Shoulder Angle

The Shoulder Angle is defined here as the angle at which the cup walls meet the rim radius.Trumpet mouthpieces typically have a somewhat lower shoulder angle than those used on say, the French horn. Some earlier trumpet mouthpieces had very low shoulder angles, creating a distinctive flat shoulder at the throat.

The diagram below shows how the shoulder angle parameter is applied on the mouthpiece.store web site. To be a bit technical, the shoulder angle is seen only on the imaginary tangent to the curve of the cup because of the smooth surfaces present within this.

When the mouse pointer is hovered over the shoulder angle slider, the current shoulder angle setting is shown in the edit box to the right, below the slider. At this time, the current range of available shoulder angle settings is also shown beneath the slider. The range available for each mouthpiece is set so as to avoid totally-impossible mouthpieces. Very flat shoulders, i.e., on the PeakTone range, those with very low shoulder angles are seen on Baroque trumpets. They are said to assist in picking out the individual partials of the harmonic series and do have a tendency to brighten the sound. The steeper shoulder angles produce a mouthpiece which is slightly more conical, thus taking the edge off the bite of the note. Cornet mouthpieces tend to haxe a somewhat steeper shoulder angle than for those utilised on the trumpet. With PeakTone Mouthpieces, you may mix and match to suit yourself. Thus, you don’t have to jump straight to a very-conical mouthpiece in one go but may change just one parameter at a time, changing only when you’re ready to. ## Adjusting the Shoulder Angle {#CD_anchor} The Shoulder Angle editing feature is best seen in operation when the cup is being seen on the page rather than the entire mouthpiece. If you’re not sure how to do this, click The All and Cup Buttons in the Getting Started Section. The diagram below shows the current shoulder angle and the slider so that you may experiment with this.

If you move the slider over to the right of its travel and then release the mouse button, you will produce a steeper shoulder angle. You can drag the two sliders and look at the cup shapes which may be produced. they should now begin to look something like mouthpieces you would recognise. Immediately to the left of the word Shoulder Angle is a button with the letter **_i_** on it. Clicking this will bring up an information box which provides some data on the Shoulder Angle setting. Clicking it once more will remove the box. As the slider appears, so will three new images below the slider. The first of these reports on the range of angles available on the current mouthpiece, the second reports on the current angle setting and the third is a button with a return icon on it and, pressing this will return the cup depth value to its default setting. the middle icon is an edit button which means that you are able to enter the value for the Shoulder Angle directly in this. Using this button is by far the best to enter precise data for this setting. The mouthpiece shown here is for a medium-range brass instrument but the principle is the same for all mouthpieces. When you first arrive at the editing page, the shoulder angle will be set to the appropriate value for the type of mouthpiece you chose, for example a PeakTone Trumpet Size 7 or a PeakTone Trombone Size 4. The slider will allow you to vary the angle from zero to 70 degrees.