Tootsall

and a big AMEN to that!

stchasking

I will sell you my entire mouth piece collection for $200.00.
It has 5sv, 14a4a, 13a4a with my initials on it, stork, benge, cousinon. All kinds of mouth pieces I don't use. Some are drilled out, some have the rims turned. One is a Maynard jet tone. All of them have been coated with magic high note oil. I will sell you the high note oil at $200.00 for 5 ounces.

My favorites are three identical Bach 3D. One in each trumpet case and one in my car. I progressed in my understanding of embouchure formation by reading everything I could find. I joined ITG and asked a lot of questions. I bought a lot of "how to" books at ITG conferences. I talked to a lot of pro players at conferences.

It was, and still is, a study that requires practice and more practice. Find a teacher that can communicate with you and has been through the mouth piece quest. Curiosity is good. Experimenting is good. Spending a bunch of money is not good. Did I mention practicing? ( I put in 2.5 hours last night after a 1.5 hour rehearsal. The mouth piece felt as good at the end as at the beginning. It took 20 years to get that mouth piece.)

__________________
"I was performing professionally at age 17 and have never had a real job." Allen Vizzutti

http://cdbaby.com/cd/mcking

Gary Schutza

I say stick to your 3C. It's a nice all around mouthpiece. As long as your particular mouthpiece is comfortable on your face (I mean the inner edge isn't too sharp). I like to go through as many copies of a particular size as I can find to pick out the one that is most comfortable. I may be quite different than you, but I much prefer a very rounded inner edge. Makes playing for the hours and hours a day that we do possible without cutting my lip over time. And by the way, unless you are looking at very high-end mouthpieces mouthpieces of the same stamped size can be very different. As the cutting tool is used on a run of mouthpieces it wears down. The mouthpieces cut at the beginning of the run will be different (larger?) than those made near the end of the run. I don't know about your Blessing, but Bach mouthpieces, while still probably the standard, also have quite a lot of variance in copies of the same size.
Just another thing for us to obsess about.

chip schutza