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Cup diameter and playing loud



 
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Druyff
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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2004 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My experience is that a bigger mouthpiece has more potential for playing loud.
Would that be a rule of thumb or do smaller mouthpieces need a different approach to play FFF

I've always played 17mm mouthpieces because bigger wrecks me and smaller has less maximum volume.

Now I play a Curry 70M for bigband (and everything else) and like it a lot.
My collegue trumpeter bought a 60M and when I tried it I noticed that I sound cleaner on it with a fatter tone, but less loud....!
I'm intrigued...
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VM Trumpet
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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2004 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I find that shallower mouthpieces have more volume. My Shilke will blow a Bach 7C out of the water (not only in volume, either). But I also like that brightness of sound (combined with good tone a la Arturo Sandoval) so that is just me...
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Druyff
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 3:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

By big I mean big cup diameter.
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camelbrass
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 3:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

I don't think it makes any difference for me. Inside cup diameter is a function of comfort..I can play on most diameter mouthpieces and produce the same volume, just not comfortable on them. Volume is dependent on the amount (notice amount not speed) of air I can get through my lips...for me it doesn't depend on the size of the mouthpiece.

Just my take on it.

Regards


Trevor
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pfrank
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 5:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Opening a mp throat adds some volume. Different trumpets have different volumes. Stronger bodies play louder. If you need to cut through a density of amplified instruments, the lush sound of a big mp disappears and only the high frequencies cut through, even at your maximum volume. Volume means making an impression through whatever else is there, so tamber (sound) is just as important as sheer volume.
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_dcstep
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 5:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that changing the cup volume, throat and backbore can change the perception of volume by moving the overtones of the mpc/trumpet system up and down. I don't think rim diameter has anything to do with this, but a larger diameter makes it easy to increase cup volume.

Dave
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Lowell
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is reprinted here from a larger interview found on Ole Utnes web site.
O.J's Trumpet page http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/interview/fokus/

A lot of people don’t know much about mouthpieces, so they think that if Adolph Herseth gets a great sound on a Bach 1C - that is what they should use too? In other words Large vs. Small.

Good question and I have a good answer. First, Adolph does not play a Bach 1C, he plays, the last time I talked with him, a Bach 1B with a #22 (3.9mm) hole, and a Bach 24 back bore and he plays C trumpet most of the time. But when he played his audition in 1947, the same year I was born, for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra he played a Bach 7B!

I asked him, why he plays a 1B now, and he said, “The rim is the same size as my beer bottle”. But, the real reason is that he was in a car accident and got hit in the mouth and had to find an inside cup diameter size that would keep the rim from sitting on the scars. Please remember that the difference in cup diameters between a Bach 1 and Bach 20 is only 2.5mm (0.09”). Mr. Herseth also told me that he regularly changes under parts, by unscrewing his rim, and putting on a different under part that will accommodate a Guest Conductor's ear, or to play a certain composer, or to play a horn of a different bore, like piccolo. Giving the correct timbre each requires. But I think that is side stepping your question about larger vs. small mouthpieces. I take your question to mean the inside rim diameter size, but also the cup, hole and back bore size. I will address each by starting with the history of the trumpet. Most know that the trumpet was first invented by Gustav Besson in his Paris workshop in 1888, and that Victor Mahillon, the 18th century Belgian acoustician, was given credit for inventing the trumpet Lead Pipe. To give you some bearing of the time, the cornet had been KING of brass instruments since about 1825, which was the same year that Joseph Jean-Baptiste Laurent Arban was born. He had been the cornet instructor at the Paris Conservatory of Music since 1880. This position was open to him after the death of Maury. Arban fell into disfavor when he advocated the use of a shallower cupped cornet mouthpiece to achieve more brilliance for the soloist.

It took quite a number of years for this new instrument ( the trumpet) to find its way to the U.S.A.

When it did, there were not many making mouthpieces for it. Most were still making cornet mouthpieces with hole sizes from about #14 (4.6mm) to #18 (4.3mm). This #18, is the same size hole that Friedemann Immer uses for his Salzburg model made by Rainer Egger in Basil, for his Baroque trumpet, even today. Only a dozen years from the birth of the trumpet and in the same city there was the great world's fair of 1900, which attracted top bands and players from all over the world. Included in that group was the John Philip Sousa band from the U.S.A. The First Cornet player was Herbert L. Clarke. Cornet was still KING. However, with the newly invented trumpet, mouthpieces were needed and in the U.S.A. most trumpet mouthpieces were from Germany made by the Schmidt Company. The holes in these mouthpieces ranged from about #18 (4.3mm)-#24 (3.8mm). The cups were deeper, and the back bores wider too. There was no standard to the hole size at all. By the time Vincent Bach started making trumpet mouthpieces there were so many different hole sizes being used that he made his mouthpieces with a #27 (.144” or 3.65mm).

Mr. Bach believed that this was a small enough size to allow the players of the day to enlarge the hole size to what they were accustomed. That is why Bach mouthpieces do not have a straightaway. Because when you enlarge the hole with a straight fluted reamer it cuts into the back bore and creates a straightaway, which gives more projection than before. The top players of the day used narrow cup diameters about equal to a Bach 6 or 7, but the cup was deeper and the hole larger and the back bore was wider. That is why, as I said before that Adolph Herseth used a Bach 7B in 1947 for his audition with the CSO.

In the early 1950’s Adolph Herseth was involved in an automobile accident. Because he was hit in the mouth, he changed to a wider rim diameter to avoid the scare tissue. Shortly afterward, players in Boston, and New York started using wider inside rim diameter sizes also.

I cannot be sure this was the only reason we play wider rim diameters today. But when you were playing a mouthpiece with a rim diameter of a Schmidt mouthpiece (Bach 6 or 7) that not only has a narrow rim diameter, but also a deep cup, large hole and large back bore, and when you change to a Bach mouthpiece of the same rim diameter size, the Bach will have a smaller cup, smaller hole and smaller back bore, to get the same tonal volume as the player had on his Schmidt, the easy solution was to go to a wider rim diameter like a Bach 3, or Bach 1, instead, of keeping the rim diameter the same, and making an adjustment in some other part.

I have a customer in Atlanta, Georgia that was playing on a Bach 3C, and wanted to increase his endurance. I recommended that he play a mouthpiece with a slightly narrower rim diameter but a slightly larger hole too. It worked for him.

The old players knew that when you use a narrow cup diameter you will have more endurance, and that means you can play higher longer.


So by way of summarization, large is not good, nor bad. And small is not bad or good. Each has its own playing characteristics.

Trumpet playing is hard enough with the wind power needed to play it, why add more strain with a mouthpiece that is making you work EVEN harder to get the results you want?

I remember one teacher putting like this, “it's the easiest way”.
It would be interesting to see what size cup diameters we would be playing now, if Adolph Herseth had never been injured.
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Druyff
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, to be honest... I haven't got a clue who Adolphe Herseth is.... but he should sue his mother for giving him a name like that

I didn't choose a big mouthpiece because someone I admire playes one, but because 10 years ago I didn't have the patience to learn to play efficiently. I was looking for a quick fix to be able to be heard in a big band. The information available in the store at the time told me that large diameter mouthpieces are better and you should buy the biggest you can handle.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether I should learn to play beautifully on a 67 size mp or learn to play just as loud on a 66.
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Tom LeCompte
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Adolph "Bud" Herseth was the principal trumpet for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He retired a couple years ago, after more than five decades in that position.

Cheers,

Tom
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_dcstep
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

On 2004-05-13 16:25, Druyff wrote:
What I'm trying to figure out is whether I should learn to play beautifully on a 67 size mp or learn to play just as loud on a 66.

That .01" isn't going to make any appreciable different. Cup volume, throat and backbore are way more important. Go to http://www.grmouthpieces.com and review the "Mouthpieces 101" section for a little more background.

Dave
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Schilke '60 B1 -- 229 Bach-C/19-350 Blackburn -- Lawler TL Cornet -- Conn V1 Flugel -- Stomvi Master Bb/A/G picc -- GR mpcs
[url=http://www.pitpops.com] The PitPops[/url]
Rocky Mountain Trumpet Fest
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