Featuring:
Stomvi S14A VR Vs,
Bob Reeves 41/dF Flugelhorn Mouthpiece,
Lynn Nicholson XPiece and Reversible Rim
Every few months, I plan to make a post such as this one titled, The Buzz. Here I will summarize any recent gear acquisitions, things I am testing, and brief thoughts on such things.
This month I have been working via phone and email with K.O. Skinsnes of Stomvi USA on a new mouthpiece purchase. K.O. knows a thing or two about mouthpieces and mouthpiece design having worked with/for the great Bob Reeves in the past. I really like K.O.'s approach to mouthpiece design and the way he works to find the best match for a given person.
I initially spent about 45 minutes on the phone with him (incredibly generous that he spent that kind of time with me) explaining my needs and my history, both successes and failures, specifically with previous mouthpieces. Like just about everyone else, I wanted to increase my endurance/efficiency. After chatting a while, we decided on the Stomvi S14A VR Vs along with a few flex couplers to tweak the gap. I had the goods just a couple days later.
The first thing I noticed about this Stomvi Flex mouthpiece was that buzzing on it is ridiculously loud. Granted, that's not the same as playing a trumpet with it, but if only a portion of that energy increase is translated to sound via the trumpet, that should theoretically reduce my playing effort. Once inserted into my Yamaha Xeno YTR-8345IIGS, that proved to be the case. It took a few minutes for previous mouthpiece habits to abate, and then I could ease into things more comfortably.
I've been playing this mouthpiece for a little less than a week, and I can certainly see its strengths. It would have been an instant winner, but I am having some issues with my attacks. I have historically had issues with Schilke-style rims in that respect, and this particular model has one. Likely, I just need to acclimate to the rim shape. It is also possible that it is slightly too wide in diameter and I may work with K.O. to trade it for a slightly smaller rim size. No final decisions have been made, though, and I will be spending a lot more time with it this weekend. Regardless, I am feeling confident that I will be playing Stomvi mouthpieces from now on.
My XO 1646L is a great flugelhorn, and I like just about everything about it. Even the Jupiter 7C flugelhorn mouthpiece that came with the horn sounds rich and provides good intonation. And then... there is that damned 5th line F. I don't know what it is about that particular note, but for the life of me I cannot get a clean attack on it. I either overshoot or undershoot or fuzz it. I have no other issues above or below the F. Frustrating.
I was perusing the trumpetherald.com marketplace when I saw someone had a Reeves 41/dF mouthpiece with the correct shank up for sale at a nice price and I took him up on it. The dF stands for "Deep Flugel", and while it isn't quite the darkest sounding in the Reeves line, it retains just enough higher frequencies that it remains interesting and "flugely". I think the description on the Reeves site says the sound is "British brass band", and I'll take their word for it. I've only played it a couple days, but the sound is notably more compact/focused/controlled on the player's end with an accompanying slight decrease in volume. The more prominent core is beautiful. Intonation is good throughout my range and... like magic, I can play the 5th line F. Yep; it's a keeper.
Finally, yesterday a package arrived from James R. New containing my Lynn Nicholson XPiece and Reversible Rim. If you have no idea what these things are, do a search on YouTube and be prepared to enter Lynn's unique world and perspective on trumpet playing known as the "MF Protocol", named for his mentor, Maynard Ferguson. Lynn is part of what I like to call the trumpet's "high note counter-culture" where the normal laws of trumpet pedagogy do not apply. You may or may not agree with the approach, but if I can find a way to accelerate my progress, I'm certainly willing to give it a go.
Since I've barely had time to look over the page of instructions, I'm not going to have much to say regarding any significant changes in my range. However, I have found that I can play remarkably well on the XPiece from the get-go, and that is a real surprise to me. It is an extremely shallow V-cup and is meant to be difficult to play in order to train your embouchure to sort of find its own way toward better efficiency. Back in the 80s when I was in high school, I tried to play a few similarly shaped shallow cups and I bottomed out immediately. At this point in my life and for what could be a number of reasons, my lips apparently don't protrude into the cup nearly as much as they used to. This gives me hope that I have done at least a decent job with the beginning of my comeback by establishing a somewhat solid/efficient embouchure. I suppose I will find out soon enough.
I'll withhold any thoughts on the Reversible Rim until I've had some time to get the hang of it other than to say the dog really looks at me funny when I'm using it.
Oh, and a quick update on my Sev: it's in transit to Charlie's Brass Works in Georgia as I write this and should be there on Monday. I hope to hear from Mr. Melk soon after with the prognosis on her restoration.
That's all for now, folks.
That's all for now, folks.
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