When I left Berklee because of a throat injury, I was playing Dukoffs. I think I was on a D8. Those mouthpieces were obviously is built for power, and not necessarily fatness. I always marvel at the players that can still play them and sound halfway decent. I unfortunately nowadays sound like a chainsaw on anything with that type of baffle or aggressive nature.
When I started coming back from my injury, I learned I could no longer play those mouthpieces. I could instantly feel the stress it put on my throat, and I just flat out sounded bad on them at that point. So I went to Ottolinks. I liked them, and still play them a lot nowadays, but it wasn’t nimble enough for me. I also wasn’t producing a sound that I felt comfortable with on contemporary gigs.
I saw an advertisement for the Vandoren V16 mouthpiece in an issue of Downbeat magazine. I looked at it, and it instantly looked like something I could possibly play. It was thin like my old Dukoff but didn’t seem to have the aggressive chamber or baffle in it.
I was working at Rayburn Music and we got some in. I played it, and instantly noticed that it didn’t bother my throat. I bought it on the spot.
I got it home and spent sometime on it, and it literally felt like a cross between my Ottolinks and a Dukoff…but leaned more towards the dukoff. This was perfect. I could play a straight ahead Jazz hit as well as a contemporary hit. Most importantly, it didn’t hurt my throat, or my sinuses (which have become a factor) and maybe were more of a factor back in the day than I knew.
I played this piece for years. It singlehandedly allowed me to get by skills back and develop my own voice. I have done some of my finest documented playing on that mouthpiece.
I would always get questions on YouTube about what I was playing on. This mouthpiece worked for me for so long because of some of it’s strengths. The smaller chamber meant it didn’t put stress on my throat, and projected. The rollover baffle also didn’t aggravate my throat or sinuses by speeding up the air too much. The smaller tip made it really nimble. Really helped my funk playing.
I make it sound like a great mouthpiece, and it was for me, but it was far from perfect. It could sound very thin on the wrong reed and the altissimo wasn’t as precise as you might expect from a newer mouthpiece. You had to pay attention when going up high. It would skip partials on you or notes would flat out just not come out. I learned to deal with it though.
Unfortunately, I ended up outgrowing it. It became too small for me and I needed some more room to operate. This is when I started going back to Ottolinks and looking at ways to get a more contemporary sound out of them…more importantly, really dial in my voice.
I have yet to find another mouthpiece that I spent as many years in a row playing and being comfortable on. Now it’s a lot of working to maintain rather than moving ahead. Annoying.
The search is still ongoing.