In reading all the info that is passed on this site it is clear
that many of you are very professional and far advanced from what I am
doing.  I have been playing the alto sax for a year.

I bought a Kielwerth sax and played for a while on the mouth piece that
came with it.  It was Ok - but nothing special.  Someone gave me an ARB
mouth piece that has an opening of about .095.  This helped me with the
low notes, but gave me some problems on the very high notes.  

I began to experiment a little.  Not wanting to spend hundreds on a
mouth piece until I knew the setup I wanted - I purchased a Hite Premier
mouthpiece with a .068 opening.  It was OK.  I was back to having
problems with the very low notes and the sound was diminished due to a
shorter facing.

I recently purchased a Hawkins *7 with a .080 opening, but I am not
happy with that.  

The sites I purchase from all say mouth pieces are not returnable
(which I understand).  Even with buying inexpensive mouth pieces in
search of a setup that's right for me this could get expensive.
Can you give me a better way?  Does anyone know a place in the Chicago
area that will let me try mouthpieces??

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Dave

The Woodwind & Brasswind allows trials.  They do quite a business by 
mail and are not too far from you in So Bend IN.  

Runyon allows trials.  I'm sure there are others.

There may be some minor restocking/cleaning fees, like $1.

You can buy and sell on Ebay without losing a lot.  The worse 
practice is buying new and selling used.  Prices on eBay are 
typically 50-65% of new.

WW&BW in South Bend. There are others and a quick search through the local
yellow pages should give you a good list.

-----Original Message-----
From: sinner3417 [mailto:dsinason@...]
Sent: Tuesday, 26 November 2002 3:29 AM
To: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MouthpieceWork] Choosing a mouthpiece


In reading all the info that is passed on this site it is clear
that many of you are very professional and far advanced from what I am
doing.  I have been playing the alto sax for a year.

I bought a Kielwerth sax and played for a while on the mouth piece that
came with it.  It was Ok - but nothing special.  Someone gave me an ARB
mouth piece that has an opening of about .095.  This helped me with the
low notes, but gave me some problems on the very high notes.

I began to experiment a little.  Not wanting to spend hundreds on a
mouth piece until I knew the setup I wanted - I purchased a Hite Premier
mouthpiece with a .068 opening.  It was OK.  I was back to having
problems with the very low notes and the sound was diminished due to a
shorter facing.

I recently purchased a Hawkins *7 with a .080 opening, but I am not
happy with that.

The sites I purchase from all say mouth pieces are not returnable
(which I understand).  Even with buying inexpensive mouth pieces in
search of a setup that's right for me this could get expensive.
Can you give me a better way?  Does anyone know a place in the Chicago
area that will let me try mouthpieces??

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Dave


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