| Buying a Mouthpiece A lot of people make a big hoohah about mouthpieces and how there's no perfect mouthpiece and all this. Buying a French Horn mouthpiece is very simple. I'll break it down into two. Which one do you pick? Get both if you can. If you can't then you can either pick which feels better or select arbitrarily. The Schilke 32 is the biggest French Horn mouthpiece you can get. It offers a huge deep tone and a sharp rim for great stability, but can be rather difficult to play high on. The Schilke 31B is the biggest shallow cup Horn mouthpiece you can get. It offers less bite but has a shallower cup to facilitate high playing. It's not drastically helpful, but it's way better than the Holton Farkas MDC. Should you use these mouthpieces as a student? Absolutely. If you can get used to playing high on a Schilke 32, you will be a very useful and important piece of your band. This isn't to say the 31B is bad, but it requires a little more concentration to play with a dark sound. So you might be wondering. How can I sum up the entirety of French Horn mouthpieces so easily? Simple. These are the biggest mouthpieces and they're too small. The Schilke 24 is a Trumpet mouthpiece and it's larger than the Schilke 32. An Alto Horn mouthpiece dwarfs any French Horn mouthpiece. Small mouthpieces do not help you play higher. All they do is hurt really bad and destroy your endurance. Don't play small French Horn mouthpieces. Your sound and your lips will suffer if your mouthpiece is too small. If you can't handle a mouthpiece as wide as the Schilke 31B, then you should consider playing Trumpet where your tiny lips will be of great service. Back |
