What is a Mouthpiece Throat Size? - A Brief Introduction for Trumpet Players

For commercial playing/lead, I use a vintage custom shallow double cup with a 34 throat, as measured by Terry Warburton. The extra-wide double cup throat entrance and the complete lack of much of any cylindrical-section to the 34 throat make it play more open than the very small 34 throat size would otherwise seem. It helps me play with some authority into the double-high AND Triple-high register, but only if I use a very focused and sensitive embouchure with a very small and fast air-stream. I pair this tight mouthpiece with an open-playing lightly-braced and lightweight .462 Nova LA trumpet. This gives me a bright-cut at even a relaxed MF dynamic, without gassing my face. I can easily still top any sort of band with this mouthpiece, it is not true that large throats give you a louder sound, because they require more air and energy from your body to play AT EVERY DYNAMIC, in comparison to smaller throats. It is easier to play louder with more endurance on a smaller throat. Cat Anderson played on a .500-ish super shallow cup with a 30 throat, and easily screamed amd shouted over the entire Ellington band from the 1940’s-1960’s, and there wasn’t a “weak” player in Ellington’s band. Nobody could claim he wasn’t loud because he didn’t use a symphonic 24 throat… lol.

Jon, I really appreciate your videos and keep coming back to them for reference for both me and my students! I hope you will continue to make these informative videos! Thank you! 🎺🎵🎶👍

Thanks! This was very informative.

Great work Jon!

Great work!!!

Thanks, this is very helpful

Forget the guys name but there was a guy few years back(just thinking it may be 10 years now.. Yikes!) that a lot of higher end players used to have their throats modified by and he did my Schilke 202d2d to a 22 throat… (I have a stock one too) and it playes wonderfully. He would blend the throat to the cup and backbore before replating it and makes for a truly superior job. my Kanstul B1-1 copy is pretty dang fun too.

Can you do a video on how to shop for mouthpiece, im looking for a new one to try but idk the best places to go to or where to even start looking

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Nice, clear explanation. What do think about the Curry BC series mouthpieces? They come with 24 bore and #2 Schmidt backbore stock, which seem like popular mods orchestral players make to Bachs, but I am not aware of how many orchestral players have tried them.

Josh Landress said Chris Botti uses a Bach 3 (no letter) with a 13 throat and a #3 back bore. Chris obviously is in his element with everything opened up. I believe this mouthpiece has more impact on his dark, silky sound than his Martin extra large bore trumpet.

Wonder what would happen if the throat size of the cup doesn’t match the throat size of the backbore. I have a breslmair BV3 cup the drill size is 3.66 and the “25” backbore also from breslmair which the drill size is 3.8. The guys from breslmair said it’s totally fine mix and match different throat size but I kinda disagree, what’s your opinion on it ?

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I found a 1.5C symphonic 24 throat and 24 backbore gave me a better sound and better feel than a standard 1.5C. What is your setup?

Kahan se ho bhaiya

Does the Bach symphonic series work on the bb trumpet?

Wait so as the numbers get bigger the throat gets smaller and as the numbers get smaller it gets bigger

The throat thing is the unwritten difference between a player that is a star and a player that is a hiree.

To be technical, the chart shows throat size in inches - not thousands of inch. To be technical.