I've been experimenting again, and I am now convinced that a mouthpiece
becomes more responsive if I enlarge the window area by about 20%. I've
tried this procedure on several different brands of tenor pieces that I had
sitting on my desk, and the results seem to be consistent. Some pieces in my
collection (Guardala, metal Claude Lakey, Runyon Quantum) already had larger
than typical windows, and these pieces seem to play the best. I'd be
interested in any thoughts on this matter.

 

STEVE GOODSON

SAXOPHONE DESIGNER TO THE STARS

 

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Did you alter the Guardala, Lakey etc for larger windows - and see further
improvements;   or did you alter some other mouthpieces to larger window
dimensions similar to the Guardala et al?

Did you make changes in just the window length, or did you narrow the rails
to widen the window as well?

Barry

on 6/21/09 11:40 AM, STEVE GOODSON at saxgourmet@... wrote:

> I've been experimenting again, and I am now convinced that a mouthpiece
> becomes more responsive if I enlarge the window area by about 20%. I've
> tried this procedure on several different brands of tenor pieces that I had
> sitting on my desk, and the results seem to be consistent. Some pieces in my
> collection (Guardala, metal Claude Lakey, Runyon Quantum) already had larger
> than typical windows, and these pieces seem to play the best. I'd be
> interested in any thoughts on this matter.
> 
> 
> 
> STEVE GOODSON
> 
> SAXOPHONE DESIGNER TO THE STARS

I used the Guardala, Lakey, and others as a model..I altered the window
length and narrowed the rails to widen the window at the shank (not tip)
end.I'm pretty impressed with the results I'm getting and plan to continue
experimenting. 

 

As I looked at the various mouthpieces I've got sitting around here I was
impressed with the difference in window size. I also note that I see very
little discussion about this aspect of the mouthpiece. You never know: if I
ruin enough mouthpieces I might just learn something!

 

I've got a couple of Guardalas that are really strong players, and I am not
about to change a thing on them. I've also got a bunch of ersatz Guardalas
from across the Great Waters to the West which once you get them up to spec
play about the same, so I can experiment there.

 

Now that I've figured out something that seems to work I'm going to pursue
most of my experiments on some of my own designs, since I'm very familiar
with how they play and I have a large supply of blanks that we can't sell
for one cosmetic reason or another.

 

From: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com [mailto:MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Barry Levine
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 5:20 PM
To: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MouthpieceWork] Enlarging the window

 






Did you alter the Guardala, Lakey etc for larger windows - and see further
improvements; or did you alter some other mouthpieces to larger window
dimensions similar to the Guardala et al?

Did you make changes in just the window length, or did you narrow the rails
to widen the window as well?

Barry

on 6/21/09 11:40 AM, STEVE GOODSON at saxgourmet@...
<mailto:saxgourmet%40cox.net>  wrote:

> I've been experimenting again, and I am now convinced that a mouthpiece
> becomes more responsive if I enlarge the window area by about 20%. I've
> tried this procedure on several different brands of tenor pieces that I
had
> sitting on my desk, and the results seem to be consistent. Some pieces in
my
> collection (Guardala, metal Claude Lakey, Runyon Quantum) already had
larger
> than typical windows, and these pieces seem to play the best. I'd be
> interested in any thoughts on this matter.
> 
> 
> 
> STEVE GOODSON
> 
> SAXOPHONE DESIGNER TO THE STARS