60 February/March 1995

Ralph Morgan

The Saxophone Mouthpiece

Does the material used make anydifference in how mouthpieces play?

In my last two columns, we lookedat the various types of materials usedfor mouthpieces, which included wood,metals, synthetics, and crystal. We alsolooked at a few of the manufacturersof these mouthpiece types. In reality,the type of material does have a dis-tinct effect on such things as tonequality, projection, response, etc., butthere are also other aspects of themouthpiece which we should associatewith these effects.

GRENADILLA AND ROSEWOODMOUTHPIECES

First, the woods used in the earliestmouthpieces were comparatively soft,such as various fruitwoods and box-wood. This type of wood was veryworkable; most examples are beauti-fully carved and finished. It seems atthe time that the very warm, rich tonequality of these was desirable. Ofcourse, we are now talking aboutclarinet mouthpieces made long beforethe saxophone was invented. By 1840grenadilla and rosewood were incommon use for the clarinet and, thus,for saxophone too. The earliest, wood,saxophone mouthpieces in our ar-chives were made in France by Buffet.grenadilla was far superior to box-wood. It had much greater density anda specific gravity of over 1.0, such thatit would not float. The grain was morepronounced; the tone produced wasmore brilliant and richer in midrangeharmonics. Therefore, grenadilla en-hanced the saxophone sound. The

chambers of these grenadilla saxo-phone mouthpieces were round andquite large with a concave roof fromtip rail to throat; thus, the dark ‘fat’,almost hollow, sounds we associatedwith these mouthpieces are how wethink of them. Due to the thinness ofthe walls, they were very resonant infeel, acting to enhance the reed vibra-tions. Due to the relatively low physi-cal strength of these wood mouth-pieces, compared to hard rubber ormetal, we normally find a metal ring ofsome sort applied around the shank toprevent cracking when pushing themouthpiece onto the neckpipe cork.

The workmanship on the grenadillawood mouthpieces was usually flaw-less. The material was still soft enoughthat constructing an accurate facingcurve on the side rails is a very touchyoperation. Just a little extra pressurewill cause a slip in the proper curva-ture. It seems obvious that using mod-ern machinery to apply a facing andtable should result in an accurate cut.Unfortunately, wood has a tendency tospring away from the cutting tool,resulting in a variety of products. Thecutter is programmed to just cut, notcompensate.

AMERICAN HARD RUBBERMOUTHPIECES

Hard rubber became “the thing touse” after Harvey Firestone discoveredhow to vulcanize, or harden, naturalgum rubber. This happened none toosoon since the need for clarinets andsaxophones grew rapidly in the late1800s. The new, hard rubber offered a

plentiful and inexpensive material.Tolerances could be kept much closerthan with wood and it proved to bemore stable. Hard rubber also retainedthe curves of the facing quite accu-rately, regardless of extreme condi-tions, such as temperature and humid-ity. It was also not subject to crackingand excessive wearing caused by theupper teeth. Note that, with minorvariations in formulae, hard rubber isstill the foremost material used world-wide. To determine the comparativehardness of various hard rubber prod-ucts, whether a hockey puck, an ACEcomb, or a mouthpiece, we refer to ahardness scale of numbers called“Shore D.”

SHORE “D” HARDNESS SCALE FORHARD RUBBER MOUTHPIECES

Most ebonite used for mouthpiecesregisters between 82 and 95 on thisscale. The softer, or less dense, rubbermeasures in the lower 80s and pro-duces a darker sound, while the higherreadings on the Shore D scale areproduced by harder rubber, moredense, and produce a progressivelybrighter tone quality. It should benoted that readings below 82 willproduce a dull or flat sounding mouth-piece, while readings above 95 willgenerate a hard or ‘brittle’ sound. It ispossible to vary the Shore D hardnessof ebonite by using different formulaeof a rubber mix.

The raw natural rubber comes inseveral varieties, produced by variouscuring methods. There are many typesof ‘lamp black,’ or carbon, to use as an

Does The Material Used Make AnyDifference In How Mouthpieces Play?

61Saxophone Journal

additive. You may think it strange tofirst produce hard, vulcanized rubber,then pulverize it, so it can be used as“rubber dust,” an important filleradditive in the ebonite mouthpiece. Nowonder that, if you ever have the urgeto get an analysis of some hard rubbermouthpiece, the analyst will cautionyou that he can only do so to an accu-racy of 85%. It seems hardly worth it.Then comes the matter of color.

Traditionally an ebonite mouthpieceis black, or nearly so. However, theW.S. Summer Co. made some severalyears ago which were a dark red. Thiswas also tried by an English maker. Itseems that the addition of a coloringpowder tends to produce a muchsofter product that really not well-suited to retain a carefully faced curvewithout warping. Also the coloring insome instances, even certain lampblacks, tends to bleed out, especiallythen they are refaced.

In producing an acceptable rubbercompound, the rubber chemical engi-neer will try many different types of‘filler,’ mostly different rubber dustsamples, although some synthetic onesare used as well as varying amounts ofcertain chemicals, which affect themalleability or molding characteristicsof the rubber. In so doing, the engineercan come up with many hundreds offormulae. Then we must determinewhich will produce the most desirabletonal and response characteristics.Once this has been determined, wemust be aware of other variableswhich will dramatically affect theacoustical and aerodynamic results.

Foremost is the thickness of thewalls of the mouthpiece. Perhaps this isbest understood by considering myexperience while working while work-ing on the clarinet mouthpiece.Gustave Langenus produced an excel-lent product in the 1930s and 40s, usinghis experiments in a different gradua-tion of thickness for the beak area. Asone might suspect, he found that athinner material can be more easily setin vibration than a thick one. In mytrials, I started with a “normally”shaped mouthpiece. In filing and scrap-ing the beak area, I found that, as thematerial was thinned, the response andtone production suffered progres-sively. At a point somewhere near halfthe original beak thickness, the clarinet

ceased to play, emitting mostly buzzesof various pitch levels. However, whenthe appropriate thickness was reachedby more thinning, the sound andresponse suddenly reappeared at agreatly enhanced level. In other words,the walls of the mouthpiece can eitheract with a damping effect or as anauxiliary tone generator for the poorbelabored reed. Then the entire scaleof the instrument speaks more quicklyand evenly, with a more centeredsound and “feel.”

The same changes pertain to saxo-phone mouthpieces as well. Theybecome very evident to the playerwhen comparing our own regularMorgan MI models of alto and tenormouthpieces with our Excalibur mod-els, which have the same facings andchamber characteristics, but in whichthe body walls are significantly thinner.This enhances the production of higherpartials, thus a more brilliant tonalcharacteristic.

Referring to the Lelandais’s line ofthe 1930s, they seem to have been oneof the first to have used this techniquein their ‘Le Jaseur’ line. The shape oftheir clarinet, alto, and tenor seem tohave been inspired by the very oldestSelmer metal mouthpieces. Lelandaisalso started the ‘streamlined’ modeearly on, which has contributed tomany such models by more contempo-rary makers. Again, it is evident thatthe body wall thickness has a profoundeffect on the tonal aspects of themouthpiece.

METAL SAXOPHONEMOUTHPIECES

Metal mouthpieces are not subject tothe same tonal changes we note inhard rubber, since the average thick-ness of material used can do nothingbut act with a damping effect on thereeds vibration. We tend to ignore thefact that the reed, in beating or vibrat-ing against the mouthpiece, seems toact independently; one of the factorsthat affects the response of the reed isthe ease (or difficulty) with which themouthpiece material is set into vibra-tion. Many players I’ve discussed thispoint with are sold on the use of onlymetal because a long list of prestigiousplayers has used that type of mouth-piece. They do not take into consider-ation the fact that, in the majority of

cases, they have only heard a perfor-mance using all manner of electronicenhancement and simplification, eitherlive or on CDs/records/tapes. There-fore, what we hear may be far fromwhat the player, mouthpiece, andinstrument actually sound like, due tothe whims of the sound engineer, etc.,altering the true sound. Experimentsshow that a mouthpiece properlydesigned and made of good hardrubber will produce about 30% moresound overall and play with a morecentered sound.

Just as the hard rubber materials canvary widely in density and hardness,causing variations in the sound spec-trum produced, metals also vary incomposition or alloy, basic metal used,and durability. There are perhaps morealloys in the brass family, ranging frombronzes to ‘plain’ yellow brass. Thecomparative amounts of copper, tin,lead, zinc, sulphur, nickel, phospho-rous, and antimony all contribute tothe sound conducting qualities of themetal. Obviously an alloy with lesscopper content will be harder andmore dense, with a greater capacity toresonate. If you have ever comparedthe sounds of a fine Zildjian cymbalwith some of the lesser quality onesavailable, the difference is heard imme-diately. There are several alloys ofother metals, stainless steel, and alumi-num, for example. The hardest ofstainless steel was used in the old BergLarsen models–they hold dimensionsperfectly, but require a great amountof work to apply a proper facingcurve, especially when changing amouthpiece from, for example, .090"tip opening to .100" or from a #6 to a#8. This metal, being much harder, hasa tendency toward a harder, clearersound. The use of a soft metal, such asan aluminum alloy, seems to produce asound devoid of the proper balance oflow, mid, and high harmonic wavelengths. Also this metal does not havethe tensile strength necessary to main-tain stability in the critical measure-ments needed for a mouthpiece. Thetendency toward corrosion can cause aproblem, especially if the player has ahigh body-acidic condition or theplaying is done in a salt-air atmo-sphere. With most metal mouthpieces,it becomes of much greater importancethat the basic design be the result of

62 February/March 1995

much acoustical and aerodynamicstudy, so that they will allow maximumefficiency of vibration of the reed sincethey naturally provide more dampingof the reed than hard rubber or syn-thetic materials.

DISTINCT QUALITY OF SILVERMOUTHPIECES

One metal which does have thecapacity, given the correct alloy, toproduce a distinct clarity of sound, issilver. Sterling silver, which is 92.5%pure silver, an alloy with a hardnesscapable of retaining the specificationsof a finely made mouthpiece, whichresonates at frequencies conducive tothe production of a richness of soundnot present in most other metalmouthpieces. Playing one is a uniqueexperience, since they do not produceany of the ‘harshness’ I associate withmetal mouthpieces. Of course, to besure of the purity of the silver, look forthe ‘hallmark’ denoting sterling whichis stamped into the product.

PLASTIC MOUTHPIECESContrary to the effect of a coloring

agent in hard rubber, we have used avariety of colors or dyes in plastic orsynthetic mouthpieces with no detri-mental effect. One vitally importantproperty which all mouthpieces musthave, regardless of type material, isthat they are not carcinogenic or injuri-ous to one’s health in any way. Obvi-ously, this eliminates many metalalloys and synthetic compounds.

Now that you have a more completeunderstanding of the material side ofyour mouthpiece, please don’t thinkthat any one aspect of the mouthpiecewill automatically cure your problems.Regardless of material used, a poorlydesigned and/or made piece can’t bemade into a royal coach from a pump-kin just by this one change. We muststill consider all the aspects at length ifthe “perfect mouthpiece” is to befound. Good hunting! §