crowmadic

This is a question about your personal equipment (mouthpieces & trumpets only). What do/would you do if you had a 3-5 piece Combo gig for one week where they requested, or you chose to have a dark/mello sound throughout the gig, and the following week had a Latin gig where you were lead trumpet with plenty of "screechers!" throughout the gig? I'm not a professional player, and don't expect to be for a while. There are a lot of better players on TM than I am, and I"m hoping you'll respond to my question without wise cracks like, "Find someone else to play the gigs, or pray, etc." (although I do my share of wisecracking). I'd use classical trumpet pieces for examples but I don't know many. If there's something you do to get your embouchure in shape for such a challenge in the short interval of time I'd like to know........just trying to learn what the pros. do............thanks, tom

PH

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Fluffy615

Tom,
I would agree with PH. I do everything on my usual mouthpiece and horn. I don't switch at all. It takes a lot of listening and some experience to adapt your sound to fit different styles, and you probably will develop that quality as you progress. There are equiptment changes that you can make. Some players will use different horns for different styles. If you own one horn, then a mouthpiece change could help. The "classical" piece that you mentioned would be good for the combo gig, and something with a shallower cup and different backbore might help with the latin gig. Nothing is a sure thing, but these might help a little.
Bob

Alex Yates

Exactamundo!

Brekelefuw

I never change the equipment to suit the gig. Being able to adapt your sound is an essential part of playing an instrument.
Some people differ.

Like PH said. It is all about your mental attitude.

djm6701

I wouldn't change equipment unless I was moving from a commercial to classical setting, and even then I'd likely only change mouthpieces, not the horn.

The other thing that's going to affect your sound is that playing in a quintet is going to be in a different register on your horn vs. playing latin lead, so your sound is going to have more upper harmonics anyway.

AZ_Brad

wilcox96

I don't know if there is a right or wrong answer here. I do agree that getting in the mental mode of whatever genre you have to play (sound/style/etc) is extremely important. To that end, you "can" fool most of the people, most of the time...if you are competent enough to do so. (not the horn..the player concept).

Still, I would submit that subtle differences would be noticed if you listened to a specialized person/equipment set up on a particular genre (classical/pop/latin/jazz/what have you)...vs someone using "middle of the road" stuff playing the same. This would also be true of whether you are considering what's "good enough" for run of the mill/local type work vs a real professional setting. Would "okay" be good enough?

Can you make do/do well on all around equipment with perhaps a mpc change? yep. Is it optimum? hmmmm?

For what it's worth from a life long musical chameleon...

rowuk

While it could happen, I am not sure that your case is realistic. Generally you hire a lead player for that type of work and a mellow player for the other stuff. We can get back to the chosen few that play everything like Lew Soloff or Wayne Bergeron, but even there, they will put their stamp on the gig and not comprimise their own concept. I can't imagine anybody telling those players that they brought the wrong horn or that their sound was not dark enough.............. even if that was the case!
I do have various horns and do change equipment if the gig calls for it. For lead work I have a Monette BL or B4L, for mellow a B2 or B2D mouthpieces and for very mellow I use my flugelhorn.
Classically, we have exactly the same case. There are players that do 99% on a Bach C trumpet. I switch between my rotary valved, piston valved Bb, C, D, Eb, G, High A/Bb or natural trumpet, cornet or flugelhorn depending what the conductor or I feels best portraits the music. There are valid arguments for using many different instruments. The most valid one is that the conductor wants to have you back for the next gig!
An active interest in the various "colors" possible with and without additional equipment is another factor that makes the trumpet so challenging!

crowmadic

I'd like to take my hat off to AZ Brad and rowuk. I constantly read Threads that talk about an individual's collection of horns, and advice about what mouthpiece will accomplish what. The impression I get from some of the answers here is that one horn and one mouthpiece covers it all. I guess THERE IS PERFECT EQUIPMENT for some pros. (inabling them to play anything that's put in front of them, and in that style). Is there really one mouthpiece/horn that can take you as low and as high as required, with the appropriate timber/color for the style? If so, I can't wait to reach a skill level that allows me to use one mouthpiece and one trumpet for everything, shoppings going to be fun. rowuk, can you go from one of your stated mouthpieces to the other without some adapting exercise? If so, what makes that possible?...........thanks to all