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Local music store sold me a 180€ tenor mpc for my alto, how badly am I screwed?

3K views 13 replies 11 participants last post by  AmandasDad 
#1 ·
Started playing 1 year ago with a rented saxophone. 2 months ago I gave it back and bought a used alto jupiter jp 769 ds2.
The included mouthpiece was broken tho, so I went to my local music store, planning to buy a quality piece that would suffice my needs for several years. The dude there gave me all the mouthpieces he deemed appropriate for me as a relatively new alto player to try (sevenish) and the sound of that one Selmer S90 (not 100% sure actually, not at home atm) for tenor completely blew my mind.
It was hella hard to play but I absolutely adored the sound. I was wondering because it said tenor on the packet, but he told me that it doesn't make a difference. It felt a bit hard to put onto to the cork, but I didnt own any grease at that time and my old one didn't work any better in that regard anyway. For that reason and because I trusted the guy, I bought the mp and some grease with it happily without any second thougts. At home the grease didn't do much tho, but I just thougt that the product is trashy abd kept using it anyway.

So i kept practicing for 2 months, only 2-3 times a week tho because I'm very time constrained atm. The grease prob kept worrying me, but I never bothered googling for a solution until today. During that search I read that the difference between tenor and alto mpcs actually does matter tho. The guy in the shop never mentioned the different intonation, the size and everything. Now I'm prettry scared that I wasted 180€ and screwed my intonation up hella badly. D: Thoughts?
 
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#2 ·
That doesn't sound right - it may be an alto piece in a tenor box. The diameter of a tenor piece is much larger than that of an alto.

What reeds fit on it? How long is the mouthpiece?
 
#4 ·
Looks like your cork may need to be sanded a little. Make sure you put masking tape around the neck to keep from scratching it. I use whatever sandpaper I got. I think it's 220 grit. Anything close to that number should work ok.
 
#6 ·
I'm still using my old vandoren classic 2.5 reeds for alto. For all I can tell they fit perfectly well. As soon as I'm back home I'll check out the diametre, but from your responses it looks like I did indeed buy an actual alto mpc.

And thanks for the tip with the sand paper, that should resolve my issue :)
 
#9 ·
Absolutely no way it is a tenor sax mouthpiece, and if you have found a Selmer Paris alto piece that you like, you have done a good thing. What the salesman meant was the box didn't make any difference, but he should have given you the right box. So what number is the mouthpiece - 170, 180 or 190? And, I gather you paid 180 Euros for it? That's top dollar, about $75 more than what you can get them for here. But all mouthpieces are not created equal - you may have lucked out and found the S90 for you, so even though you may have paid a little too much, you got what you needed.
You need to fit the cork to the new mouthpiece and make sure there's no grit from the sand paper left in the cork. Try to maintain a straight cork, not tapered. Leave it a little tight because the cork will compress. You also need a tuner or at least a chime so you know where to set the mouthpiece. If the mouthpiece is still hard to play with the #2 1/2 reeds, you may have to try another brand of reeds where the 2 1/2 is a little softer or drop back to a #2 in the same brand.
 
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