John EricsonBack almost a year ago I posted about results of some fairly extensive mouthpiece testing (here).
And here we are now, July 4 and my wife is out of town visiting our daughter! A good day to relax and do some writing.
With the recent completion of the Mirafone Kruspe horn, that has really opened my eyes to some different metrics to use in testing mouthpieces (especially tuning in the upper range, more on that here), and there are some specific things in my playing that I’m considering with new eyes as well (slurs into the low range, etc.).
Plus, I like as much as I can to have separate, best choice mouthpieces with each of my main instruments, ones that feel related and comfortable.
In recent weeks I’ve worked through a lot of horns and mouthpieces. Of course, these choices may not hold up long term, but maybe? Still worth documenting as part of my research and creative activity, so to speak.
Rim?
So, everything is with a Houghton H-3 rim. But an interesting side point is I feel my low range is slightly better on straight stainless steel than on the black H-Kote rims. Seems to give my lips a little extra traction to solidify things. So, my main rims are now standard stainless steel.
The “big four” horns
I have four main double horns now, and I’d like all of them to feel like they play really comfortably.
Looking at the below, one thing to know is that the 14-0-3 and 16-0-2 have the slightly different tuning tendencies in the high range, needed for the horns they are with now. Also, I’ve learned it helpful to always have a second choice mouthpiece in the case with these horns, so those are specified below as well.
Patterson Geyer: Houser San Francisco 14-0-3 (second choice is brass Houghton H-4)
Paxman 25 AND: San Francisco 16-0-2 (second choice is Moosewood B-16Y) (This horn is on my first two solo CDs, but the mouthpiece used then feels terrible now. The high range lays so flat. I must have been so strong then …).
Mirafone Kruspe: San Francisco 14-0-2 “Bella” (because it was loaned for a long while to Bella K.) (second choice Houghton H-1 with small shank)
Kruspe: San Francisco 14-0-2 “shiny” (second choice Houghton H-1)
Other “modern” horns
I don’t have my descant at home to test (likely I stick with the Moosewood BD on that), but I do have these two.
Paxman 83L triple: Moosewood BA (this is the horn and mouthpiece used on my trio CD, Table for Three).
Alexander single Bb: Houghton H-3 E+2
Historic horns
I have a variety of historic horns that I enjoy playing on. Getting this sorted out better has made practice on them even more enjoyable. For these horns, all of which play pretty well, it makes more sense to organize by mouthpiece, as some are used on multiple horns.
Moosewood AD: Mirafone bell (“Kruspe”) single horn
Moosewood B-12Y: Kruspe single F and King/Gumpert model conversion
Houghton H-3 EU stainless steel: Geyer single F
Houghton H-3 brass: Kalashen single F
Seraphinoff single horn/natural horn (used on my Rescued CD): Moosewood LCG (which was the mouthpiece used on the CD)
Moosewood AL: used on all the natural horns as a nice compromise mouthpiece. Moosewood LCG is also excellent.
So there it is in granular detail! How this holds up for me over the next year, who knows. It’s helpful to me though to document this stuff periodically. Hopefully some reader out there finds it helpful as well.