Mouthpieces Please help me choose a tenor sax mouthpiece

[Dakutoo]

My daughter is a freshman in high school and plays the tenor sax.. She has a Jupiter student sax right now and has always been content.. until now. She tried out for.. and earned a seat in a regional honors kind of band.. she's playing with students from all over.. and is working with some really really talented and dedicated players.. many of whom have higher quality instruments.. multiple mouthpieces and things like that.

She wants a stepped up instrument for Jazz ensemble and the honors band.. but that can't happen right now.. so we've compromised and she wants to try a new mouthpiece.

Can someone please suggest the type I should look at? There are soo many choices.
She will be using the instrument for the honors band (Jazz/rock, I think) and jazz ensemble. ( She expects to keep using the standard plastic piece for marching band).

Thank you all so much for reading this!
Stacey

 

[Merryfisher]

it all depends on what you spend!

 

[Dakutoo]

Thanks so much for responding. I'm not sure what other details to include.. When I made the post, I'll admit to ignorance regarding the way things work together.. mouthpieces and reeds .. end results. I've since spent hours reading and learning while my mind becomes more warped with information overload... I did learn that we need to buy reeds a box at a time (rather than one at a time) and that the only way to find what we need online would be trial and error (at a potentially huge expense).

We're in a rural area but I've contacted a semi-local music store that has agreed to allow my daughter to try some mouthpieces. I expect the selection to be small.. but hopefully we can get some hands on guidance.

Thank you all so very very much!
(For both the post above and private messages!)

This website and forum has been so helpful!

 

[TomMapfumo]

Hi Stacy!

There are so many sax mouthpieces out there, it would possibly be a little premature to make suggestions at this stage. I presume you live in the States from your language (freshman, store etc.) and some mouthpieces in US are not so available in UK. Some very good makes include Vandoren, Morgan, Runyon. If you can let us know what is available locally then we could certainly offer some recommendations. Also there are a couple of online stores that do loan out mouthpieces for trial periods (I think Woodwind & Brasswind do) and some Custom mouthpiece makers ( I would recommend Phil Engelmann - Phil-Tone, who charges $225 or so for a handmade one, and who can make it to suit your daughters preferences of tip opening and sound palette. His website is: http://www.phil-tone.com/ and he is a lovely bloke to deal with - I have his Eclipse Tenor mouthpiece). He has high recommendations on the Sax on the Web forum based in the US, and a Custom mouthpiece might be something that your daughter would feel really proud of!

There are many others out there but that would be my recommendation.
Hope this helps
Tom