Since moving to Florida, I have had a chance to think about my equipment a bit more. My horn is an Atkinson Geyer 2k. I have owned it since 2013, and I am its second owner. It is a great instrument that let’s me do pretty much everything that I want, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about ways to improve it.

What made me think about mouthpieces a lot started with me forming a private studio in Tampa. The mouthpieces I am finding my middle school and high school students using have generally been awful. There have been so many students using mouthpieces that are way to small to produce any good results. Seeing way to many Bach 11’s have, made me switch out nearly every student I have, and most of them have ended up moving to my go-to mouthpiece, the Laskey 75G.

Seeing them switch and find more success made me think whether or not a change could be helpful for me too, so I decided it was time for an experiment. Houser mouthpieces recently had a sale on some of their popular models, and I thought it was time for a mouthpiece designed for a Geyer style horn. Enter my San Francisco cup…

I already owned a Houser H3 rim in silver that I like (just not stainless steel), so it made it easy to just buy the cup. It has only been a couple of days, and while I know that new mouthpieces don’t show their real colors for a while, these first two days have been a breath of fresh air. My sound is so much more focused that with my 75G. Dynamic range and articulation clarity have also improved. While I know that the difference of rim may have caused some of this, the San Francisco cup has definitely made a good first impression. I will be interested to see where it goes from here…