Denture wearers of the sax unite.

[Bobby G]

Does wearing a denture affect your sound or volume? I ask because if I take my upper plate out, I seem to sound louder with a fuller tone. Is this real, or is it merely the effect of the sax being in direct contact with my mouth rather than transmitting through a chunk of acrylic, or is it because removing the denture increases the volume of my mouth cavity?

 

[TimboSax]

No idea I'm afraid, but I reckon that if you record yourself playing the same stuff with dentures and without, then you'd be able to hear objectively without any effect of in-head sound transmission.

 

[Chris]

If you remove your top dentures your oral cavity becomes smaller?? When you jaw comes together upper and lower are closer together. But, using your top lip and not teeth on the mouthpiece might improve your tone..

 

[jonf]

If you have acrylic dentures, removing them does increase the size of the mouth cavity, and when I had acrylic ones I used to prefer playing without them. Now I have cobalt-chrome ones, which are a fracction of the thickness I don't notice any difference, and always play with them in.

 

[Ivan]

Shouldn't the title of the thread read:

"Denture wearers of the sax, together we Polygrip"

 

[saxyman]

I used to have a lower denture as I had lost some of my front teeth playing sport. But a couple of years ago I decided that I did not want to go down the implant route, so I had a 4 tooth bridge made that fitted permanently on existing teeth either side, 6 in total.
I have to say it was the best money I have spent. What a revelation. It has changed my life and assists my playing completely.

Ps still can't play and will never make a musician, but that's another story.

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

Guess if you were to use a soft/flexible fixident you should in theory get a darker warmer sound....as opposed to using a hard less flexible fixident that would give you a bright more focused sound?

 

[Bobby G]

I have tried playing with the denture out, and it is manageable but feels a bit odd, although not painful at all, and the embouchure does start to give out fairly quickly. I remember seeing Bill Wrathall play-testing an alto at White's in Ealing, who has has one missing tooth at the front and he has simply glued a chunk of cork to his mouthpiece to fill the gap.