For the last year my son has had a Conn 88H with a Remington Mouthpiece for home (and performance) use and and a King 608F with a 6-1/2 AL to use at school. This year he has joined marching band and it is apparent that he is having trouble switching between mouthpieces everyday.

I thinking that perhaps we should get a small Shank Remington mouthpiece for the King Horn so that he won't have 'lip confusion.' We are thinking that it is better to go to the Remington cup for his King because we believe it appears to have a smaller cup than the 6 1/2 AL, and it will therefore possibly help him be louder in marching band. (He goes to a small school and the trombone section has one player).

Would this strategy work, or is he going to continue to have 'lip confusion' because though the cups might be the same with the small and large shank Remington, the bore sizes will naturally force the horns to play differently. (Conn is a 1969, so the Remington Mpc has the funky taper).

I would appreciate your advice.

They should be pretty similar on the face.

Actually, a Remington is LARGER than a 6 1/2 AL. The rim is closer to a Bach 5. A 5GS might work well for him.

Of course if you can "score" a Remington small shank for him that would be great as well.

Since I could never adapt to the Remington mouthpiece that came with my old Conn 88H (just never clicked for me), I switched to a Bach 6½AL, which worked pretty well in spite of the slight mismatch in the shank taper. (Then I found a long-shank Schilke 51 which worked perfectly - but it's a little larger than the 6½AL.) The Schilke 50 is pretty close in size to the 6½AL, so that he would not be likely to notice the difference - and you may find an old long-shank version that mates well with the Conn 88H receiver.

So I guess my recommendation is to switch the mouthpiece for the 88H to something that works well for him (such as a large-shank 6½AL), and keep the small-shank 6½AL (which should be a good match for a 0.525" bore trombone) for the King 608F. Voilà - same cup for each trombone!

Thanks for your thoughts. I think we will work on finding a Remington Small Shank first (needle in a haystack). If that doesn’t work, I might take him to a music store to try out a BAch 5GS or a Schilke 51.

When we talked about options this morning, he said he didn’t like the 6-1/2 AL as much as the Remington (regarding feel and control).....so he didn’t want a 6-1/2AL for his Conn.

This is exactly why I make mouthpieces. It's not an inexpensive solution, but it's the best way to deal with the issue.

dougelliottmouthpieces.com Look at the LT series of tenor mouthpieces.

I do not like the Remington mouthpiece that came with my Conn 88H.

My favourite mouthpiece is made by Hammond. They are close to a Bach 5. They come in sizes M, ML, MXL and L. I did a special order to get a M, ML and MXL with Remington taper.

I don't want to recommend my mouthpiece choice since it is very individual. I just want to share that it is important to use a mouthpiece that fits the Remington taper and that I payed a lot to solve the problem and it was worth every penny. To me the old Conn instruments do not respond their best with mouthpieces that does not fit. Big difference.

/Tom