Saxophone Mouthpieces

 If you haven't already, I suggest taking a look at another one of my discussion topics: Misconceptions about Equipment.

There's a lot of questions that probably go through your head when trying to choose your first mouthpiece.

• What kind of mouthpiece should I get?
• What's the difference between a open tip and a closed tip? A large chamber and a small chamber?
• Should I get hard rubber or metal? How about crystal?

I'll try my best to answer all these questions and give you the best advice in making this easy. If you have any other questions you'd like to see me answer, please email me at vu0tran@yahoo.com Thanks!

• What kind of mouthpiece should I get? 

Well, that really all depends on you. What kind of style do you want to be playing? Classical saxophone or jazz saxophone? What kind of tone do you want? Do you want an edgy tone or a rounded tone? A warm tone or a bright tone? The best strategy to find out what mouthpiece to get is to down to your local music store, maybe Kennelly Keys and Mills Music, ask if they have mouthpieces you can sample and bring your horn. Try them all and if you like one of them and the price is right, go ahead and buy it. If too pricey, you can always look to buy used ones from www.saxontheweb.net or eBay, craigslist, etc. You also go to www.wwbw.com for brand new mouthpieces.

Here are some mouthpieces I can suggest to try for a first timer.

Jazz
Meyer
Rousseau Studio Jazz
Jody Jazz (anything)
Phil Barone
Otto Links

Classical
Selmer C*
Caravan
Vandoren
Ralph Morgan

• What's the difference between a open tip and a closed tip? A large chamber and a small chamber?

The tip opening of a mouthpiece is the width of the edge of the mouthpiece opening. A larger tip opening will mean having to use harder saxophone reeds. A smaller tip will mean having to use softer reeds. A large tip opening is used more when playing jazz. Usually between a 5M-8M on the meyer scale. Generally, I would go for a 6M or a 7M. The larger the tip opening usually means the more volume and projection you'll get. So if you're playing lead alto or something, you might want to go for a 7M.

If instead you are playing classical saxophone, a smaller tip opening is generally desired. Anywhere from a 2M-6M. 

Likewise is for chamber sizes, the larger the chamber, the more projection and the warmer the tone. There isn't much of an option though to choose the chamber size so you shouldnt' have to worry about this too much.

• Should I get hard rubber or metal?

This is a good question. Again, it all comes down on how you want to sound and what you want to be playing. Generally though, metal mouthpieces are used more on tenor saxophones than on alto or soprano saxophones. I find that metal mouthpieces on altos can be way too edgy and over the top. It doesn't give much of a desireable sound since altos tend to have an edgy tone to begin with. However, if you are playing a tenor saxophone, generally, they produce more of a warm and rounded sound altos do and therefore, you can get away with using a metal mouthpiece.

So to answer that question, if you play alto, stick to hard rubber unless you really like the sound of a metal and you've tried a lot of hard rubbers and you're sure. If you're playing tenor then definitely take a look at some metal mouthpieces especially if you want a more edgy tone when your tone is naturally more rounded.