Putting mouthpiece on neck

[CSK]

I am having a little trouble putting my mouthpiece on the neck of my saxophone. Am I suppose to keep turning the mouthpiece so that only a very little bit of the cork on the neck is showing?

Carol Keeton

[jazzbluescat]

No. It should only have to go approximately 2/3 down. Be sure to put some cork grease on the cork and it'll go on easily. Use a tuner or another instrument that is tuned to A-440 to get a tuning note for positioning the mpc, then mark the spot.

[Dave Dolson]

I agree with the cork-grease advice, but placement may vary. My Ref 54 alto and most of my sops require most mouthpieces to be on almost to the end of the cork. My longer-shanked Soloist doesn't need to go on the alto as far as my Super Session because of the difference in overall length.

But proper position can be solved once the cork is sized to accept the mouthpiece. Merely tune your horn to a known A-440. DAVE

[Gargoyle]

Yup, everybody else just about summed it up. With a new horn, you want a lot of grease in the beginning to soften up the cork. Then, play an A as you push the mtpc in, until it is in tune. When you have the thing in tune, stop pushing in (and mark the spot with a pencil on the cork).

[Gordon (NZ)]

....Be sure to put some cork grease on the cork and it'll go on easily.

It is VERY common for brand new corks on necks to be far too tight to get a mouthpiece on.

Possible reasons:

1. Original corks are almost always of even thickness, and the neck is tapered, resulting in a tapered cork, i.e. conical rather than cylindrical. At least the upper half of a cork should be thinned, often to almost zero thickness, to make the result more cylindrical. This would be FAR too much trouble fro a manufacturer. Many manufacturers do not even round off the leading edge of the cork. I know of NO manufacturer who goes to the trouble of tapering the cork thickness. An occasional sales outlet may do it.
2. Original corks are often of very low quality cork e,g, full of sappy material, making it very difficult to compress.
3. Original corks are now often of inappropriate composite or synthetic material, which does not compress easily, or has too much surface friction and does not retain lubricant.
4. The diameter of mouthpiece holes varies for different mouthpieces. Cork thickness needs to be adjusted to suit any given mouthpiece socket. Cork comes only in a limited range of thicknesses. I cannot think of any manufacturer who make an effort to match the cork thickness to the mouthpiece. Sales outlets may do this.

After a good cork grease is applied, it is rather difficult to adjust the thickness of a cork. With experience, a technician can adjust to an appropriate, over-tight fit BEFORE applying cork grease. Perhaps this is why manufacturers supply tenon corks UN-greased, but I rather think that the only reason is to reduce production time.

SOMETIMES a solution is to permanently compress the cork. FORCE the mouthpiece on at least as far as you will ever need it, and leave it like this for several days. Of course, in doing this some of the resilience of the cork will be destroyed. The resilience is definitely needed if the cork is ever to accommodate different mouthpieces.

[Dave Dolson]

Gordon: For the record, I didn't write that, but I agreed with it. DAVE

[Gordon (NZ)]

Sorry, my error. It was written by azzbluescat.