to buzz, and I clearly
am among their number, tend to have thinner lips? I have thin lips.
That was the specific question; here's the broader one. Much of what the
article says is simply above my level of comprehension, but I'm wondering
how early in one's career as a horn player one can know into which of the
several broad categories the articles discusses one falls. In particular, I
had a very difficult time finding a mouthpiece and a horn on which I sounded
good. As a lifelong musician but a new horn player, I was frankly pretty
horrified at how I sounded. With my teacher's blessing, I tried a number of
middle-of-the-road mouthpieces, all of which sounded the same on me except a
Giardinelli C series, which sounded better and with which I've stayed, and a
variety of horns, settling on a large bell horn, a Yamaha 666 which I
believe is supposed to be something of an 8D copy. My current mouthpiece is
a Giardinelli C10 and a Thompson gold rim.
I'm asking all this because I'm curious to know if a visit to Mr. Stork
might be a worthwhile thing for me now or if it's the kind of thing I ought
to wait until I have a few more years under my belt before I try. I still
feel like I have to work much harder than I ought to find a match between me
and my instrument in terms of tone - most people I know who take up the horn
can make a decent sound with much less effort, so the thought that some of
this might be solved by a different mouthpiece and possibly a different
instrument is an attractive one. (Doubters will say I'm after a quick fix,
and that my problems will return within a few months of any switch, and I'm
well aware of that possibility, but the article makes me think that it
really still might be worthwhile to explore this more.)
-S-
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
du] On Behalf Of Adam Watts
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 6:13 PM
To: horn@music.memphis.edu
Subject: Re: [Hornlist] Buzzing without the Mouthpiece
This whole discussion reminds me of an article I read on the
Stork website about pressure and buzzing sans mouthpiece (found here:
http://www.storkcustom.com/html/pressure_buzzing.html). The
article seperates horn players into two types: those who
employ the "compression aperture control method" and have
more muscular lips, and those who base their playing on
reasonable pressure and have fleshier than average lips (this
"pressure" method is exemplified through Phil Myers in the
article, and shouldn't be confused with jamming one's mouth
into the mouthpiece). The article claims that the latter type
of player usually cannot buzz well without the pressure of
the mouthpiece, and sees no advantage to it. While you may
not be this type of player, I still think that your coach is
a little misdirected and unprofessional in making the issue
personal. I have never had a teacher that thought buzzing
without a mouthpiece was vital, and it is my understanding
that it is the hornless buzzing on the mouthpiece alone that
helps with accuracy and tone.
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