| Larry,
I have to disagree somewhat with what you are saying. If the backbore of the mouthpiece is the crux of the problem---then how in the world do I play so much better with a tight backbore? (I play best with a Schilke 15a4a)
When I say 'backpressure' what I mean is this-----if you take a narrow plastic bag (not a balloon, which stretches too much) and blow into it and keep blowing---what happens? The bag fills up and if you've kept the air from escaping, back pressure begins to build up. In the medical field, we have devices we can have you breath through that do this and it creates what is called 'PEEP'---for positive, end expiratory pressure. This is what I seem to be feeling on some of these horns. It doesn't make any difference what size aperature you use to blow into the bag---the only difference aperature size makes is how fast you will blow up the bag.
Where does the air go that you blow into the horn? Larry mentions that it doesn't take as much air to play a long passage as you blow into the horn. You can figure that out pretty quick by blowing a full, hard breath into your horn with your hand over the bell----you don't feel much air coming out, do you? So, where did it go? Absorbed by the horn to make it vibrate?
As for road chops---Larry is onto something here, I think. My daughters trumpet teacher is a great guy named Wayne Theirault. Wayne is a mostly retired pro with a huge library of recorded trumpet music. We got to talking one night about the giants of the past and Wayne was saying that we don't have giants like we did in the past. The only reason we could come up with had to do with what Larry was talking about with road chops---the giants of the past made do with what we would call inferior equipment. They forced the horn to do what they needed it to do----so is the problem today that we run into problems and instead of working harder to find a solution, instead we pick up a 'better' horn? Something to think about! :?
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Gabriel is NOT a woodwind player! |