Obviously, the French horn is extremely difficult to play while moving so most marching bands will use the marching French horn, mellophone, or the alto horn as the marching equivalent to the horn.  Which one you should choose is itself an entirely separate story so I will focus on the mellophone here since that is what most Drum Corps have been converting over to as of late.  The biggest challenge is what to do about the mouthpiece.  If you are lucky enough to have spare trumpet players that will be converting to mellophone for the marching season this is less of a problem but if you are like most bands (and myself included back in the day) you will have several horn players playing this instrument during the marching season while still trying to develop as a horn player during concert band.  So do you use a standard mellophone mouthpiece, alto horn mouthpiece, or go with the horn mouthpiece with an adaptor to fit the leadpipe?  There is a huge variety of opinion on this just as a disclaimer and there are pros and cons to each choice.

Mellophone Mouthpiece

Modern mellophone mouthpieces typically are all variations of trumpet/cornet/ flugelhorn mouthpieces.  This leads to very "trumpety" sounds from the section and may have been a remnant from the G bugles used for so long in Corps.  This often leads to scoring mellophones as almost a 4^th trumpet line versus a true middle voice where the mellophone belongs.  The rim will feel much thicker to your concert horn player plus the embouchure changes in attempts to produce a centered sound.  Depending on the mouthpieces used by your horn players the change of the cup and bowl size may make it difficult to control pitch until they become used to the feel.  However, the modern mellophone mouthpieces typically have too small a cup size to accurately center the pitch in the lower mellophone range.  In reality, some mellophone producers actually ship trumpet mouthpieces with their horns.  My advice is to steer clear of these "small cup" mellophone mouthpieces.  They are not designed for the acoustical properties of the mellophone and will certainly not help developing concert horn players with their embouchures.

Alto Horn or "Old School" Mellophone Mouthpiece

These mouthpieces will typically fit the acoustic engineering of a mellophone best as they position the airstream correctly down the leadpipe and into the relatively shallow taper of the mellophone.  As you would expect, played correctly these mouthpieces should generate the "fullest" sound and maintain control over dynamic variations.  However, these are big mouthpieces, almost halfway between the trumpet and trombone and will take some time for a new player to develop the chops to move into the high range (depending on your scoring this may not be a problem).

Check out old alto horn mouthpieces as these comes pretty close to matching the inner diameter of most popular horn mouthpieces so shouldn't be too much of a departure from concert band.  However, these are monster mouthpieces and require a strong player to control over the entire range.  While these will certainly give your section a huge deep sound, the downside is that most concert horn teachers hate having their students play on these over the summer as it does change the embouchure development of young players.

Horn Mouthpieces with Adaptors

Ok, so this is the easiest of the option for sure, but is it worth it?  The plus side is that your students get to keep the same mouthpiece that they play horn with and it will feel "right" on their face.  However, because most students are used to blowing through 23 feet of tubing on the horn the tendency will be to overblow the mellophone with this combination.  In addition the cup of a horn mouthpiece is designed to move the air down the leadpipe in such a way to match the eventual "conical" tapering of the French horn.  Since a mellophone does not match this tapering, there will be an acoustical mismatch and the sound will be thinner and less focused as a result (usually combined with overblowing and you get a very bright sound).  This will keep you horn teachers happier, but you sacrifice the fullness or your mellophone section during the season.  In my opinion, however, the tradeoff is not that bad.

Conclusions

If your goal is to have the best sounding mellophone section then I would invest in training your players on an older model mellophone mouthpiece of an alto horn mouthpiece.  I mentioned the old alto horn mouthpieces (my choice) but these are huge and there is a recent model that has been used by several Corps called IYM Larry Kerchner mouthpiece that might feel more comfortable (even if it does look a little odd).  Also really pay attention to how you are using your mellophones in your scoring.  If you consistently use them in the upper register, consider adding a few flugel horns from your trumpet line to fill this spot and drop your mellos down below to fill out the rich middle sound of the band.

If your goal is to develop strong concert horn players and you don't emphasize heavy mellophone lines, stick with the horn mouthpiece and the adaptor.  If you choose this option make sure to encourage your players not to overblow and to use shallower cup mouthpiece to avoid a loss of focus in the sound.

Of course the best advice to try them all out and pick the one that fits you the best!

 

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