How to "Clock" your mouthpiece
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I always thought this was just another internet-based old wives' tale by people who had nothing better to do but his next-to-the-last turn surprised me.
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I would think that a lack of concentricity/alignment would be the cause of this phenomenon. I recall occasionally seeing mouthpieces that had a very slight ridge in the throat area where it appeared that the cup and the backbore were not in perfect alignment. One could speculate that this occurs more often in mass produced mouthpieces than in custom/limited production ones. In any event, clocking a mouthpiece can help to discover if such a flaw exists in any given mouthpiece.
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I think that there are multiple benefits.
Inserting a mouthpiece in a specific way increases the chances that similar insertion pressure will be used. I experimented with this quite a bit. The trumpet plays much differently if inserted lightly or firmly (and everywhere in between).
Our perception of things change when we develop a ritual. We “feel good” about having developed that process. It becomes part of our reality - and safety net. I do not consider this to be a myth. We know how much of our playing is inspiration and how much is perspiration. We all enjoy reaching a point where the musical portion becomes greater than the mechanical.
Modern mouthpieces do not have centricity issues, the mass is also uniform, the finish consistent. Even with many years of use, this does not necessarily change. That being said, minor damage to the shank or dirt in the receiver can cause large changes in playability! I have often wondered why more players do not have better protection with a “better designed” mouthpiece case and tools to keep the shank and receiver clean, round and true. -
Dizzy Gillespie: "Some days you get up and you put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die, and the horn wins."
Who is to say whether on those days when the horn won the mouthpiece was not clocked advantageously, or the gap was not providential or the mouthpiece was a little loose in the receiver or something else we now accept as really helping was not applied.
All we have is our sound, and if something helps whether that be a known adjustment or a psychological crutch I dont care, it works out the same to the audience.
More than likely this is an effective adjustment.
If it helps use it.
All that matters is reliably discovering what really does help.
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I don't play well enough for it to matter, and I suspect there other like me, but who fall victims to the placebo effect.
Yamaha Bobby Shew Trumpet
Benge Cornet
Akai EWI 5000 Pro -
@kehaulani-0 Yes, the placebo effect - the difference between a killer and average chorus. Only something in our head was different between the two performances. When we are at the top of our game, there are a lot of influences. Practice is not the only parameter.
Trumpetb
When we are practicing and performing at a high level, changing the firmness in which we insert the mouthpiece causes "big" differences. I let my students change mine and tell me what sounds different, then I do it to them. We do not know when we are experimenting what the other person did. So, repeatedly in the same lesson we try this out, have similar experiences - and that over time. Sounds like a pretty sure thing to me. -
I am not sure what you are saying other than you and your students use an excellent approach to analysis that will yield great results identifying issues and their resolution.
I expected nothing less from yourself and you did not disappoint.
