My Laskey 75G Journey
Thursday, June 16, 2022 by Billy Roberts | French horn
Update 9-18-2023: I've enjoyed the journey of figuring out what sound I want and how to obtain it. Last fall, I became convinced that a 17.5 mm mouthpiece such as the 75G was really a bit big for my face, as I have traditional “horn lips.” After trying out Laskey 70F and 70G mouthpieces, both with 17.0 mm inner diameters, I felt that the 70G was too bright for my embouchure, so I kept the Laskey 70F which gives a fuller "Farkas" sound. Not long after, I switched to a Stork CM15, trading the bold, clear tone and crisp articulations of the Laskey for the smooth, velvet tone and fluid slurs of the Stork. However, I still felt something lacking. I finally tried an Engelbert Schmid mouthpiece and found it to have a good balance of all of the characteristics that I was seeking. I played on a traditional Schmid 5, a 17.0 mm mouthpiece, for a while before finally deciding to try out the digital Schmid 8.5, which has a 17.5 mm interior diameter. It turned out to be a keeper. Please see my January 2023 blog for more information about the Schmid.
Every horn player has a mouthpiece journey of some sort. Even if you stick with the same mouthpiece your entire life, you have to go through the initial stages of finding the correct placement on your lips, figuring out the best leadpipe angle, even understanding how to best hold the horn so that the mouthpiece does not put too much pressure on one side of the lip or the other. But this blog is not about how to best use the mouthpiece. Rather, I’ll talk about the journey I went on that ended with the Laskey 75G. In this blog I look specifically at my personal experience with various standard mouthpieces, as well as a trial of a Laskey 75G European shank mouthpiece vs. the American shank counterpart.
My first mouthpiece was a Holton-Farkas medium-deep cup that just happened to have been left with a school horn that I used in high school. We were responsible for providing our own mouthpieces, but since it was just left behind by a prior student I was welcome to keep it. It actually served me well for several years. Back in college, I tried about a half dozen of the standard mouthpieces that I had read about or heard about. I think a Giardinelli C8 was my first upgrade from the high school mouthpiece. It worked pretty well, but I subsequently used a Schilke for a while and, at one point, even tried going back to the Holton-Farkas MDC. Looking back, most of the mouthpieces that I tried during college were slightly smaller than the mouthpiece I eventually settled on.
I discovered the Laskey 75G within a couple of years after graduating from college and wished I had found it sooner. The rim contour had the comfort of slightly flatter rims that I was used to, but somehow the shape just seemed to allow for more flexibility and ease of slurring through all octaves of the horn. It had no effect on my range, and I don’t remember it providing any momentous change in tone, but it was just easier to play on and get the tone I wanted. These factors also increased my endurance, and practicing for two hours a day quickly became more of a joy than a chore. Previously, I practiced because I loved to perform. Now, I practiced because I just enjoyed time with the horn, regardless of whether or not anyone else would ever hear the fruits of my labor.
I still think the old-school advice to find a standard mouthpiece and stick with it the first few years is a generally good rule of thumb, but once you have the playing fundamentals down it is a good idea to consider how that works with your facial structure. I sold all of my mouthpieces in 2010 when I decided to focus on voice. When I came back to the horn near the beginning of 2021, I read a bit about mouthpieces to refresh my memory and quickly ordered a Yamaha 32C4 to start with. The Yamaha was a good all-around mouthpiece and had similar dimensions to the 75G, but after a few months I was ready to order another Laskey 75G. The first time I practiced with my new Laskey mouthpiece, it immediately felt like home. The three things I found, for me, were better endurance, greater security in the high register, and more nuance of tone with the Laskey 75G mouthpiece.
Since the Laskey 75G worked so well for me for so many years, I thought it was worth trying the 80G to see how the larger inner rim diameter affected my playing. It immediately provided a more free-blowing feel to the Yamaha single B-flat horn that I have been using. There were moments that I felt as if I had my old Conn 8D back. However, I did sacrifice a whole step at the top of my range and, after several weeks, it was evident that I was not developing much endurance with the 80G. Although slurring was much easier throughout the range of the horn and I really loved the tone I was getting, after about six weeks of using the Laskey 80G I put the 75G back on my horn and immediately felt at home again. Within twenty minutes I regained all of the security that had been missing with the slightly larger mouthpiece. When I returned to the Laskey 75G, I also noticed that I could still get the tone that I had found with the 80G by simply using my embouchure more effectively.
Similarly, I recently tried a European shank 75G to see how it affected intonation and centering on my horn, which takes either type of shank. I was immediately struck by the presence of sound that I produced with the European shank. However, there was less room for error in intonation because, although the notes were clearer, the slots felt more narrow. I also felt that there was less nuance of tone with the European shank, so after about a week I returned to the American shank Laskey 75G. Just as the 80G held the allure of better tone but was not worth sacrificing security in the high range, the European shank was not worth it for me because it meant sacrificing nuance for presence.
In the end, I have more endurance with the Laskey 75G than other mouthpieces with similar dimensions simply because I’m not fighting the mouthpiece to get the sound that I want. I can still get the tone that I want by utilizing the air and embouchure efficiently, but I also have a wider range of tone colors to choose from by sticking with the Laskey 75G American shank mouthpiece. Flexibility, comfort, security and accuracy win over a potentially bigger sound or other benefits.
