Saxophone Mouthpiece – A Sax Player’s Best Friend

This post is a follow-up from my post “The Saxophone Sound Equation“.

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Most saxophone players undervalue the importance of their mouthpiece. I am shocked at how many players that I deal with who are still using pretty basic mouthpieces. This is true for more than just saxophone players obviously but it seems that saxophone players are the ones most guilty of this.

Ralph Morgan wrote an article in the Nov/Dec 1995 issue of the Saxophone Journal called “The Saxophone Mouthpiece, A Meyer Is A Meyer Is A Meyer” (download here). In this article, he obviously focused on the variances in Meyer mouthpieces but more than anything, his article brings up the excellent conversation of mouthpiece and its effect on the saxophone performance.

As I detailed in my previous post on the topic, mouthpiece is the MOST important piece of equipment for the saxophone (or clarinet) player. Your mouthpiece is your best friend… not your dog, not your buddy, not your spouse (OK, maybe your spouse)… your mouthpiece is your best friend. So why is it that players commonly abuse this relationship?

The saxophone mouthpiece market has changed quite alot in the last 20 years. With more and more of the old “major name brand” mouthpieces going the route of mass production, a vacuum remained for the high performance mouthpiece.

Professional vintage mouthpiece prices started to soar to ridiculous levels with some mouthpieces like an original Vintage Meyer Bros 5M going for over $2,000 on eBay!

Players were demanding the performance of old world craftsmanship that the mass market had taken away from them forcing them to turn to the vintage market. The other effect that this had on the market is the rise of smaller custom makers and mouthpiece refacing specialists. Both of these are great options that provide higher performance than traditional market mouthpieces.

One of the biggest issues for people however is price. They want a great mouthpiece but many are simply unwilling to pay the price for the top tier piece.

For example, in my family’s store we sell the Theo Wanne mouthpieces. Theo’s mouthpiece are by far the most impressively made and designed mouthpieces that I have ever come across. They offer production quality that has completely redefined the bar that other makers need to strive for. There is no better crafted mouthpiece on the market. But this precision comes at a rather hefty price with mouthpieces ranging from $375-$850!

When helping customers on mouthpiece, I always have them tell me what mouthpiece & reed setup that they are currently using. Then I ask them, with their current setup in mind, what is that they really like from their current setup and what are they hoping to achieve by looking for another mouthpiece.

Not too long ago, I had a good customer (out of state) that we had performed a couple of professional overhauls for on his vintage Selmer Paris saxophones that was looking for a new professional tenor mouthpiece. This particular player gave me a list of mouthpieces that he has and his favorites were 3 mouthpieces that together totalled about $1,500 in mouthpieces (simple math, $500 each).

After he gave me the description of what he was looking for in a new mouthpiece, I came to the conclusion that the mouthpiece that best suited his desired needs was a Theo Wanne DURGA mouthpiece. This mouthpiece is $775 and immediately his reply was to the effect of “I can’t justify $775 for a mouthpiece”. I came back with the following question: “You say that you cannot justify $775 for one mouthpiece. However, you just told me that you own 3 mouthpieces that you have $1,500 invested in and they still are not doing what you want? IF this $775 mouthpiece does everything you want, how can you NOT justify it?” (knowing that we offer a trial/return policy if he didn’t like the mouthpiece).

This was NOT a sales tactic but rather just a true statement since we both agreed of the vital importance of the right mouthpiece. He agreed to my logic and I sent him the DURGA mouthpiece. After he had a chance to play it, I received the following email:

I used the Durga over the weekend on the B/A. What a difference.
Even on a horn with sticky old pads, it just made it sing. Bottom end,
altissimo…all there. Lots of projection and subtle playing too. Basically
instance response up and down the horn.  No babying
of notes required. It was an outside gig so I used a Legere reed. It still
sounded great, in fact it seems to like those reeds

Tried the Durga on the MVI when it arrived and you were right,
they were made for each other.

This player has since bought another Theo Wanne mouthpiece (for his Alto).

Mouthpiece is the MOST important piece of equipment you can purchase for your horn. Why would you spend thousands of dollars on a great horn and then hold it back by sticking to a mouthpiece that under performs because of it’s price?! If anything, you should look at having a lower priced horn with a better mouthpiece as you will get more performance and likely save money!

I don’t write this post to sell expensive mouthpieces but rather to make people think about what they can justify for the sake of their performance. I have found plenty of people who the best mouthpiece For Them is one of our Kessler Custom “50 Series” INTERMEDIATE mouthpieces that we sell for as cheap as $70!

I write this post to point out the flaws in logic that many players use and in the end how it can hurt their performance. Sometimes you will find that the right mouthpiece for you is a lower priced mouthpiece and if so, great! But what if you are using a lower quality mouthpiece and don’t realize how much it can be holding you back… and if you haven’t tried anything better, you are relying on sheer luck to determine whether the mouthpiece you have is the right piece… leaving just one question for you…

Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya?!