[blaine hoopes]

I have had this mouthpiece since the 1970's It came with one of the Yamaha sopranos I had (wish I still had the horns). Can't remember which model though. I have long since lost the special ligature with the matching notch on top - unless I come across it someday going thru boxes in the basement. As you can see in the picture, it will work (sort of) with a regular ligature (if you don't mind that ligature getting bent a little out of round) but it would work so much better if I grind off that center ridge that locked into the original ligature. Or I could shape a more defined notch into the standard ligature shown in the picture below.

This is refaced to a 7* and it plays/sounds great! You don't see these mouthpieces very often and I thought I should ask what you guys think before I remove that centering ridge on the top. Is this the sort of thing that I should leave on in case I sell it one day -- maybe someone with a vintage Yamaha soprano wanting the original goofy mouthpiece? Since it has been refaced (it wasn't anything to write home about with the stock facing - it was very narrow tip opening) and the matching ligature would be pretty hard to find it makes sense to me to take that ridge off. Or I could easily modify this stock ligature by shaping the corresponding notch.

what do you guys think? Does anyone remember which model this would have come with?

 

[Jazz House]

I'd keep it original. It's a cool bit of design.