gohorns Posted September 1, 2004 Share Posted September 1, 2004 Are there any French Horn performance majors out there that have marched? And how did you keep up your chops for horn while on tour? I want to march in a few years and I was just wondering if anyone had anything that they did while on tour so they had something to come back and play horn with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitn0926 Posted September 1, 2004 Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Find a corps that lets their mellos use French horn mouthpieces. SCV let me use mine when I marched, but that was maybe a Dean Westman thing. Edited September 2, 2004 by pitn0926 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smglennon Posted September 1, 2004 Share Posted September 1, 2004 I was not a performance major ,but an ed major. I've played on benge mellos 6 and stork customs while marching and bachs and conns and dennis wicks on horn. It always took a few weeks to get my quality of sound back and to remember where all those partials were but it always came back strong. My teacher used to say that I had chops of iron, I guess she was refering to the beatings they took in corps. I even took my horn to DCA finals so I could get ready to play in Sept one year. I think playing on the mouthpiece while on tour can help but I've never like the sound mello players make while playing mellos on french horn mouthpieces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 but I've never like the sound mello players make while playing mellos on french horn mouthpieces. Strange. In my experience, a horn mouthpiece produced a much darker tone. The mello mouthpiece produced a very airy tone, but was better for endurance and ease of marching with. I also think the mello mouthpiece is a crutch for playing high... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mellojaphoney Posted September 6, 2004 Share Posted September 6, 2004 but I've never like the sound mello players make while playing mellos on french horn mouthpieces. Strange. In my experience, a horn mouthpiece produced a much darker tone. The mello mouthpiece produced a very airy tone, but was better for endurance and ease of marching with. I also think the mello mouthpiece is a crutch for playing high... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah.. I play on a horn moutpiece and i find that playing high C is quite difficult. In contrast, i pulled out my UMI mello 6 and was playing on that for a bit and was able to play lip slurs much more easily, as well as an increased high range. The only thing is, i think mello moutpieces sound so horribly bright in lieu of horn piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellopet Posted September 7, 2004 Share Posted September 7, 2004 but I've never like the sound mello players make while playing mellos on french horn mouthpieces. Strange. In my experience, a horn mouthpiece produced a much darker tone. The mello mouthpiece produced a very airy tone, but was better for endurance and ease of marching with. I also think the mello mouthpiece is a crutch for playing high... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah.. I play on a horn moutpiece and i find that playing high C is quite difficult. In contrast, i pulled out my UMI mello 6 and was playing on that for a bit and was able to play lip slurs much more easily, as well as an increased high range. The only thing is, i think mello moutpieces sound so horribly bright in lieu of horn piece. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> in my experience with switching mouthpieces, the main reason to use a mello mouthpiece is volume. with long tones (basically giving time to adjust) you can get the tone nice and dark and full just like on horn. horn mouthpieces, i was told at least, dont give as much volume. i spent all last year switching between a trumpet moutpiece and a horn mouthpiece every day, spending a couple hours on each. what i found was that i was actually able to progress on both but (duh) my chops were always tired. it made it a little harder to tune on horn and it reduced my range on trumpet, but seemed to help my range on horn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melloageout07 Posted September 8, 2004 Share Posted September 8, 2004 my section leader is a horn perf. major. He had a custom mouthpiece made, it had the rim of a horn mouthpiece but the depth of a mello mouthpiece, I think he said it cost him about $160 to have it done. It was a very cool mouthpiece. Other than that I couldn't help you cause I'm a trumpet and horn player so I go back and forth on mouthpieces a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow_7 Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 The main concern is that the rim of the mouthpieces match. At least the inner rim diameter. If this remains contant adjusting between the two isn't as traumatizing. The other factor is muscle memory of sorts. Once you've developed muscles, it only takes about 1/3rd the time to redevelop those muscles. Assuming you stop using them all together, which wont be the case if you continue to play another brass. Just make sure you factor in enough rest/hang time to allow any drum corps swelling to reside. And condition your chops once you get back, instead of going full bore everyday, all the time. In general fitness you do one day strength training, then the next flexibility. In brass playing there tends to be a two day echo. If you play well today, you'll probably play well two days from today. If you're having an off day, tomorrow might be a good day, but the next will probably be another off day. Some studio guys have to warm up for four hours before their chops start to feel right depending on the day and what they did or didn't do yesterday. Shadow_7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicMan1825 Posted September 12, 2004 Share Posted September 12, 2004 i don't think playing on a horn mouthpiece on a mello would do much good because of the nessessary posture to play mello. On a french horn you play into the mouthpiece at a downword angle, but on a mello you play straight into the horn, which may alter your embsure if you try to play on a horn mouthpiece. I am a trumpet/mello player, so this is just what I have observed from others, but it seems logical to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitn0926 Posted September 16, 2004 Share Posted September 16, 2004 i don't think playing on a horn mouthpiece on a mello would do much good because of the nessessary posture to play mello. On a french horn you play into the mouthpiece at a downword angle, but on a mello you play straight into the horn, which may alter your embsure if you try to play on a horn mouthpiece. I am a trumpet/mello player, so this is just what I have observed from others, but it seems logical to me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The majority of the professional trumpet players I've ever observed play with a downward angle, so why would it be different for mello players? There's no difference between the angle when using a horn mouthpiece versus a mello mouthpiece. Either way the head must be tilted slightly back. The same holds true for other brass instruments as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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