Back in 2009 Bruce Hembd posted an article with the evocative title “Heavy Metal Devices,” which goes into topics including stem weights and heavy mouthpieces. It’s a good article well worth checking out:
Me and “heavy metal”
While this is something Bruce experimented with, I think at that time I was maybe just too stubborn to try trendy things. I did briefly have a stem weight, but that was it.
I did shift around mouthpieces a few (maybe too many) times over the years, but often I was thinking in the back of my mind I wanted to use something my students could actually buy, and that worked for me and would work for them.
These past few years, though, I’ve come around to I just need to find what makes my playing easier/better, with no concern that it works for anyone but me. If it’s vintage, so be it. And I made some good progress towards that new ideal not too long ago, described further here:
And then, opportunity knocked.
Introducing a pair of “B’s”
Moosewood mouthpieces were originally made here in Phoenix (actually Sun City) by Tom Greer. As a result, quite a few of the originals are floating around locally and occasionally pop up for sale. I was lucky enough to have the chance to purchase this pair recently. They had been used by a local player who recently passed on, undoubtedly made specifically for him by Tom.
From the current description in the Atkinson Website, the B cup is a “Chicago/Geyer contour, medium cup, fast response,” with a #12 bore. My memory was it was the most popular model and worked on lots of horns. Side point also being, I have several B cups, but none are as standard as these. Mine have smaller shanks and smaller bores, meant to work better with my big Paxman, which was my standard horn early in my years at ASU (and used on both of my first two CDs).
The one on the left is a “MegaMoose.” I don’t think I’ve ever tried one before. Heres what Bruce wrote related to those, giving also a little insight into Tom:
I eventually graduated to his Moosewood Cartouche mouthpieces (“MegaMoose”) which are practical double, if not triple, the weight of a traditional mouthpiece. When asked about this how this extra weight helps, he had no definitive answers.
“Is it the extra density that keeps overtones from escaping the mouthpiece?” I asked in complete ignorance. “Does that extra weight send more good stuff down into the horn?”
Tom looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno,” he casually replied. “Somehow, for you it works. So there!”
What do I think now?
First off, I think both of these are among the very best mouthpieces I’ve ever used on my Patterson Geyer — although they are not as good as other options I have on my Paxman. It’s all magic after a certain point, how a mouthpiece interacts with your horn, something I was thinking a lot about this past fall.
Also it makes sense that the mouthpieces Tom made for me back in the day were not for my Patterson, and for whatever reasons these two new (to me) B cups both feel really nice on that horn.
(The black rims are Houghton H-3 rims, my current standard rim).
I’ve only played them a little for others, but the initial consensus is they both sound good, just a bit different than each other. As to feel, I’m liking the MegaMoose the best, it has some of the best slurs across my break range, which I’d like to think the extra weight helps. At the least it’s making my practice very interesting.
To close, if you are looking for something a little different, with a bit different feel, you might reconsider the heavy mouthpiece. It remains a viable option.
