I’ll soon be posting an article on Horn Matters related to this post, but wanted to update here as well with more specific information of my recent mouthpiece trials. [The Horn Matters post is here.]

The short version

Over the past several years I’ve noticed that many mouthpieces for me play somewhat to very flat in the high range. In the Horn Matters article I’ll talk about this in more depth.

My goal of this testing was to work from my most important horns to ones of lesser importance (in terms of my teaching and regular playing), so that they all had mouthpieces with them that felt good and had the same, easy octave relationship from the bottom of the staff to the top of the staff.

There were also a couple other criteria I worked real hard, in particular slurs in the range just below the staff and slurs generally.

I think I got the full range of the horns I use at least semi-regularly set up about as well as I can, within the mouthpieces I own. To anyone reading, you may not have the same results, but this type of testing, being a bit scientific about it, can be very helpful.

Some of the key testing was done at my sister-in-law’s house, as she was out of town. The train below is one I set up for my son, with three of the “winners” on it.

The list

This list is mostly for my own future reference, but I hope that anyone reading this might find it interesting to see the process and the results.

Double horns were first. For these I wanted ideally one mouthpiece that worked on all three that moved around with me, and then a really strong second mouthpiece that would live in the case of the horn, one that I could use comfortably if I didn’t have the primary mouthpiece. Results: “the one” is a Houser San Francisco cup 16-0-2 in brass. Second choices are for the Patterson a brass Houghton H-4, for the Paxman 25A a vintage Moosewood B-13Y, and for the postwar Kruspe a vintage Moosewood B-16Y.

The descant and triple are pretty different instruments and I have a special subset just for them. The Paxman triple has a Moosewood BD20 and the Paxman descant a Moosewood BD20A.

Another horn in it’s own subset is my Alexander single Bb. That has a Moosewood BA with it now.

A final, important subset is my best natural horn, the one I made from Seraphinoff parts and described further in this blog post. That horn I’m playing with a Moosewood A cup with L threads (but my standard Houghton H-3 rim fits on it and every other of the mouthpieces in this list).

I have six single F horns I play with some regularity. Seems like overkill, I know, but it entertains me and makes warmup and practice more interesting. Those horns are divided into two tiers.

The top 3 single horns are my Mirafone bell horn which works well with an older Houghton H-3 in brass that has a small shank, my King/Gumpert horn which I play with a standard Houghton H-3 (one piece) in stainless steel, and the Seraphinoff convertible horn plays nicely with a Legacy V-16. (Curiously, the Seraphinoff plays flat in the high range with the Moosewood LCG mouthpiece I used on it for my Rescued recording!).

Finally, we have the lower tier three 3 single horns that I still play regularly. For those, the Kalashen plays nicely with an older Houghton H-3E (not +2) one piece in stainless steel, the Geyer has the Moosewood A cup with a D backbore, and the Kruspe has an older Houghton H-1 in brass with a small shank. All three of these horns actually were really touchy to find a good mouthpiece for them, only a tiny subset of anything I own that is screw rim or has the H-3 rim worked well (especially the Kruspe!). I’d add that I’ve in particular been playing the Kalashen a lot lately, the valves are so light and the horn is easy to hold, and it does play very comfortably with that (oddball) H-3E.

And there you have it

It was quite an adventure but I’m feeling excited to have figured out mouthpieces for a range of horns that have a similar feel. I’m looking forward practice!