[Saxamander]

I recently bought an inexpensive (well, OK, cheap) metal mouthpiece for my tenor. It played well and sounded good except for an unfortunate tendency to squeak (jump an octave) consistently, unavoidably and exclusively from E1 to E2. No such problem with any of my other mpces; I varied all the other variables, no change. Rather than pay to ship it back to China (about half the purchase price), I kept it for one last experiment:

The chamber had been created using a large bit to remove material between bore and floor, leaving burrs and bit tracks all over the place. I figured they could hardly have been intentional, so I filed them all off with a needle file and polished the area with a piece of 400-grit emery cloth wrapped over a bottle brush. Amazingly, it now sounds good and plays well, with no E-squeak.

Could that have been a genuine cause-effect relationship, or was it just a happy coincidence?

 

[1saxman]

Hard to say, but working on the transition area at the end of the window is known to improve a poorly-finished piece. By this I mean extending the shank bore to 'daylight', then blending it in. Otherwise I don't see how working on the throat could improve that 'squeak'.

 

[turf3]

Maybe your reed conformed over time to an uneven facing.

 

[Saxamander]

Maybe your reed conformed over time to an uneven facing.

The facing is slightly uneven, but I didn't keep any one reed in place long enough to induce any conformity, I think. On the other hand, something similar might have taken place- i.e. it may have been my embouchure/attack just getting used to the mouthpiece. It's hard (for me, at least) to think of any theoretical connection between the turbulence a burr might create, and a warble at any specific frequency.

 

[Bjroosevelt]

Did you smooth out the area where the mouthpiece joins the neck cork? You could have had a leak there that smoothing out solved.

 

[Saxamander]

Actually, as it seemed to have a nice snug fit, I very carefully avoided contact with the bore itself.

 

[MojoBari]

Squeaks are mostly caused by issues at the very tip. Crooked facing, high baffle. Ultra thin tip rails can squeak and chirp for some players. High resistance in the facing curve shape can cause the player to blow wit a lot of pressure to get the notes out. Pressure is the fuel for squeaks.

A rough chamber surface may not sound clear but it is not a source for squeaks.

 

[1saxman]

'Turbulence', as in 'air turbulence', should not be a part of any saxophone discussion. The term implies high-speed air movement which does not take place in a saxophone or mouthpiece. Shape and texture of the interior mouthpiece surfaces influence the acoustics of how it plays.

 

[MojoBari]

There may be some turbulence at the very tip of the mouthpiece where velocities get very high. But a few mms away the flow becomes so slow it is laminar. Laminar recirculation and vortexes are often incorrectly called turbulence.

 

[Saxamander]

I take your respective points, 1saxman and MojoBari. The notion that the burr and sharp edges internal to the mouthpiece had anything to do with its octave jumps now seems highly implausible. I think I've been supposing that a mouthpiece might have a resonant frequency that caused it to misbehave on certain notes, similar to a wolf tone on a violin. I'm forced to the conclusion that while a serious burr or sharp edge might have some conceivable effect on the tone quality (to the extent that it constitutes an aspect of the internal shape) it wouldn't impact on such a frequency — or, more likely, that no such analogy to a violin exists in the first place.