The mouthpiece you play definitely matters! The rim and the way it interacts with your face and embouchure has a big impact on how comfortable it is to produce sound on the instrument - the sound concept you can fulfill, your flexibility, articulation, ease of playing in the high and low registers - all of these things can be affected by which mouthpiece you’re playing. Depending on what your needs are as a player, a different mouthpiece can actually help you achieve your goals.

All mouthpieces have tradeoffs. If you’re getting a little more endurance, you might lose some sound quality. If you get more ease in the high register, you might sacrifice production in the low register. More clarity of articulation might result in less flexibility. Any time you change mouthpieces, you’re inevitably going to need to make a compromise somewhere. If your fundamentals, technique, or sound isn’t figured out yet, a new mouthpiece isn’t going to bring that to you on a silver platter - at best, it might give you give you insight as to what you need to keep working on. There’s really no substitute for practicing.

Dear Jon,

It’s not me… it’s you.

Sincerely,
Your Mouthpiece

When you’re changing mouthpieces, you really should have a specific goal that you are aiming for in your new mouthpiece. More endurance, better high register, better low register, more clarity of sound, clarity of articulation, etc. Rather than wandering through the jungle aimlessly searching for the perfect mouthpiece, you want to follow a treasure map that begins with a theory about a specific aspect that you want to change, and why. When you go on a mouthpiece safari, a lot of your information is either coming from online forums or sensationalist mouthpiece marketing. Either way, you’re not being told the full truth about those mouthpieces - not because anyone is being purposely deceitful; rather, each mouthpiece and how it interacts with you is going to be particular to you and your anatomy and playing style. Another thing about mouthpiece safaris is that they encourage you to be constantly switching mouthpieces - which can SERIOUSLY hamper your development! The way you play trumpet is to a large degree BUILT on the equipment you’re playing, so if you’re always adjusting things you will have to spend more time relearning basic skills (like how to tongue clearly on that new “high efficiency” mouthpiece!) and less time taking your playing forward into more and more advanced and nuanced territory. It takes a LOT time to adjust to a new mouthpiece (think in terms of weeks and months!) so the more often you switch mouthpieces, the harder your life is going to be.

I’ve done this more than I’d like to admit… I’d have a mouthpiece I was having a lot of success on, and I thought - wouldn’t it be nice if I just opened the throat up a little bit to let a little more air through the mouthpiece? Guess what… modifying just that one aspect of a mouthpiece can throw the whole mouthpiece out of balance! It turns out that drilling the throat out had several unintended consequences. It destroyed the bottom curve of the mouthpiece cup going into the throat, creating a sharp ledge. It also made the throat itself longer, lengthening the cylindrical section and actually INCREASING the perceived resistance! This modification that I thought would help ended up changing a number of playing characteristics of the mouthpiece, throwing the whole thing out of balance. Instead of modifying the piece you have, it would be better to get very similar one with the specification you want to experiment with, so you can always switch back to the one you know works if the experiment doesn’t work out.

Even if your go-to mouthpiece is a good fit for most things, there are various musical styles that we have to play as trumpet players that require nuanced sounds. You definitely shouldn’t assume that you can use the same mouthpiece to make all of those different things sound the way they’re supposed to sound. Ideally, you’ll want a mouthpiece that either brings out the characteristics of the specific instrument or the musical style you’re trying to play. For example, if you’re playing rotary trumpet in the orchestra, of course you could just put in your regular trumpet mouthpiece - but if you really want to bring out the rich and bold sound of the rotary trumpet, I would suggest trying a European made rotary trumpet mouthpiece, or maybe a version of your main mouthpiece with a backbore more like those European mouthpieces.

This one can be really tempting, because our teachers are usually our primary sound model and have a huge influence on our playing and development - so I have made this mistake several times! if you want to hear some specific stories about that, check out my video about “mouthpiece breakups” video here. It’s important to remember that your teacher’s mouthpiece was the result of a lot of experimentation and dialing in based on what sound concept they wanted, the arrangement of their teeth and lips, the level of lip engagement they have in the mouthpiece, how much help they need controlling pitch in certain registers, etc. There’s a lot of things they’ve considered that you haven’t quite yet. When I was in high school, I studied with a teacher who played a particular brand of mouthpieces that was known for having a pretty large throat and large backbore. I got the sound that I was expecting, but it also probably contributed to my percieved endurance issues, because I was having trouble playing for long stretches on that mouthpiece. Looking back, this problem was almost certainly caused by the size and type of mouthpiece that I was playing, and not because of any inherent difficulty I personally had operating the instrument.

This one is especially close to my heart. It took me way too long to realize I needed to wash my mouthpiece more regularly! Can you imagine using a spoon to eat breakfast, and then just putting it in a fabric case, only to come back tomorrow and use the same spoon exactly the same way? Now imagine doing that every day for a month?? That is essentially what most of us are doing with our mouthpieces. I actually wash my mouthpiece every day, otherwise I start to get sores and pimples on my embouchure after a particularly hard practice session. If you have sensitive skin like me, consider improving your mouthpiece hygiene - even if you don’t have sensitive skin, washing your mouthpiece every day is still probably a good idea. Careful though - This is not the same thing as polishing the mouthpiece with a polishing cloth. The active ingredients in the polish can actually be bad for your skin! I either wash my mouthpiece with soap and water if I’m at home, or a diluted alcohol spray followed by a quick wipe with a microfiber cloth if I’m in a performance setting.

I, again, have definitely learned this one the hard way. I’d play a mouthpiece for six to eight months, then move on to something a little bit different and think “Oh, I don’t need this one anymore; I’ll sell it to help pay for new mouthpieces!” BUT - if that mouthpiece worked for you for a while, there might actually be a really good reason it was working for you. Five years later, you may be craving the way that mouthpiece did x, y, or z and you’ll never be able to compare it to your new ones because… it’s gone. It can be very educational to go back and visit those old mouthpieces and feel how you used to feel, and sound how you used to sound, playing the instrument. You might discover or rediscover something in your playing that you didn’t know was missing. It’s also worth noting that even today, with such great manufacturing technology, mouthpieces are one of a kind, and you can’t necessarily take for granted that you’ll be able to replace your old mouthpiece with one that plays exactly the same way.

There’s a difference between an “adjustment period”, and a mouthpiece not actually being an improvement for you over your old one. I like to think that a real “adjustment period” in my case, is usually about two weeks. I’ll pick up a mouthpiece that I think may work better for me, then I’ll give it basically all of my attention and playing for about two weeks, and then I’ll pick up the original mouthpiece and compare them back and forth a little bit so I can actually hear and feel the difference for myself. If the tradeoffs and compromises are not worth it, then I’ll go back to the original mouthpiece. If it’s not right, you may be able to get used to it, but you might be limiting yourself in an unexpected aspect of your playing because it might just not be compatible with your physiology, sound concept, or playing situation!

In my opinion, the BIGGEST mouthpiece mistake you can make is just choosing the mouthpiece based on your own feel and perception, without getting input from trusted friends, colleagues, or teachers! The trumpet’s sound is very directional and is usually heard from a reasonable distance (15-30 feet away) - so if you are selecting a mouthpiece, I think it’s always best practice get some friends with good ears, find a large space to play in, and do a blind test for them, where you know which mouthpiece you’re playing but they don’t. Play a few excerpts that show different things you might have to do with that particular mouthpiece, and see which one they like better. You are always going to biased by the feel and perception from behind the bell of the mouthpiece, and psychologically you might be biased either towards the mouthpiece you’re already comfortable with OR the new shiny one! Sometimes this can deceive us into choosing the old familiar mouthpiece over something that could move your playing in the right direction, or vice versa!

If you want, you can check out my September 2020 YouTube video on the subject - it’s basically the above article, but in video format.