New mouthpiece for my Timis

Gheorghe

I decided to overhaul the 1991 Timis taragot that is in my possession at the moment, so today I made a brand new mouthpiece - a copy of a very good one I use on my main instrument. I had a chunk of ebony in the workshop, so I chucked it in the lathe and a new mouthpiece was born. It produces a strong clear sound, and lets the Timis play in 2 octaves now. Here are some photos:

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It's a special kind of person that says, "I'm bored. I know. I'll make a mouthpiece."

I think it interesting that the taragato has a similar keyed range, fingering and sound of a Bb soprano sax. However, I didn't know it was that difficult to coax more than 2 octaves out of a taragato.
 
pete said:
It's a special kind of person that says, "I'm bored. I know. I'll make a mouthpiece."

I think it interesting that the taragato has a similar keyed range, fingering and sound of a Bb soprano sax. However, I didn't know it was that difficult to coax more than 2 octaves out of a taragato.
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It was more a necessity than boredom:) the existing plastic mouthpiece was junk, and I have the tools, the materials, and a decent skill set to duplicate something.

I am sure it is easy for many to do the 2.5 octaves on a tárogató, but I'm only a beginner on reeds, so for me it is tough to play the very highest range. I also keep reading that on the lower quality instruments, some ranges are kinda tough. So perhaps it is a combination in this case, but the new mouthpiece certainly plays much easier than the one that came with the instrument from one of Ceausescu's factories :)


George
 
Excellent job!
I'm sure it's going to be working well for you, I may have to follow suite given my tárogató mouthpiece is a, dare I say it, piece of $#!7. I've been talking about it for a while to myself, and I really don't like the facing on this one. There's not too many adjustments I could make to improve it so I figure I may as well start anew.

It probably won't be as beautiful as yours but if it works, it works. :)

I've been wanting a new tárogató, and have been saving my dimes. The holidays are around and it's a great excuse to dispose of some $$ on to something worthwhile!
 
PrincessJ said:
Excellent job!
I'm sure it's going to be working well for you, I may have to follow suite given my tárogató mouthpiece is a, dare I say it, piece of $#!7. I've been talking about it for a while to myself, and I really don't like the facing on this one. There's not too many adjustments I could make to improve it so I figure I may as well start anew.

It probably won't be as beautiful as yours but if it works, it works. :)

I've been wanting a new tárogató, and have been saving my dimes. The holidays are around and it's a great excuse to dispose of some $$ on to something worthwhile!
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Thank you. All you need is a piece of ebony or at least some type of tight grained wood...and an old lamp post ;) the lathe certainly helps.

George
 
It's definitely nice looking and you spent the time to put the metal band around it.

What are the major differences between the Taragato mouthpiece and a soprano sax mouthpiece?
 
pete said:
It's definitely nice looking and you spent the time to put the metal band around it.

What are the major differences between the Taragato mouthpiece and a soprano sax mouthpiece?
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Thank you.

I don't know much about soprano mouthpieces, but my taragot's mpc looks like a clarinet mpc, other than being "female" (don't know if there is a technical term - the mpc has a mortise and the tenon is on the uppper joint. I assume clarinet has it the other way around). The mpc takes clarinet reeds.

George
 
They are pretty similar, but of course there are all kinds of different sop mpcs, and I'm sure the same applies to tárogató mpcs.

I compared my tárogató mpc with a lovely old Berg Larsen sop mpc I have. First difference is that the tárogató mpc has a longer but narrower window, since it uses a clarinet reed. The tárogató mpc I have has an extremely high baffle, as compared to the Berg, which is also pretty bright. This probably explains the very bright sound of the tárogató. I will definitely be dropping the baffle, since I don't need or want to sound like a buzzsaw. One interesting thing is that the tárogató mpc has excavated sidewalls--probably necessary to add enough internal volume for correct intonation with such a high baffle.

I'm getting the tárogató working, and it is suprisingly well in tune considering how crudely it is made. One thing that is interesting is that the tárogató has a shallower cone angle than the sop sax. The top opening on the sop is 7.9mm, whereas on the tárogató it is 10.0mm. This might help to explain both the volume and the flexibility of the tárogató sound.
 
kymarto said:
The top opening on the sop is 7.9mm, whereas on the tárogató it is 10.0mm. This might help to explain both the volume and the flexibility of the tárogató sound.
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That is interesting to note. My taragot has opening of 8.5 or 9mm, from what I remember. It also had the same inner diameter further down, at the position of the 2nd octave valve (I measured the inner diameter through it). In other words, it was not a perfect cone, at least not at that point. That portion of the instrument was a cylinder. As I mentioned before, the octaves were narrow.

If you ever have it apart, just for curiosity, try to measure the inner diameter through the octave hole. I wonder if this is common, or simply negligence of the maker.

George
 
Gheorghe said:
That is interesting to note. My taragot has opening of 8.5 or 9mm, from what I remember. It also had the same inner diameter further down, at the position of the 2nd octave valve (I measured the inner diameter through it). In other words, it was not a perfect cone, at least not at that point. That portion of the instrument was a cylinder. As I mentioned before, the octaves were narrow.

If you ever have it apart, just for curiosity, try to measure the inner diameter through the octave hole. I wonder if this is common, or simply negligence of the maker.

George
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By eyeball, it looks like the the end part, about to the top octave key, is indeed cylindrical. I doubt it is negligence. Have a look at the cross-section illustration of the Schunda patent on this page and you will see that the top is cylindrical:

http://www.11thmuse.com/history.html

This is also common on saxophones: the end of the neck is cylindrical, and sometimes slightly contracted from what the cone would be. This is called "necking in", and acoustically serves to make the highest notes clearer by altering the tube resonances that are thrown out of whack by the shape of the mpc. When I get my new instrument I will have a look and report back.

Nice work on the mpc, by the way!
 
kymarto said:
By eyeball, it looks like the the end part, about to the top octave key, is indeed cylindrical. I doubt it is negligence. Have a look at the cross-section illustration of the Schunda patent on this page and you will see that the top is cylindrical:

http://www.11thmuse.com/history.html

This is also common on saxophones: the end of the neck is cylindrical, and sometimes slightly contracted from what the cone would be. This is called "necking in", and acoustically serves to make the highest notes clearer by altering the tube resonances that are thrown out of whack by the shape of the mpc. When I get my new instrument I will have a look and report back.

Nice work on the mpc, by the way!
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Thank you. I still have enough ebony for perhaps 2 mouthpieces, so I might experiment in the future.

George
 
I recently aquired a virtually unplayable tárogató (nominally) in A. It was a silly impulse Ebay purchase. The intonation is so bad as to be ridiculous. Not just between registers but the scale is way out from note to note. WTF it looks nice hanging on the wall.

But every cloud has a silver lining and in this case it was the mouthpiece. It came with an ebony Stowasser mouthpiece which is fabulous.

I have a semi automatic octave mechanism on my good tárogató so I've never had trouble with the top end of the upper register except the middle finger C which was a bit hit or miss so I generally used the side key C. That one plays easily with this mouthpiece.

I can now get a few altissimo notes. D I can get reasonably easily, Eb usually, and on a good day when the wind is in the right direction an E will pop out.

This mouthpiece takes clarinet reeds by the way.
 
I think I may have had a bid on it. 0_o Was it the non-shiny looking grayish piece of tree bark I wanted to hang on my wall?
Ebay, beware. I've had my fair share of scares. I typically don't bother with anything unless it has close up pictures and a lot of info to go with.
 
I had a little attempt to play it last night and at a pinch it might just be playable but I'd have to find corrective fingerings for lots of notes and even then humour them a lot. I'm not prepared to put that amount of effort into it. Someone must have done in the past though. From the wear in the plating on the keys I can see it has been played a lot.

One of the guys at the world tárogató congress last year said that tárogatós are all different. You have to figure your own out and you won't necessarily be able to play anyone else's.
 
MrDibbs said:
One of the guys at the world tárogató congress last year said that tárogatós are all different. You have to figure your own out and you won't necessarily be able to play anyone else's.
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That is EXACTLY what the clarinet/tárogató player from the Budapest-based Rajko Gypsy Band told me a few months ago.

George
 
That is one of the joys of playing such instruments. Acoustically speaking, the low cutoff frequency due to the small holes means that opening or closing a key way down the body, even after a series of open holes, can greatly change the note, especially in the second and third registers. For instance, if you think about recorder, you play the upper Bb and C by fingering A and B and closing holes below.

I've found, for instance, that closing the low B key greatly stabilizes notes above A2. B2 plays nicely udon the fingering for Bb and adding the second alternate Bb key as well, and C is great playing B and adding the side Bb (plus the low B). Life is hard with a single octave key, but this is far better than some of the third register fingerings on the oboe.
 
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