Hello all! Just joined and loving the info here.

I've played a Conn 88H for years, mostly in community jazz bands. But it's recently gone to the shop for a few weeks. One of my band leaders kindly loaned me a Courtois 402T to use in the interim. He included two Yamaha Japan mouthpieces (marked as 45C2 and 45C2-12). I've been using the 45C2 and after a month of practicing I feel like I've finally gotten more or less acclimated to it.

My playing is decent with the horn/mouthpiece but I'm vaguely disaffected with it (when I look at it I think "wow, that's microscopic") and have been considering getting a new mouthpiece. My upper register is good but could be improved a little. The main goal is to improve my endurance while helping (or at least not hurting) my upper register.

Complicating things, I've started looking to buy a tenor trombone. Would like a Conn 6H/48H.

The question is thus:

Is it a bad idea to replace the mouthpiece on my loaner before purchasing a horn? Is the feel/fit of the mouthpiece going to be different enough (on a new horn) such that I should wait?

Thanks in advance.

I would buy myself a new mouthpiece. Leave the two Yamaha mouthpieces in the case with the loaner. When you are done, you now have a mouthpiece that will be good for another tenor.

Buy something that fits your face. As long as it's not too far out of the mainstream, it'll probably be fine on any small bore tenor.

That's the kind of advice I was hoping to hear. I'm certainly not going to purchase anything out of the ordinary, so it seems like I can move ahead with the mouthpiece portion of my plan. Thanks again.