Unusual Mouthpiece for Alto - PBuzz??!

[Arvopart17]

I bought my 6 and 7 year olds PBuzz’s to have some fun last week and they have been making quite the racket. I grabbed one the other day to try and “show them how it’s done”.

I immediately noticed that the MP that the PBuzz comes with is a really odd size, it’s really small. My calipers (not very precise) show it’s somewhere near 0.88” to 0.9” inches wide, but almost as deep as a 6.5AL. The bore is tiny as well.

After playing about 30 seconds on the PBuzz I wondered what would happen if I put it in my cheap alto and what do you know, I actually like it! Super bright and sounds nothing like a tenor.

I’ve never seen an actual “real” mouthpiece this small - is this thing just a super odd size for kids or are there real world analogs for it?

It’s funny, the MP alone was worth the $20 I spent on the PBuzz itself. My daughter is going to start bugging me for it back soon.

The picture is the PBuzz next to my Bach 6.5AL.

[Burgerbob]

Probably designed for small faces, where even a 12C is too large for the dental structure of a sub-9 year old. Also, what "key" is the pBuzz in?

[Arvopart17]

All the way in, it plays a middle C, you get basically 5 “marked” positions on the tube for the kids to aim for with B, Bb, A, G, and down to F when it’s all the way out.

[Burgerbob]

Hmm. May be more related to a tenor horn mouthpiece (or in between) then.

[LeTromboniste]

When I used to play alto, it was with mouthpieces in that size range (22.5mm). Love the sound you get with that.

[Arvopart17]

Tenor/Alto horn pieces seem to cap out around 19.5mm, are there any commercial pieces in that 21-22mm range? I’m not there yet on putting down the $$ to get one, but I’m interested in what’s out there.

[harrisonreed]

That is crazy small. The cup width has almost nothing to do with the sound you get, other than the effect it has on cup volume and getting the right size for your dental structure (edit: and embouchure type). You can change the cup volume on a wide cup by making it shallow.

Also, look at that backbore. That also has a lot to do with the sound you're getting.

I would be curious to hear arpeggios played on that tiny mouthpiece.

[Redthunder]

I’ve gotten to spend a decent amount of time with the folks at Warwick who create these products over the past couple of years.

In their own words, pBuzz mouthpiece is designed as a middle ground between a French Horn/Trumpet mouthpiece size and a true low brass mouthpiece size (in terms of its rim at least). The pBuzz’s purpose as a trainer instrument for all brass makes it so that the skills learned on it could potentially transfer to any of the brass instruments once a child gets old enough. They wanted to make it easy to play but not specifically sized to any one of the instruments. Just get kids attuned to the sensation of how it feels to get your lips buzzing in a mouthpiece.

[WilliamLang]

i play a crazy small custom bach (smaller than a bach 19 i just got) on alto and it works really well for me. never quite got the keeping the same rim size school of thought (but to each their own.)

for commercial mouthpieces a shilke 42 will get you close.

[heinzgries]

mouthpieces for the german tenorhorn, which pitch is Bb and have the range like a tenor trombone, are between 22 -24 mm cup size. They have a normal tenor trombone shank and a small throat. Take a look here:
https://www.mundstueckbau-tilz.de/213-spezial-tilz.html
Sorry only german site avaiable. Kessel = cup, Bohrung = throat, Kesseltiefe = cup deep, F = shallow, MF = middle shallow, MT = middle deep, T = deep

[Arvopart17]

That is crazy small. The cup width has almost nothing to do with the sound you get, other than the effect it has on cup volume and getting the right size for your dental structure (edit: and embouchure type). You can change the cup volume on a wide cup by making it shallow.

This may be hitting on why I personally am liking the sounds and feel, the PBuzz is deeper than my Bach 15E, but it’s getting a similar, but not quiet the same bright and clear sound. I always felt like the 15E would get fuzzy on me sometimes and my lips got close to the bottom of the cup while playing. Maybe the smaller width with deeper cup is giving me a similar cup volume that fits my embouchure better.

[Arvopart17]

The pBuzz’s purpose as a trainer instrument for all brass makes it so that the skills learned on it could potentially transfer to any of the brass instruments once a child gets old enough. They wanted to make it easy to play but not specifically sized to any one of the instruments. Just get kids attuned to the sensation of how it feels to get your lips buzzing in a mouthpiece.

Not to turn this into an ad, but I can really appreciate what they have done here. My daughter is showing the most interest and we tried getting her a pBone alto to play with which was an immediate failure - she was getting extremely frustrated very fast. The PBuzz is basically a slide whistle that you buzz into and while it’s limited in what you can really play on it, it’s a total blast for her to play with. I actually noticed yesterday that she has started tonguing some of her notes rather than breath attacking everything. I can see how the PBuzz can be a useful teaching tool with the right guidance.