Mouthpiece for trumpet player transitioning to cornet.

[kgloverii]

Hey everybody,

You guys are the experts here, so I wanted to go straight to the best for some help figuring out the right kind of mouthpiece I should get for my daughter.

My background: played cornet and trumpet all throughout middle school and high school. Now in my 40's, I can eke out a scale and go another octave up, but I'm not going to be able to play any songs.

My daughter is in 7th grade. She started band last year on trumpet. She was gifted a beautiful used silver trumpet in perfect condition, but it's a cheap piece of crap with ZERO distinguishable markings and the valves are an abomination. No amount of oil will get these things to go properly, and after suffering through a year of that, I knew she needed something else.

I found her a Holton C602P cornet in great condition and she loves it. It came with a Yamaha 14E short shank mouthpiece. I tried to play a scale and almost went up another octave, but that final note was impossible for me to hit. Her band teacher noted that it definitely takes more "work" and that there seemed to be more back pressure with that cornet. My instinct is that this is a mouthpiece issue and for a novice player like my daughter, she needs something more suitable for her playing level.

On her trumpet, she had a 7C mouthpiece, the typical standard one that most kids start out with. What is a good mouthpiece for my daughter on this cornet? Thanks for your help!
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-katy

[chef8489]

if the 7c was working for her on the trumpet you can stick with a 7c on the cornet. With here right now you are not trying to get it to sound like a cornet so the shape of the mouthpiece is much less important to the comfort and her blending. What is the mouthpiece that came with the cornet?

[John Mohan]

A Bach 7C or a Curry 7C would both be fine choices. The Curry 7C is based on the Bach 7C when the Bach factory was in Mt Vernon New York and is generally considered to be the best of the design (Bach mouthpiece cups have changed slightly in size and shape over the years as tooling was replaced).

Best wishes,

John Mohan
_________________
Trumpet Player, Clinician & Teacher
1st Trpt for Cats, Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, Evita, Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Grease, The Producers, Addams Family, In the Heights, etc.
Ex LA Studio Musician
16 Year Claude Gordon Student

[cheiden]

To date, I've preferred the Yamaha 11C4 over most every 7C variation I've tried. Really any Yamaha size 11 with the 4 rim. Specifically, it's the rim and bite that I prefer.
_________________
"I'm an engineer, which means I think I know a whole bunch of stuff I really don't."
Charles J Heiden/So Cal
Bach Strad 180ML43*/43 Bb/Yamaha 731 Flugel/Benge 1X C/Kanstul 920 Picc/Conn 80A Cornet
Bach 3C rim on 1.5C underpart

[Dennis78]

Any comfortable mouthpiece will work. Make sure that horn is clean and not leaking, it shouldn’t be stuffy
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a few different ones

[kgloverii]

Thank you for your advice everyone. Here's another question and I'm embarrassed to ask. If I buy her a new mouthpiece that is a 7c, it just has to be a cornet 7c, right? Her trumpet 7c doesn't fit. I thought the stem sizes were the same but the cornet's is smaller.

If I remember correctly, my trumpet and cornet in high school had interchangeable mouthpieces, but this isn't the case with my daughter.

Thanks!
_________________
-katy

[chef8489]

[Ed Kennedy]

The 11E is very deep, suitable for the British brass band sound. A 7C cornet piece would be fine, since she is already playing a 7C trumpet mouthpiece. The rim and cup are the same on both pieces. The shank and backbores (inside of the shank) will be different.

[Dennis78]

[Bflatman]

In defence of the OP there have been a few notable cornets built with a trumpet receiver or very close to it and take a trumpet mouthpiece happily although they are rare beasts.

This was more likely many years ago before standardisation of equipment tapers and the like, and soviet cornets have also followed this anachronistic trend.

I myself have a weird cornet that takes cornet mouthpieces sitting deeper in the receiver and some cornet mouthpieces dont fit in the receiver it being larger than the norm today and I have found that a trumpet mouthpiece does fit in this instrument although badly.

[blbaumgarn]

Everyone that says the 7c is giving good advice. Down the road a bit if she is taking lessons from a trumpet player. That person can advise on Deeper cups, or rounder rims, shallow cup, etc. Some cornets require a short shank mouthpiece that is about the only difference. Best of Luck to ya.

[operagost]

[Ed Kennedy]