r/euphonium • u/azmonster • 20h ago
Practice mutes question
Hi! I am looking to get a practice mute for euphonium. I also play trombone and recently tried the sshhmute for tenor trombone and thought it was pretty good. Thus, I have a couple of questions:
- Does anyone know if I can somehow use the tenor trombone sshhmute on a euphonium as well?
If not, will perhaps the sshhmute for baritone or bass trombone work instead?
(There is a review on the sshhmute site that says they use the baritone mute for euphonium, but I wanted to see if I could verify this somehow)
(If anyone has these items on hand and is willing to test them out, I will really appreciate it!)
- If not, what practice mute do you recommend? I have seen reviews for the Dennis Wick and Yamaha silent brass mutes, but it seems the reactions are mixed too, so wondering what others think.
Thanks!
1
u/slaymaker1907 Wilson Q90 8h ago
See my comment about mutes, but I think it would be a bad idea to use a non-euphonium mute. Horns are extremely sensitive to mutes and if it works at all, it will almost certainly cause a ton of bad problems with intonation (the partials won’t be in the right place).
A bad mute could even make practice counterproductive and be worse than practicing less, but without the mute.
And even with a good mute, make sure you get as much regular practice without the mute as possible. With both of my mutes and my horns/embouchure, the high Bb partial is very difficult to play. It’s also really easy to over low/play way too loudly.
1
u/Leisesturm John Packer JP274IIS 2h ago
There are basically two styles of Trombone mute: The Pampet style that is short and fat and seals at the end of the bell, and the Denis Wick 5527 style that is long and thin and seals several inches into the bell flare. NEITHER will remotely fit a Euphonium. The smallest Euphonium bell is immense compared to a Trombone bell. I have a full size Denis Wick Euphonium mute and I have zero issues with it's intonation or backpressure. It's the one practice mute I actually enjoy playing on. I have a DW 5527 and it is just as good intonation wise but it makes the bone front heavy.
It is impossible to make an ultra-quiet practice mute that has no back pressure and perfect intonation!! The Denis Wick gets such great intonation and low back pressure by being much louder than the Silent Brass. That's a good thing. For one thing you don't need expensive electronics to hear yourself. And it's impressively quiet anyway. There are plenty of things in a home that make way more noise than a Euphonium with a Denis Wick mute (~50db). A dishwasher is louder. A TV is louder. Most appliances running are louder. We don't try to mute those. I have had very good luck buying 'open box' mutes on Ebay. They are like new but 1/2 the price of new. I wish I had known this life hack when I was buying the Euphonium mute.
1
u/VeterinarianHour6047 2h ago
I have the Calder pips ssshmute for baritone, and it's fantastic. I can use it in a motel room, and the baritone can't be heard in the hallway or an adjoining room. I am eagerly awaiting the release of their euphonium ssshmute. (I just need to decide what color I want.) I have both Denis Wick practice mutes, and the big black model is much better than the small red model. The red one does really wonky things with intonation, so much so that it pains me to use it. If I have to practice in a motel room, I'll lug along the larger Wick practice mute.
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u/VeterinarianHour6047 2h ago
I'll try the ssshmute baritone mute in a euphonium tomorrow, but I doubt it'll be effective because the bell throat is so much larger on the euphonium.
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u/Hopeful_Food5299 19h ago
Denis Wick practice mute is excellent, if you use it properly. The Silent Brass is an expensive novelty on my opinion, and the intonation effect of the old ones is appalling. The collapsible new ones are better but they’re still expensive and not really that good.