I found my holy grail, and now I'm terrified.

[yourbrass]

Interesting. Well, it is an infinitely variable subject.
_________________
"Strive for tone." -John Coppola
Edwards X-13
ACB MV3C /ACB A1/26 backbore
https://yourbrass.com/

[RandyTX]

I had an interesting mouthpiece 'mini-safari' not long ago with a very good professional orchestral trumpet player. We got into a discussion about mouthpieces (go figure). It ended up with me bringing all of them I owned over to his place and me sitting down and playing a few passages over and over on all of them.

It came down to one I really liked to play, and one he told me I sounded the best on. The bad news, was that was the one I considered the most 'work' to play was the one that had the best tone (and intonation was a little better too.)

That's when the rubber hit the road. He asked me "Do you want to sound your best, or do you want it to be easy?"

I've been playing the 'difficult' mouthpiece ever since.

YMMV.
_________________
"Music is like candy, you throw the (w)rappers away."

[yourbrass]

[quote="RandyTX"]I had an interesting mouthpiece 'mini-safari' not long ago with a very good professional orchestral trumpet player. We got into a discussion about mouthpieces (go figure). It ended up with me bringing all of them I owned over to his place and me sitting down and playing a few passages over and over on all of them.

It came down to one I really liked to play, and one he told me I sounded the best on. The bad news, was that was the one I considered the most 'work' to play was the one that had the best tone (and intonation was a little better too.)

That's when the rubber hit the road. He asked me "Do you want to sound your best, or do you want it to be easy?"

I've been playing the 'difficult' mouthpiece ever since. ;-) "

That's really interesting - I bought an ACB 3C mouthpiece from Trent Austin, and it is terrific. But it is more work to play than the Stomvi or Pickett 'pieces I also play. It's going to take more work to figure it out.
_________________
"Strive for tone." -John Coppola
Edwards X-13
ACB MV3C /ACB A1/26 backbore
https://yourbrass.com/