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Denis Wick Products

How I became a Mute Maker, By Denis Wick

My  long-suffering wife said,  “You’re just never satisfied!”. Many a true word is spoken in exasperation. I had tentatively suggested, in about 1969, that somebody ought to design mutes that actually played in tune and worked in every register. We had been recording film music with Bernard Herrmann, who had  helped to make all those Hitchcock films such a success. He was contemptuous of the old fibre mutes that I and my  LSO trombone section were using. He called them  "psychological mutes” and we knew what he meant.

 A PRACTICAL AID TO A BEAUTIFUL SOUND, by Denis Wick    
 

As every teacher knows, a good tone on any brass instrument needs a properly set-up embouchure; a good teacher will spare no effort to ensure that the student's embouchure is as efficient as possible. These days one may assume that the young player will have a reasonable instrument and a sensible mouthpiece. To this one must add what many teachers would regard as the most important of all - good breath control.