Concluding for now the summer series of video podcasts are the topics of testing horns and mouthpieces and developing a new line of mouthpieces with guest Derek Wright. One thing many horn players are looking for and genuinely need is a better mouthpiece. Derek received his DMA as my student at Arizona State, but has been […]
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Video Podcasts: Testing horns and mouthpieces with Derek Wright
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New instrument! Change mouthpiece? Break it in?
Some horn players are very averse to change, but changes have to be made! One exciting type of change is getting a new horn — which I just did! This type of change can be a special challenge to players who are coming from a big horn like an 8D to a smaller horn such […]
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More on “clicks” — and the best horns
Last year a topic touched upon in an article was that of “clicks” and valve changes. In that time frame, I started taking some really extensive notes on the topic — and the notes, honestly, got out of control, so much so that there is no way to develop a full article. But it remains […]
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On Mouthpieces and Metal Allergies
Of all the horn playing topics out there perhaps the most under reported and significant could well be the topic of metal allergies and mouthpieces. The longer I teach the more I recognize that many more horn (and brass) players have issues with this than one would guess. Backing up, in late 2012 I posted […]
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Will a Different Mouthpiece make much of a Difference?
This article was written and posted in the original HTML Horn Notes Blog at the end of one of my summers teaching at the Brevard Music Center. Dated 7/30/2005, it is one of those topics that comes up very often in horn teaching. Recently I have found myself talking with several students about mouthpieces. Mouthpiece […]
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How to see if you need a European Shank Mouthpiece
In my earlier article on European shank horn mouthpieces I noted that mouthpieces of this type have a larger shank and are designed to fit European make horns. There I quote the Laskey website and their brief note on what this shank type will do for you on some models of horn. This modification adds […]
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Mouthpieces and the Descant (and Triple) Horn, part I: Why Standard may be Too Big
Descant and triple horns are important topics that are a mystery to many players. Besides the different fingerings, another reason why many players are lukewarm to descants and triples when first encountered is they don’t use an optimal mouthpiece on it for their testing. Trumpet players figured out an important principal a LONG time ago; […]
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Mouthpieces and the Descant (and Triple) Horn, part II: A Review of the Moosewood BD and Osmun Haydn
Continuing on the topic of high horn mouthpieces, in recent years I have owned two examples each of the Moosewood BD and Osmun Haydn mouthpieces. These are mouthpieces designed for playing high notes and seem to me to be especially suited acoustically to the high F side of the horn. The basics Of the BD […]
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How to Clean a Horn Mouthpiece and Sanitize a Lead Pipe
When I regularly taught beginning horn students, a portion of the very first lessons were usually devoted to maintenance of the instrument. This included mouthpiece care. Putting lips onto a mouthpiece and buzzing inside it in can create a lot of crud and build-up over time. This seems especially true if a player likes to eat […]
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A Mouthpiece Story and a Favorite Horn Ensemble Work
Two short items from ASU horn life last week are the focus today. Brahms will conclude, but first up, I was reminded this week how easy it can be to be fooled by preconceived notions what the problem could be. Without giving away brands and models at all, a student had perplexing problems in the […]
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Does your lip touch your mouthpiece cup?
I had heard trombone players speak of this, their upper lip does enter the cup a bit and touches the cup when they vibrate. How about horn? In short, with the typical older, deeper horn cup models this was not an issue. On the smaller cups of today, it can be. A brand new horn […]
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 5: The mouthpiece
If there is one single piece of advice that has held back more players, it might be this quote from the Farkas book: “If the truth be told, no one mouthpiece or change of mouthpiece is going to revolutionize anyone’s playing ability.” In truth, a change of mouthpiece can absolutely change your life! Besides quality […]
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PSA: How many mouthpieces should you own?
In my recent article of bad horn advice I suggested that a serious student of the horn needs to own at least 5 mouthpieces. To test my theory a bit I ran a Twitter survey that got a good number of responses, seen here. Most players have less than five, and I would suggest need […]
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Mouthpieces: To anneal or not anneal?
That is the question I have been asking myself in practice sessions in the last month. My wheel of doom. I own two nearly identical copies of a Moosewood Cartouche D6 model. One is annealed and the other is not. It is part of my mouthpiece wheel-of-doom since the Patterson update. For the past year […]
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A story involving Giardinelli mouthpiece fit, and Verne Reynolds
While well known for his horn music and teaching, Verne Reynolds was not known as an equipment guru. On the other hand, any good horn teacher has some practical knowledge of what helps students play better, and Reynolds as longtime Eastman faculty had his for sure. One of the more popular articles on the site […]
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Geyer Dreaming V: The Mouthpiece Man
Continuing to the topic of Geyer and mouthpieces, there is an article by Milan Yancich, “Carl Geyer — The Mouthpiece Man,” that was published in the March 1962 issue of the NACWPI Bulletin. Wait, the mouthpiece man?? A mouthpiece made especially for you! A big picture thing to point out right away was Geyer understood […]
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Revisiting the Moosewoods
I’ve made some equipment changes recently. As I noted in this article, I recently found a particular passage I was recording to be VERY challenging on my main setup. The passage in question was a low slurred passage, it was unusually difficult to smoothly transition from note to note. However, when I changed horns and […]
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