Mouthpieces, tubas, and players

[Mary Ann]

Back and forth and back and forth with mouthpieces on the Hagen. I have spent a LOT of time with the Wick 4, and still hit or miss on playing notes, much change in physical lip position and head angle to play the different ranges. I don't have to do that on the NStar. Tried the Mike Finn 4 with the Helleberg rim, whose sound I like, but same problem of missing half the notes.

So, I tried the Wick 5 (what I use on the NStar) on the Hagen and pretty suddenly could hit the notes. But it sounded puny, not like a contrabass, especially a BBb. (NStar does not sound puny.)

Back to the box-o-cups, pulled out the 7B. I do not know why, but with this (which I used on the 183) I hit the notes just as well as the Wick 5 but it sounds like a tuba instead of a pea shooter.

I have to assume it's partly the throat, partly the cup (but the cup is wider than the Wick 5, so it seems then that the Wick 4 should have worked, but it didn't) --- partly how I use air, and partly "who knows."

I really want to play this tuba in the concert band, what with all the below the staff notes that I can play on the NStar but not like I can get them to sound on the Hagen.

Onward, I guess. I'm done buying mouthpieces -- if I can't get one of my ten or so to work, it's me. Several never work and should be sold.

[tubanh84]

I know you're an experienced player, so this is more to say things out loud than give advice. I've had a similar but reciprocal issue going on for the last year. I don't play nearly as much as I used to, so I'm not "in practice" on everything the way I used to be. For a while I was just playing my CC tubas, and my low range on my F suffered badly.

Recently I've started solely playing my F tuba, and the low range has opened up a lot. But I play it completely differently than I do the low range on my CC.

If, as you hinted at the end of your post, your issue is the low range, it could be a similar phenomenon. You just need to re-teach yourself how to play the range on a contrabass tuba instead of a bass tuba. (Caveat: I've never played a Norwegian Star, so I can't say that its low range is like the low range on F tubas, but I suspect?).

I worked mine out with a lot of long tones, descending scales, and Kopprasch etudes.

Also as a sidenote: for the past 15 years, I have very much enjoyed playing contrabass mouthpieces with smaller cup diameters but deeper cups (Cooley Helleberg and Mike Finn H specifically). Literally everything is better for me on that sort of a setup.

[Mary Ann]

Thanks. I'm just a pretty good amateur, nowhere near a pro, degree was in violin.
I like the MFinn H cups but they are just too much combo of width/volume for my size and air supply.
I do get confused at how with the Hagen in particular, I have such wild differences in how playable I find it with different cups. On the NStar, I can pretty much just play it. Likely due to its smaller size overall matching my smaller overall size, plus years spent in the woodshed.
Yes, the NStar's low range is in the "ballpark" of a rotary F but nowhere *near* as difficult (my first real tuba was a MW 182 F.) I can BRAAPP those notes but have trouble with sustained pitches, partly because of the rotary bass tuba playability and partly because of my scant air supply.

[Richard III]

I've been quite entertained lately asking AI about mouthpieces and comparing them. AI does a really good job of listing specs for each, comparing them and relating that to sound, response and intonation issues. Give it a try. I was surprised how accurate its recommendations were.

[tubanh84]

I like the MFinn H cups but they are just too much combo of width/volume for my size and air supply.

Just to be clear - I don't mean like a 3H or 4H or anything. I mean the Mike Finn "H." I don't see that he makes it anymore. But it is the best mouthpiece I played both on my PT6 and Gnagey, as well as the various tubas I used at the Tuba Exchange to pick it out years ago (I had flown in from Alaska, and they let me use a bunch of their floor horns to test mouthpieces - great experience.) If you can find one on the used market anywhere, I'd snag it. But they understandably don't come up for sale often. Neither do the Cooley Hellebergs. Which to me says something...It's a smaller cup diameter - 32mm - than his other mouthpieces. I think it was the smallest diameter Mike Finn produced when he was making it.

[iiipopes]

I agree with Mary Ann's first post, as I have had similar experiences, but I do encourage continuing the safari. My tuba embouchure likes cup diameter ID's of @ 1.28-9 and my breath support a throat of a P drill bit, @.323 inches/8.2mm. A year or so ago I thought I was done, and was doomed to cracking notes, inconsistent timbre from register to register, and general mediocrity in my playing. I stopped reviewing mouthpieces on the forum at that point because no matter how much I liked a mouthpiece, it failed me eventually as repertoire would change, and as I needed more dental work.

Finally, I got all the dental work done. But I was still dissatisfied. I thought I had tried everything in that combination of cup diameter and throat diameter, whatever the cup depth, cup geometry, transition through the throat, and the backbore, which are all different and all do interact with the ability to actually play the mouthpiece. Then I stumbled across the Aaron Tindall series by Denis Wick. I looked at all the glorified paperweights on my shelf, and finally decided, "What the H.... One more won't matter." And I purchased a used one.

Now, I am not saying that if in the future I ever need any more dental work it won't matter. And as we all know, there is no one "perfect" mouthpiece for any player. But for at least the time being, the ATUY3 is fitting my embouchure, complimentary to the breath support I can give it, and is responsive throughout the range.

No, I am not suggesting everyone go purchase and Aaron Tindall mouthpiece. Everybody's embouchure, breath support, repertoire, ensemble, etc., are all different. This is currently working for me. Your mileage WILL vary.

That said, I do encourage Mary Ann to keep on looking. Most of my paperweights I purchased used, so when the time comes I will be able to recoup most of the cost. I suppose my reticence of not already having sold them is the, "What if...." Yes, I will keep my Conn 120S Helleberg, because I found one that has the wider cup and throat I prefer. I will keep the Bach 18 variant that Jim New made for me when he was still with Kanstul. And I will keep my Kelly just in case I ever have to play outdoors in the cold. But if someone gave me an offer I couldn't refuse for one or more of the rest of them, I would ship them the next day. And I may get around to listing them eventually.

Mary Ann - Hang in there!

[Grumpikins]

What about asking your other tuba friends that you play with to try out thier mp collections. We all have them. Maybe someone you know has something that will work for you. Then buy that one.... just a suggestion.

[donn]

Can't beat a good 7B.

[Mary Ann]

Which to me says something...It's a smaller cup diameter - 32mm - than his other mouthpieces. I think it was the smallest diameter Mike Finn produced when he was making it.

32 is too wide. What I'm comfortable on and have several makers' versions of is 30-31mm. It actually amazes me the difference between that and 32, like falling off a cliff for me. I do not know why I can play the 7B. You probably don't realize how small I am -- even with the Wick 5, which is quite narrow, my corners are sometimes not at all visible and the rest of the time just barely. In some ways it's amazing I can play at all!! (I attribute every success I have to sheer stubbornness, which I can assure you my mother would agree with were she here to offer an opinion.)

[ThirdHorn]

It is surprising to me how little variation in facial physiognomy is catered for by some mouthpiece manufacturers. Many has nothing to offer for players wanting sub-31 mm for the inner diameter (Laskey, Perantucci, Marcinkiewicz, Schilke and many more), whereas others do have pieces to offer, but with somewhat denigrating marketing blurbs associated with them - Yamaha BB-64: “An ideal beginner’s model for young players”, Bach 25: “A fairly small mouthpiece suitable for young students” (but as a counterexample, and to their credit, Denis Wick does nothing of the sort when describing their #5). “Bigger is always better” seems to be the underlying premise.

And then on the other side, you have German manufacturers (e.g. Tilz, Klier, Schmidt) with offerings starting at 30 mm or even 29 mm, but with no qualitative marketing statements at all, only numbers in a table. That is almost equally unhelpful.

Tubaists with marketing skills should offer their services, as there is clearly an unmet need.

[tubanh84]

Which to me says something...It's a smaller cup diameter - 32mm - than his other mouthpieces. I think it was the smallest diameter Mike Finn produced when he was making it.

32 is too wide. What I'm comfortable on and have several makers' versions of is 30-31mm. It actually amazes me the difference between that and 32, like falling off a cliff for me.

This is not weird to me. The 32 feels so much better for me than 32.5 or 33. It feels like a huge difference, despite what rulers tell me about millimeters.

[Bob Kolada]

I've bought a lot of mps over the years but (almost) always went back to a Bach 18. The exception being a PT48 I liked when I was playing a Miraphone 187, that was a really nice combo with a trombone section. I had an LM12 for a while but decided it was too much of a novelty. Fortunately I bought it at a good price but, unfortunately, sold it for the same. Supposedly those were going for stupid amounts of money for a while. I also have a 35mm Zottola from a gentleman on the old forum, he told me he had some oversized mps made in the 80s to see what they would be like. People talk about 33mm mps or 1G on chainsaw as being coffee cups or whatever, this is a coffee cup.

Mary Ann, you might find something you like in the Josef Klier lineup, they offer a huge amount of size and cup depth options. Dillon Music has some demo mps. I don't have one but I do have one of their contrabass trombone mps, they are a larger blank than bass trombone mps and it appears they have multiple blanks here. That 5E is calling out to me like the Green Goblin mask, thankfully I don't have anything that'll fit it.

https://www.jk-klier.de/en-gb/mouthpieces/tuba
https://www.dillonmusic.com/collections ... st-selling

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[donn]

I have a Josef Klier 5A, so I took a few minutes to A/B with a Conn 7B.

The 5A is nominally 32mm with a fairly normally rounded rim, to the 7B's 31.5 flatter rim.

I have not been practicing. The 7B was a hell of a lot easier to play on my big BBb tuba. Notes came out more or less where they were supposed to, etc. The sound was fine - clear, easy to push. Tomorrow it might be a different story, but that's my take for this evening. I usually use a Conn 1 copy on that tuba. None of my relevant dimensional parameters are small.

[Mary Ann]

Mary Ann, you might find something you like in the Josef Klier lineup, they offer a huge amount of size and cup depth options.

I have a JK 8C and 8E. The Wick 5 works better for me on the NStar, and all those, although they fit my face, are too small for the Hagen to sound like a contrabass.
I am even at the point of considering just giving up on BBb. Every day when I sit down to play, it is the exact same thing -- burble burble burble and it takes 20-30 minutes of fine-tuning to play notes. That simply will not do, and perhaps I need to admit that I am physically in over my head here, should give up on it, and just get a CC I can lift. I have a 186 that "just plays" for me, but the ergonomics are too much; I need to be able to roll a tuba over my thigh to get it on the chair, but the 186's guts are too far into the bow end for that, and getting it on to the chair is insecure. Which also will not do. Perhaps a four valve 186 CC would work. I dunno.

[ThirdHorn]

I am even at the point of considering just giving up on BBb. Every day when I sit down to play, it is the exact same thing -- burble burble burble and it takes 20-30 minutes of fine-tuning to play notes.

My tuba-playing career has only just started, and I should be a bit careful with doing the typical "male" thing and try to fix other people's troubles. Also, I don't know your entire mouthpiece collection. However, as a fellow horn player we both probably know the importance of having the correct resistance in the whole "system", and how useful it is to have something to "blow against". A too open setup on French horn is exhausting. Would it be the same on tuba? What would happen if you increase the resistance at the mouthpiece end, would that give better control?

(I note that Tilz sells a mouthpiece with I.D. 31 mm, "tief" (deep cup), with a 6.8 mm throat (!) called 231-T 1 - I am not suggesting that a mouthpiece safari should include this one, but I would imagine the mouthpieces you have been trying up to now are fairly similar designs, after all, so if that is not working why not try something completely different?)

Best of luck with getting the BBb to work for you