Communications with a former student over the summer pointed out to me that my Horn Matters article on playing assistant horn is one of the very few resources out there on a critical horn topic. And it is one on which much more should be said. But first, the original article:
The other major article on the topic that was online in the past was by Eldon Matlick. I have a long quote from that article in this post:
Who did it first? And why?
Using an assistant horn is an American orchestral practice dating to the early twentieth century. Anton Horner (1877-1971) has been credited with initiating the practice. Horner, who had studied with Gumpert in Leipzig, was Principal Horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1902-1930 and a member of the section until 1946. In addition, he was horn faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music from 1924 until 1942. Horner influenced generations of leading American orchestral players in relation to use of an assistant horn. (For more details on Horner and his career, see his bio in the IHS website).
In terms of chops, Horner was smart. According to the IHS bio, during his teaching “He would sing rather than play to demonstrate, saving his embouchure for evening concerts.” And on concerts the wise principal horn certainly saves their chops for when it really matters. That is why we use an assistant player, to be fresh for those moments, splitting the part (rarely doubling anything) to pace the playing to maintain the chops.
[There is a different approach used by big European orchestras – they often have 8 or more horns in the section and split the concert first half and second half, 4 horns each. That system is not used in the USA.]
Have you had your overuse injury yet?
Playing yourself into chop injuries is not smart playing. However, it is probably inevitable that a better horn player will have some version of an overuse injury at some point. We try to do too much, and we are in demand. There was a thing I’ve been told Verne Reynolds (longtime professor at Eastman) would say: “There are two types of horn players, over-employed horn players and under-employed, which do you want to be?”
When you get the first pangs of an overuse issue consider it a warning and wake up call to manage your chops better. It can be especially tricky if you are playing a lot of principal horn.
My overuse injury
Here is a story probably only mentioned to a small percentage of my students over the years, although there is a longer version of the story in this article. It is worth retelling, as it relates to why you use an assistant horn.
I started college as an enthusiastic horn player but a music business major at Emporia State University in Kansas. When I got to Econ 101 my sophomore year I was like, I’m not that interested in business classes, and if I ever want to do performance now is the time. So that following summer I went to the Aspen Music Festival.
When there, between my sophomore and junior years, I changed my embouchure from 2/3 lower lip to 2/3 upper. It was a big change that took a good 6 months to be comfortable. When I got back to school in the fall, there was a new horn grad assistant, but they left after a week! So, embouchure change and all, I was first horn in the school orchestra, community orchestra, wind ensemble, and also was playing in the faculty brass quintet! Plus, I started taking a second private horn lesson every week in Wichita and played marching band. Looking back now, of course that was really too much.
By the spring semester I was playing pretty well after the embouchure change, but I began to have sharp pains in my lower lip. To this day I don’t know if it was an actual tear or what, but it really was an issue. Eventually to promote recovery I used an extra wide rim Neil Sanders mouthpiece, and I tried to play as smart as I could. I think I might have had an assistant in wind ensemble, but that was it. In any case, the episode gave me a great deal of appreciation of pacing and everything.
The following summer, with my chops in order again, I was back in Aspen, and one thing I appreciated there was that David Wakefield made a point of having every student who could do it play assistant to him, so they had an idea how he used an assistant. Something I tried to do also when I was horn faculty at the Brevard Music Center. Those initial experiences were my model for how I handled principal horn playing going forward, with a personal understanding as well of how far I could push the chops week after week.
Lessons from being a “Rotating Principal Horn”
Just three summers later, right after my masters, I was one of three Principal Horn players of the Colorado Philharmonic, now known as the National Repertory Orchestra (I’m on the right in the photo, if you were wondering). How it worked was there was a rotation set up between first, third, and assistant from piece to piece or concert to concert. I recall playing second horn on at least one concert as well.
The bottom line was it was a very heavy summer with certainly 10-12 services a week. At one point, someone in the section took an audition and I was left without an assistant horn for Tchaik 4. I did mark in my part every place that the first horn was doubled by third horn and was able to lay out some, but that was just brutal.
But the point I’d make is that by that time also I adopted a “golden rule” approach to assistant as well: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The other Principal Horn players were my peers; it was important to treat them as I would want to be treated. This type of thought has to be in your mind as Principal Horn, or your assistant players (and section mates in general) may go from being colleagues to being enemies. And you really need them there helping you out.
School and community group issues
From the above discussion you can see how an assistant horn can be of much help. However, it can get tricky in school and community groups.
In my own case, I teach now at Arizona State, and the musical landscape changes as directors change. The two longest serving orchestra conductors I have worked with here in particular preferred a fixed section such as you would see in a professional orchestra, while the band directors have been to varying degrees more open to rotation.
The professional orchestra model is my background, I was Third Horn in Nashville, and I’ve played a lot of first horn. The assistant horn is so important in a section that is set up professionally. What happens is we can set school sections up with that in mind, but I can’t manage things at all in terms of how the part is actually divided, and the assistant players can feel left out. This coming year, in fact, I’m planning on much more rotation in orchestra seatings than ever before; the current orchestra and band faculty are very open to this, and it is a better setup for everyone.
In a professional context, if the parts are not new parts they probably have assistant markings in them that are a good starting point. This is an additional challenge for the school/community group player, as the parts are either clean or what markings are there may make no logical sense. The players involved lack background to make informed, professional style markings, perhaps also lacking faith in the ability of the assistant.
Correct markings especially involve the principal horn resting in tutti passages, to be fresh for the money spots. The assistant is the player that makes the performance of big lit possible at a high level.
What should the markings look like?
I discuss this in the older article, with an example from Beethoven 7, but in part II of this article I will look closer at examples of professionally marked parts for Strauss tone poems.
