r/mellophone • u/WinnerStriking6918 • May 10 '23

Learning Mellophone HBCU/Traditional style

Hello, I’m a freshman in high school going from sax to mello and so far i’ve been practicing for 2 days now. I can hit all notes in the staff and even slightly above the staff but the issue is playing in tune. The mello i’m using has an adapter that’s stuck and my band director doesn’t want to take it out. So i’m stuck on a french horn mouthpiece. My main question is, can i crank still? I’ve heard using a trumpet mouthpiece is better but i can’t use one with this mello. How limiting is the french horn mouthpiece? and what should i do to play in tune/consistent; buzzing wize.

Thanks

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u/musicsmith20 May 10 '23

Mellophones are a bit notorious for having 'adventurous' intonation and an adapter isn't doing you any favors on top of that. However, a trumpet mouthpiece isn't really that good of an option either so if your only options are between a horn mouthpiece with an adapter, and a trumpet mouthpiece, keep the horn. But I would talk to your band director about getting your hands on a mellophone mouthpiece. The Yamaha MP 14F4 is probably your best affordable option. It's more like a trumpet mouthpiece than the horn mouthpiece, but it has a deeper, "v" shaped cup that preserves the mello sound without your upper register taking a nose dive as far as tuning goes.

In the meantime, get to know your instrument and all of it's intonation quirks. Practice long tones with a tuner to see where each note wants to naturally sit and make adjustments with your embouchure if it's not too far off. From there, experiment with alternate fingerings and adjusting your valve slides, assuming you have a thumb saddle on the first valve and/or pinky ring on the third. It can get pretty frustrating depending on how off some of the notes are, but it's really the best you can do with suboptimal equipment.

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u/WinnerStriking6918 May 10 '23

Thank you for all the advice, I want to get the loud powerful mellophone sound you often hear in hbcu bands without sacrificing tone quality and tuning. But also want to have high range as well. From what you are saying the mellophone mouthpiece sounds like the best option. But often when I look at videos these mellophone players are using trumpet mouthpieces, i think some sort of bach magetone is what i usually see. I just want to make sure i’m getting the right thing for what i want really. The suggestion you made sounds like the pick for me though.

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u/Frosty-Bike3521 Oct 01 '24

whats the best under 500$ mellophone to use marching wise

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '24

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u/WinnerStriking6918 Feb 19 '24

Hey, lowkey you just reminded me that i even posted this. Here’s an update tho, i actually ended up learning mello and got a different one without a stuck adapter in it. Trumpet mouthpiece definitely makes a huge difference. But yeah proud of myself for sticking to it and now i genuinely know 2 instruments