Horn Matters is the leading online resource on the French horn, co-founded by John Ericson and Bruce Hembd. The mission of Horn Matters is: to encourage, inspire, inform, and challenge horn players, and; to promote the best musical instrument ever, the French horn. (More.)

Most Recent Articles

What Was the Omnitonic Horn?

When you get to looking at horn history there are many rabbit holes to explore, many little dead end trails of horn design. Some...

Making a Crook for a Natural Horn

This article was posted in a corner of Horn Articles Online back in 2008. In editing Horn Matters articles with links to the now...

How Bells are Cut

The original version of this article, posted in Horn Articles Online probably around the year 2000 (!), had the subtitle "Don't try this at...

Big News from 1897: The Invention of the Double Horn, the...

For generations of horn players now the double horn has always been there, has always been the standard instrument we play. It's interesting, however,...
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Featured Articles

Horn Etudes by Women Composers

Many Horn Matters readers will be familiar with the Works with Horn by Women Composers website by Dr. Lin Foulk. If not, this is...

Julius Watkins, jazz French horn pioneer

Talking with colleagues recently, a topic that came up was how some great players of the recent past are unjustly neglected today. In terms...

Overview of Trusted Brands in French Horns

A survey titled "What Brand Names Do You Trust?" collected the opinions of 392 participants. The results are in and while it may take...

Choosing a French Horn Mouthpiece (I): The Basic Parts

Part I: The Rim and Preliminary Thoughts Part II: Cup, Throat and Bore Part III: Weight, Plating and Shopping Tips For the past decade...

French Horn Transposition Chart

A complete reference. Transposition Chart (PDF) (updated 2012) Over the past few months, I have been posting various transposition tricks, including how to transpose: A and...

Farkas on Stagefright (and more)

In the world of horn there have been few that made as much impact as Philip Farkas (1914-1992). The Art of French Horn Playing...

Random Articles

Mind the Gap

Interesting comments from Yo Mama .At the Butts in the Seats blog, the author writes about recent comments by Yo Yo Ma as televised...

Oddities: The Bass Horn

The first in a series of oddball horns This monstrosity - resembling a French horn on steroids - is a Bass Horn, built for the...

A Busby Mouthpiece like Dennis Brain Used

Many years ago, at the home of Philip Farkas, I held in my hands a copy of the mouthpiece of Dennis Brain. Farkas was...

Horn Pedagogy Week 9: Tone Quality, Chords, and Musical Phrasing

By this point some readers following the course are probably feeling that the focus has been on technical minutiae. So, to start this week of...

Accuracy Encyclopedia: Centering and More

We now come to the letter C. There are several entries under the letter C in the book draft, thoughts to consider that will...

On the Dreaded C on the Third Space, the Best Note...

They have all been off the site for a while, but in the early years of Horn Matters there were a series of articles...
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