John Ericson

Hornmasters: Farkas, Schuller, and Berv on Care and Maintenance

Next the Hornmasters turn the topic of care and maintenance of the horn. Farkas: A bit dated Farkas offers in The Art of French Horn Playing a...

Mailbag: “Pure” Horn Quartets for Amateurs

Among recent E-mail was a request from a member of an amateur horn quartet. They have a good library of transcriptions for quartet but...

Horn Sections With and Without an Associate Principal

A topic that comes up periodically is that of the use of an assistant first horn in orchestral playing in the United States. I...

Hornmasters: Tuckwell and Bushhouse on Beginner Horns

In this series I have titled "Hornmasters" we have focused on quotations from books on the horn published originally 25 or more years ago,...

Beta Blockers or The Inner Game?

Recently I saw a link to an article, “Better music by prescription,” from The Minnesota Daily. This is a topic that can stir up...

Hornmasters: Merewether on Horns

Richard Merewether writes at length about actual horn design in The horn, the horn… Merewether was for many years also a professional hornist in...

Reinhardt Compared to Farkas

One of the things I have found very interesting in this series is trying to set the context for why Philip Farkas wrote what...

Reinhardt on the Eight Tongue Types

Working on my session that I will present next week at the Mid-South Horn Workshop I saw a reference to a discussion of tongue...

Hornmasters: Berv on Horns

For Harry Berv in A Creative Approach to the French Horn the double horn was the horn of choice for students at all levels. In...

Bobby Corno plays Beethoven 5

Hearing Beethoven 5 yesterday I was reminded of the classic bit by Peter Schickele, “New Horizons in Music Appreciation.” It presents the first movement...