Beginner Will a closed mouthpiece affect my embouchure development

charliepar

Member
8
I've been playing for 2 years and I bought 2 MPCs: a Runyon Custom #6 and a vintage Carl Fischer Steel Ebonite. My old MPC is a Hite Premiere (This a begginer student MPC).

I do not have pitch issues or squeaks using either of them. I can play every note using both of them.

The issue is: I like to play using the vintage one, but it's extremely closed. I'm using a #3.5 reed and I can play for an hour and I don't get tired. Using the Runyon, I get tired after 30 minutes of playing (using an #2,5 reed) and I make more fingering mistakes while practicing. I guess I'm paying more attention to my embouchure when I'm playing the more open MPC.

At this moment, I don't have the money to buy another mouthpiece (I'd like a Selmer s90/180). My vintage MPC is smaller and I will have to sand some cork from the neck in order to play in tune; so I have to choose one and stick to it for some months.

My question is if an extremely closed mouthpiece affect my embouchure development.
 
As long as you match the mouthpiece to the correct strength reed there should be no major issues. The advantages of a more open tip mouthpiece is that they provide more flexibility and can be "pushed" more to a louder volume. The trade-off is that the open mouthpieces are a bit more difficult to control at first, so I suppose in that respect, the "safe" mouthpiece will put your embouchure development "on hold" for a while. It really boils down to what sound and feel you are looking for.
 
I play vintage pieces on alto and have for 30 years. It seems contrary to the current fashion to play a close tip mouthpiece, but I like them.

I use quite a close tip opening on Baritone too and use a Rico royale 5 reed or a vandoren classic blue 4. No problems with volume on the Bari. But I feel like I sometimes struggle on alto playing acoustically.

If you decide to change to a wider tip opening there will be a period of transition where you struggle for a while, but not for long. You'll adapt. Chopping and changing will confuse your embouchure so pick one and stick with it.

Play what's comfortable and gives you the most pleasure. Everything is progress.
 
I suggest that you stick with the setup you prefer playing and don't worry about how open or closed the mouthpiece is. If you feel like you're struggling or can't practice for long periods then that's going to discourage you from playing and the best way of making progress is to play as much as possible!
 
Thanks for your replies and comments! I will take your suggestions into account and I will stick with the closed mouthpiece, the one I like to play with and gives me the most pleasure. As my embouchure develops, I will try to use harder reeds.

I checked my mouthpiece again and I found that it's opening is "B4". It's probably made from the Woodwind Co. and B4 is the closest one. There are also "Steel Ebonite" with B5 and B6 openings from the Woodwind Co.

I guess that, with a closed mouthpiece, I will not be able to bend notes like Johnny Hodges do in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqA83c6GuLk (joke intended 🙂).
 
It shouldn't be a problem. Bending is done by changing the oral cavity. To practice try playing tunes on just the mouthpiece. You should be able to get close to an octave on it.
 
Thanks! I tried to change the pitch by changing the oral cavity and I'm already able to go down almost a half step, using the closed mouthpiece.

Anyway, since the vintage MPC has a smaller shank, I had to remove some cork from the neck but I found that the MPC is just too small for the neck, since, without any cork (I later removed all the cork), the MPC can't be pushed in more than 1cm and I'm not able to play in tune. It should be pushed in about 3cm in order to be in tune.

Any advice on how to solve this?
 
If it's like that, you won't ba able to do much without getting the shank drilled out. Suggest you consult a tech before doing this, as the piece may be valuable and lose value doing that.

Don't try and force it on, but it sounds as if you've already been very careful here. .

May be easier to find a different mouthpiece, but are you sure it's not for a smaller sax?
 
I had the same problem with my modern Chinese saxes. The mouthpiece I used for years on an old Lafleur, Amati /Corton wouldn't fit so I shortened the crook. In my case it was the bezel on the end of the crook. So I removed it losing 3mm in length. Any more and you may have intonation problems. There are some cheap Chinese crooks on ebay that you could experiment with. Or consult your local tech.
 
Only notes high A and above can be "bent" using the oral cavity alone. Bending pitches lower than that must involve some loosening of the embouchure.

If the mouthpiece shank opening won't fit even with all of the cork removed there is a good chance that the mouthpiece "effective volume" will not be a good match for the taper of the saxophone anyway. I would suggest just finding another mouthpiece that you like.
 
Thanks! I my case, it is also the bezel on the end of the crook that is too big for the mouthpiece shank, but I do not dare to remove it. I'm going to hold the vintage MPC and use the new bright and loud Runyon Custom until I can buy a better one.
 
Only notes high A and above can be "bent" using the oral cavity alone.
Erm. beg to differ jbt. Maybe because I played a whole lot of blues harp before becoming a sax player. Try pulling your tongue back and curling it. You should be able to bend each note all the way down the entire range of the horn without loosening the embouchure. It does get easier the higher you go but I can certainly bend and scoop at least a semitone all the way down to low D without loosening the embouchure. It's all tongue and the back of the throat.
 
Thanks for your replies and comments! I will take your suggestions into account and I will stick with the closed mouthpiece, the one I like to play with and gives me the most pleasure. As my embouchure develops, I will try to use harder reeds.

I checked my mouthpiece again and I found that it's opening is "B4". It's probably made from the Woodwind Co. and B4 is the closest one. There are also "Steel Ebonite" with B5 and B6 openings from the Woodwind Co.

I guess that, with a closed mouthpiece, I will not be able to bend notes like Johnny Hodges do in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqA83c6GuLk (joke intended 🙂).
I've got a Woodwind Co Steel Ebonite B5* and it's beautifully dark sounding - it's a little bit tight on the cork, but not a problem with my old saxes. As has been suggested above, better to get another neck and remove the bit off the end than try to modify the mouthpiece, which although not highly collectible, is harder to replace
I doubt Johnny Hodges used anything much fancier than the Woodwind Co piece you've got - mouthpieces like that are typical of the 30's and 40's era
 
Erm. beg to differ jbt. Maybe because I played a whole lot of blues harp before becoming a sax player. Try pulling your tongue back and curling it. You should be able to bend each note all the way down the entire range of the horn without loosening the embouchure. It does get easier the higher you go but I can certainly bend and scoop at least a semitone all the way down to low D without loosening the embouchure. It's all tongue and the back of the throat.
That is quite interesting since acoustically the "resonance" of the body tube for notes below high A (Concert C5) is strong enough to prevent the different resonance of the oral cavity from taking over and dictating the frequency of the reed's vibrations. Here is a quote from Gary Scavone's study entitled "Measurement of vocal tract influence during saxophone performance".

On an alto saxophone, bends produced via vocal-tract manipulations are easiest when starting on notes above concert E5. [written C#3] Bends that start above a concert C5 [written A2] tend to have a lower limit around the C5 frequency 523 Hz. In other words, the fingered note controls the starting and highest frequency of the bend range but the minimum frequency is generally always between 500 and 600 Hz.

Please check again that there is absolutely no loosening of the embouchure on the notes you bend below high A. If you can do what you claim, you are defying the laws of physics. 🙂
 
I am not defying the laws of physics jbt - I can only suggest that you spend a few years playing blues harp - A blues harp player doesn't drop his jaw when bending the notes. In the beginning it's easy to do it on the "suck" notes but after a while you'll realize you can also use the same technique on the "blow" notes. It's all about manipulating the note in the oral cavity. I can only suggest you get back in the woodshed jbt and try to concentrate on how your tongue influences your sound and try to become aware of your ability to control it.
 
I have read the entire study and not just that quote. And I stand by my interpretation. You are correct that it means that written A2 (523hz) is about as low as you can bend the notes above A2. Try inserting "lowest" for the word "minimum" and read it again. What it means is that around A 523hz is the bottom limit. You can't bend an A lower than itself using the vocal tract. Hence you can't bend a G at all because its beginning pitch is below the limit. I hope I am making myself clear.

I had an in depth discussion on this topic with Toby Marshall (kymarto) on the woodwind forum to sort all of this out. Try it yourself on your alto to see how it works. Palm D can be bent a lot by raising the back of the tongue---down as much as a 4th. B can be bent down about a step. Notes A and lower won't bend without the help of the embouchure. Once you get to the body tube length that produces a written A (C5 concert), the resonance of the body tube is strong enough to prevent the resonance of the oral cavity from taking over the reed's vibrations. It is absolutely fascinating.
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

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