Speaking of...
Back years ago when I played the french horn, I bought a custom mouthpiece
by Neil Sanders. It's a customized wide-rim 17M for the french horn. Most
wonderful. Expensive at the time, that's for sure. I delivered a lot of
newspapers to buy that thing. My older sister plays french horn
professionally and she also has a couple of them which are slightly
customized for different purposes.
Well, one of my daughters is playing the french horn now and occasionally
she forgets to bring her standard-fare mouthpiece home from school. (the
school has horns for use at school and she has one at home so she doesn't
need to tote the thing back and forth every day).
Well, it doesn't happen often that she leaves her mouthpiece at school, but
when she does, she borrows my old mouthpiece.
I was simply amazed and reminded why I bought the thing.
1. High notes. You can play over an entire octave higher without ripping
your lips open. Low notes are more difficult to get, but altogether, my
range increased by 1.5 octaves with the mouthpiece. Not an insignificant
improvement!
2. Purer tone. It's much easier to hold a note without drift and all notes
within your range have similar sound with less variability
3. Slight increase in backpressure. Reduces air flow. I set a school record
by holding a single note for over two and a half minutes.
4. Less fatiguing. It's easier to practice much longer.
The problem with the mouthpiece is that it is nearly impossible to march
with--besides, it's probably smarter to go to the plastic mouthpieces anyway
so you do break teeth or freeze your lips off when it's cold.
I'm wondering how long should she wait until she converts over to using my
mouthpiece? I bought mine four years after starting playing and never had a
single regret about it. She's in her second year of playing now. When we
hear her practice with the mouthpiece, every advantage listed above is
instantly revealed. The difference is night and day. She enjoys using it, I
know. But I'm also aware of the years it takes to build a strong embouchure
and I don't want to shortchange that process by going to a high-end,
hot-rodded mouthpiece instead of forcing the lip development on the junk
mouthpiece.
I have not spoken to her band teacher/director yet--I know I need to, but
I'm not sure when to broach the subject.
AG
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