I’ve ordered a new mouthpiece

[NuhJuhKuh]

A Doug Yeo replica from Thomann. It’s the first mouthpiece I’ve bought for ~5 years, and the biggest non-tuba piece I’ll have ever played (for the record, I only dabble on tuba).

I could write screeds about my decision process, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity I’ll leave it out until someone asks a specific question! Ultimately though, if it’s too big I can always return it, and it’s not like my current mouthpiece is going away.

Speaking of, I currently play a Conn88HCL with a refurbished Denis Wick 2nal, and sometimes a battered, gold-played 6.5al (but not very often). The horn was an 18th birthday present... a good while ago, and is now the only trombone I own. I really want a bass though! So when I got the 88h out of my parents’ attic after 9 years and discovered it needed a mouthpiece, I went for a small-bass piece (the 2nal) based on my thoughts at the time i.e. “play as small as you can get away with” and “practice the low notes”. I have to say, it’s a nice combo... for large-bore tenor, but is by no stretch a bass.

Trouble is, it doesn’t seem to matter how much I practice, attacking the trigger notes and joining together the pedal register, trigger notes and “normal range” is still really hard without shifting. Not a huge deal for an amateur weekend-warrior like myself, but still frustrating.

So now I have a plan - first, until I get the Yeo, I will continue to practice the low stuff (Phil Teele, tuba Arban, the odd excerpt) on my current setup; once it arrives I will plug it into the 88H and work on my entire range (not just the low stuff); phase three involves a swap with a friend’s Jinbao double-trigger bass and working through the Brad Edwards book (and the rest).

I’m excited to get going! If I have anything to report as I work through the new piece (and I remember) I’ll update the thread. Wish me luck!

Neil

[hyperbolica]

If you're having problems in the trigger range of an 88h with a 2nal, the Yeo certainly isn't going to help you. There's something wrong with the horn, or it's a soft machine issue.

[Elow]

A tenor will never play like a bass, even with a bucket of a mouthpiece
Might want to just move on to phase 3

[WilliamLang]

the alessi 1 mouthpiece from griego is for all intents and purposes a bass mouthpiece. jay friedman uses large equipment as well, for a lot of reasons.

a yeo-sized mouthpiece on a tenor is definitely non-traditional, but if you're having fun and feeling good more power to you!

[NuhJuhKuh]

@Hyperbolica - the notes are there, and even sound quite good if I can set my chops first, but joining up all the lower ranges is where I struggle. Last time I borrowed my friend’s bass I tried his Bach 1G, and it helped (but only after coming off tuba). You may be right though, and Thomann has a 30-day returns policy so worth a shot I reckon!

@WilliamLang - to be clear, playing bass parts on my tenor isn’t my endgame, just the interim measure. If the Yeo works well in the Jinbao clone I may haggle my friend down to a couple hundred €€ and take it off him later in the year. Even that’s not my ultimate goal though - one day I’ll buy a better quality bass. I’ve been eyeing up the Wessex PBF565 for quite some time...

@Elow - alas, we’re under very strict lockdown atm, max 5km from our homes for another month, so will be March at the earliest before I can do a swap. Still worth getting may face used to the new size before then I reckon

[Posaunus]

I predict an impedance match problem. The Yeo piece is not only large diameter, it is also very deep with a large throat - a true bass trombone mouthpiece. Not a very good complement to an 88HCL, in my mind. (Especially for anything above the staff.) I look forward to NuhJuhKuh's report.

[harrisonreed]

The Alessi 1C is not a bass piece. It's way too shallow.

[BigBadandBass]

In high school I played a Yeo replica as my main bass piece, it was always an interesting experience when I had to play tenor gigs and try to use that piece before giving up and switching to a 3G

[Bach5G]

The Yeo Replica is an excellent large ~29mm mpc fornot very much money.

[spencercarran]

I tried using my Yeo on an 88H once. Not an inspiring combo.

Good mouthpiece, good horn, but that doesn't mean they get along well together.

[NuhJuhKuh]

@Bach5G - that was for sure one of the main factors for this particular piece

In a spectacular demonstration of German efficiency, it arrived this morning (I only ordered it on Thursday; got the shipping notification on Friday). I haven’t had much of a go on it yet due to various small-children-related impediments, but so far I’m very happy with my purchase.

Apart from a quick buzz before I took the non-verbals for their morning constitutional, the first thing I did once I plugged the Yeo into my trombone was the “snake” exercise from Ben Van Dijke’s book. I don’t want to fall into the trap of ONLY practicing the low stuff, and as I’m trying to work on shifting less to move between the registers, I figured that establishing a baseline embouchure for my mid-range made sense. In between soothing a distraught 4-year-old who was upset I wouldn’t let him touch my new mouthpiece, I managed a couple of early exercises from the Tuba Arban and found moving around the low trigger register *somewhat easier than before. No massive change, but I wasn’t expecting it to be instant! Certainly not without proper warmup. Tone was pretty good, and felt pretty comfortable too.

Hopefully I’ll get more face-time over the next few weeks. I’m determined to leave my old mouthpieces in the case while I try this one, and I’ll try really hard not to just blast out shifted pedals... which is tough because I really want to!

That’s all for now, I’d better go play chess with the 4-year-old before he wakes up his sister. Cheers!

Neil

[WGWTR180]

He's going to do what he's going to do. Mouthpiece buying won't help player shortcomings.

[paulyg]

the alessi 1 mouthpiece from griego is for all intents and purposes a bass mouthpiece. jay friedman uses large equipment as well, for a lot of reasons.

Having spent significant time on both the Alessi 1 pieces (Greg Black and Griego) and a couple of Jay Friedman's pieces (Hammond, Brassark/Bob Reeves/Parke) I can tell you that while the rims are wide, they are by no means bass trombone mouthpieces.

The Friedman pieces are all basically a 3G with a "V" cup, with the cup getting more -'v' shaped, the backbore getting tighter, and the rim getting wider in roughly chronological order (Parke, Hammond, Brassark). While the 3G was originally designed by Bach to be a bass trombone mouthpiece, most examples from the MV era fall between "deep tenor" territory and "shallow tenor." I have one from the early MV period that's roughly a DE F+ cup depth, and one from later that's probably a G+ depth. The new 3G has very little to do with the old ones. The Friedman variants are definitely skewing towards the old version. They play kinda tight, and if you have extremely open equipment (like an old 88H or a Bach 42 with a 50 slide), it gives you something to balance that out.

The Alessi pieces are defined by an extremely soft, wide rim, a large throat (for a tenor), and a relatively tight backbore. The large throat helps these pieces pair quite well with a less-open setup, and also helps to add definition to articulations (which could suffer in clarity due to the soft rim). The only thing they have in common with a bass piece is the rim size. Generally, a bass mouthpiece will have a much deeper cup, and a more open backbore. While the Alessi pieces might be unconventionally large for a tenor piece, they are unsuitable for bass trombone playing. My pet theory is that Joe was playing on an old 2G with a particularly shallow cup prior to getting a custom piece made because the rim fit his face well.

[WilliamLang]

more a joke than anything else. they are very large for a tenor piece is all.