Comments on: Alternate Horn Mouthpiece Shapes

By: Louis Denaro

Louis Denaro — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:58:36 +0000

Being that the lighter “standard” mouthpiece which served as a basis for the mouthpieces described above / same inner contours / is equally not as effective on both horns, I’m not sure it’s all about less weight. My intuition tells me that the concept at work is similar to “wing loading”, where the surface area of the wing vs. the weight and drag of the airframe dictate the performance of the aircraft. The ratio has to be just right to give you the results that you need. Or perhaps the two mouthpieces may be generate different pitch fundamentals in and of themselves that resonate differently in each horn. My 2 lira.

By: Bob Osmun

Bob Osmun — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:28:56 +0000

So what is it? More surface? Less weight? Until someone does some scientific studies (attention all you physics majors out there)we won’t really know. Until then I’ll continue to make them on order.

By: Louis Denaro

Louis Denaro — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:30:25 +0000

Bob,
Just a word on why adding ribs to a mouthpiece might make a great deal of difference. I have two CF Schmidt horns of roughly the same vintage, one is very free blowing, the other (you know the horn) isn’t. I also have 2 versions of the same model mouthpiece, whereby the inner contours are the same, but one is just the “heavy” blank and the other has the ribs that you cut for me. On the free blowing horn, the heavy blank works really well and the ribbed form isn’t very good at all. On the unfocussed horn, it’s completely the opposite situation: the heavy blank almost seems like just so much dead weight and the horn doesn’t project, but the ribbed form actually makes this horn very playable (and it’s the only mouthpiece in my collection that does anything for that horn). And the fact that sacrificing some mass for a couple of ribs to get extraordinary results is pretty fascinating, wouldn’t you agree?