Last year I noticed that a new French horn mouthpiece was unexpectedly difficult to play.  Other horn players have had a similar experience with this mouthpiece.  To see if something was actually wrong with the mouthpiece, I built an "impedance head" this interim.  Acoustic impedance measures the air pressure inside an instrument.  Of particular interest to the brass player, a high impedance at some frequency means that the instrument is easier to play at that frequency.

In my presentation I will discuss the acoustics of a French horn, the device that I made, and the results of my experiment. Come find out if I can blame the mouthpiece for my missed notes!