Hitting Altissimo Notes on a hard rubber MP v.s Metal MP

[Michael Bishop]

😎 Yesterday I met an Alto Saxophone player who says he struggled for the longest time hitting Altissimo notes on a hard-rubber Yamaha MP but switched to a metal MP and the Altissimo range for him was much easier for him to play. I asked him about his set up and he says he’s using a No.5 Jody Jazz MP. Have you ever heard any thing of the like? When it comes to Altissimo range, does it really make any difference of using a hard-rubber MP v.s. a metal MP? Will be getting Altissimo course soon…having lots of fun with Killer Blues right now 😎

[john]

weird! i was under the impression that metal is slightly harder to control?

[Michael Bishop]

That’s what I thought too, which struck me as kind of odd. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the construction of the MP itself v.s. just saying that hard metal MPs are easier to hit on the Altissimo range v.s. hard rubber MPs. I’ve seen lots of players on youtube, for example, that you can see they’re using a hard-rubber MP and have awesome tone. I know not all MPs are created equal, but in the end, doesn’t it just come down being able to play the full range of the Sax instead of relying on a specific MP to play the full range? Curious…….

[john]

i agree with that – regardless of mouthpiece you should be able to play the full range of notes. But recently i ditched my yamaha 4c for a no. 8 theo wanne kali rubber mouthpiece. for the first few days i could play with the same rico royal 2 reeds, and then by day 3 they became really hard going – i was getting tired a lot quicker, so i dropped down to 1.5’s and that took a lot of the pressure off playing – i could now play for several hours. The only problem now was the 1.5 rico royal reeds weren’t giving me the tones my mind was used to hearing, so now i went out and bought a bunch of different reeds – looking for the tone that i was in love with. I went rico’s, rico royal’s, la voz, hemke, rico jazz select file & unfiled all of low strength. Finally for my mouthpiece i refound that lovely tone that i’d lost with the rico jazz select filed 1.5.
lots of friends swear by vandorens, but i had no luck with them on my old mouthpiece, so for my new mouthpiece, i thought why not have another go on the vandorens, and was really please to find the green jazz 1.5’s were fantastic , on a par with the rico jazz select filed 1.5.

So i get the impression that some mouth pieces work better with a specific reed based on your body’s construction.

My instructor bought a new mouthpiece recently, and he went through a similar phase, where he told me he was trying to find the right make & strength of reed best suited to his style of playing. Perhaps the reeds that chap was using worked a lot better with the metal mouthpiece?

[john]

another interesting comment i’ve heard – french mouthpieces are the opposite of american mouthpieces ie in terms of using filed & unfiled reeds. I don’t agree with that because the ricoh jazz select filed reeds work just as well as the vandoren jazz unfiled reeds. its a funny beaste ye olde saxophone!!

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