I was talking to some friends about sax mouthpieces and I realized that we needed to standardize some terms. I found this very descriptive and accurate diagram on one of those ubiquitous music forums and thought I’d place it here for both my and my readers reference. Click on the diagram for a larger view.

As I move from sax to clarinet, I notice that I am less demanding of my mouthpieces for an instrument I double on. Having played alto sax since I was 9 years old, I am very picky about alto saxes. But when it comes to clarinets, I am happy with a wide variety of mouthpieces.

Also, it would seem that I am also less picky about the low instruments like the bari or bass sax, bass or contra clarinets.