In the process of learning a new illustration technique, I have been using images of great horn players from the past as practice.
This image is used without permission, so if someone official objects to me making their picture look too super-cool, I would have no choice but to take it offline.
Today’s example is legendary horn player Dennis Brain.
Over the next few weeks I will post others.
Between a rock and a hard placeI pulled out my iPhone decibel meter app during the organ postlude and at its loudest, it registered a constant 92db, with random peaks to 104db. It is a really cool sound, but the delicate mechanics of the inner ear once damaged do not resurrect (even on Easter). Protection was required.
gig, the organ trumpets were bursting with light flares.No wonder it was so loud!
[post edited from a Random Monday post, 2021]
Don’t Miss! Ideas, concepts, and exercises designed to increase accuracy on an inaccurate instrument by Nicholas Smith is a brand new publication on the development of accuracy. As he notes in the first paragraph of the introduction,
This publication is the product of close to forty years of teaching the horn to students of all ages and abilities. The techniques in this book have worked for me or my students—not that every one of these techniques will work for each and every student! A trait of any good teacher is the ability to phrase concepts and ideas in more than one way and find that combination of words which will allow the student to have that magic moment of comprehension.
Aimed at horn players of all ages, Don’t Miss! is simply chock full of practical tips and exercises divided into chapters on basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques.
One thrust of this book is articulation. One concept I don’t recall seeing addressed in the same way in other sources is a circular concept of articulations, where the inhale, set, and release are considered all to be one continuous motion, illustrated with a wheel rolling. The publication includes in this section a series of great exercises for first note attacks that go far beyond the comparable exercises in the Farkas book.
Other topics addressed in the publication include equipment and many physical and psychological aspects of playing. It cannot be emphasized enough that the main thrust is practical tips based on his personal observations from a career of performing and teaching the horn. It is information of a type that it would take years and years of lessons with a master teacher to pick up.
I don’t want to give away all his secrets in this review but there is a section of an early version of chapter three posted online here. These three tips selected below are notable and all relate generally to the topic of more accurate entrances. Who does not want more accurate entrances?
(3) If after a long rest, you must play a delicate or touchy entrance, put the mouthpiece up to your lips several bars before the entrance and try to approximate the amount of air and mouthpiece pressure you will need without actually playing the note. Give yourself just enough rest to feel fresh for the entrance, and then “set up” for the note as you normally would. By experimenting with this little “trick,” better first note attacks should be achieved. Also, during a long rest, put the mouthpiece up to the lips several times and approximate the needed pressure for that entrance in the distance. Keep blowing warm air into the horn. Don’t allow your horn to get cold and your concentration to lapse. Don’t let down!
(12) For the principal horn concentration is especially crucial and a concert of hard repertoire is not only taxing physically, but can be even more exhausting mentally. Many of the larger orchestras have associate or co-principal positions so that one player will not have to stay in a “concentrated” state for too long. Each person can only remain “focused” for so long and, for the principal horn, knowing the limits of your ability to concentrate is very important. Taking a break from one piece during a concert can allow enough “down time” to allow the player to keep a higher concentration factor later in the concert. Get help before jeopardizing a good performance.
(14) A REMINDER – There is such an art to “picking off” that tough first note in a high passage, particularly if it is soft. Despite the fact that we certainly need enough air to support the attack and the following sustained pitch, we sometimes concentrate too much on the breath. I personally have much more success if I take in a little less air than I would normally need, making sure that I don’t overly stretch the embouchure, and making sure I am completely set with just enough air pressure to “attack” that first note. Again, repetitive practice of first note entrances is important; living with the passage over a period of time.
Smith serves as Professor of horn at Wichita State University and Principal Horn in the Wichita Symphony, and as you might guess has a reputation of being a very accurate player and has had a number of students come out of his studio into the professional world. For disclosure, I am one of them; I studied with him privately for two years as a late undergrad and made substantial progress those years. Other students who studied with him around the same time I did include J. D. Shaw of Boston Brass fame, New York freelancer Chris Komer, and D.C. Marine Band hornist Max Cripe. Still, this book explains and clarifies much of what I recall from my lessons and also shows directions his teaching took him after my studies ended.
At $15.95 for 79 pages this book is absolutely a bargain! Everyone needs a copy.
UPDATE: Search for this book on Amazon, it is now available in Kindle format.
Next the Hornmasters turn the topic of care and maintenance of the horn.
Farkas offers in The Art of French Horn Playing a very practical chapter on how to maintain a horn. While certainly dated (the lacquers used by modern instrument makers are much better than those of his day, the bumpers used are synthetic instead of real cork, linen line is no longer used for horn string, etc.) and perhaps overly detailed (such as the suggestion to put corks in the mouth and “bite them gently between the surfaces of the back teeth”) the illustrations of how to string and oil a rotary valve are timeless.
Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique has only a few words about the upkeep of an instrument. Interestingly, his main suggestion is to not oil the valves regularly, as this can “gum up” the valves. This may reflect somewhat on the oils available to him in 1962 and is not good advice. Use plenty of oil! There are great brands out there now and there really is no damage that using plenty of valve oil can cause. If things are gumming up to any degree you need to use lighter oil and plenty of it.
Harry Berv has a chapter on “Care and Maintenance of the Horn” in A Creative Approach to the French Horn, with content that is very comparable to that of Farkas. He recommends that the leadpipe (he prefers to call it mouthpipe) be cleaned at least once a month and that the valves be lubricated every other day. About this he notes
I do not recommend putting oil into the valve through the slide, because it can also dissolve the grease inside the shank that retains the slide, making the grease go into the valve…. Once this happens, it is difficult to free the casing of the grease and the valve will usually have to be taken out completely. This requires delicacy and skill, as a valve can easily be damage when it is removed.
As to valve repairs, he notes that “The player cannot rely on anyone else to do this for him, and he must be ready to put all these components back in working order at a moment’s notice.” Berv describes in full how to remove a rotary valve for cleaning and also how to string a valve and install corks. He also notes
I find that it is worthwhile to have a hand grip make of very thin leather on the horn to preserve the metal. Many players need to have a metal patch put on the bell of the horn, after a time, because the acid from the hand can eat right through the metal.
The horn should be wiped clean with a cloth and be kept free of lint and finger marks. I prefer a clear-lacquered horn because the lacquer preserves the metal and can easily be cleaned….
Berv concludes with a list of “Maintenance Do’s and Don’ts.” While mostly common sense (“Do not eat, chew gum, drink soft drinks, or smoke during a playing session,” “Never force the case closed,” etc.), he also offers this sage advice: “Always carry your original mouthpiece with you and have a duplicate in your horn case.”
I came relatively late to multiple tonguing technique. As a young pup I had a pretty fast single tongue that got me through most situations.
It wasn’t until my late twenties actually that I seriously began to practice double tonguing. The fast single tongue of my teens was slowing down and I needed to learn to double tongue. For weeks on end I worked on my TEEs and KAYs, in all ranges of the instrument.
A very useful technique was playing scales using nothing but the KAY articulation. By happenstance it was this concentration that lead to a unique discovery. Lateral tongue movements in addition to the usual back-and-forth motion with double tonguing can increase the velocity and rapidity of the technique.
Front… back… right-side… left-side…
My articulation speed increased nearly two-fold! I was like a freak of nature for several years; orchestral pieces like Scheherzade and Alborada del Grazioso were no longer a challenge.
Alas, without concentrated study this amazing ability is lost quickly. Over the years my verisimilitude in this technique has both waxed and waned.
I did manage to make a primitive video of it once and upload it to YouTube. If you would like more information on this lateral tongue technique, please see this video.
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 wanted some suggestions as to “pure” horn quartet works “for amateur adult horn players.” More specifically, works “written just for horn” and “not transcriptions of other instruments’ … literature.” This got me thinking, as much of what we play is in fact transcriptions or arrangements, and some of the original works out there get to a difficulty level that is beyond that of a good amateur group.
For me two works came right to mind, both classics written some years ago.
The more recent of the two and the better known is the Concertino for Horn Quartet by Alxeander Mitushin (1850 – 1920). The version we normally see was published by Southern back in 1968 in an edition by Christopher Leuba, and it was so far as I know first recorded in 1964 by the Chicago Symphony Horn Quartet on the LP release Horn Quartets: An Omnibus. Three things of note; it is a full, three movement work, the low range requirements are modest, and while they made the mute changes work on the recording by the magic of editing in reality you will want to just play it all open.
The older work is not so well known, the Quartet No. 3 for Horns by Bedrich Dinoys Weber (1766-1842). This is one of the very first works published for valved horn. I discussed the work in a section of my Doctoral dissertation, actually, which has the rather substantial title “The Development of Valved Horn Technique in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: A Survey of Performers and Works Before 1850 With Respect to the use of Crooks, Right-Hand Technique, Transposition, and Valves.” My discussion of the B. D. Weber quartet comes in the section on Josef Kail.
Josef Kail (1795-1871) was according to Morley-Pegge one of the “leading protagonists of the valve horn in its early days,” a sentiment I would echo as well. Kail’s most significant contribution to early valved horn technique is a fingering chart, Scala für das chromatische Tasten-Waldhorn in F und E [Scale for the chromatic horn in F and E], published ca. 1830/31 by Marco Berra in Prague. In this brief publication this horn with Vienna valves was illustrated, and Kail’s fingerings followed.
Where this relates to this quartet is found in this quotation from my dissertation:
The horn quartets of B. D. Weber with which these fingerings were associated should also be examined, as they are among the first works written specifically for the valved horn. These quartets were published by Berra ca. 1830/31, shortly before Kail’s Scala, and contained the same illustration of a three-valved horn utilized by Kail.(1) The earliest recorded performance of these quartets was on March 11, 1831 by hornists Franz Fausek, Wenzel Permann, Josef Skaupy, and Franz Towara at the Prague Conservatory,(2) and several reviews appeared after their publication.(3) The part-writing itself is generally not far beyond the technical demands which could be expected from the natural horn.
This particular quote has three footnotes. I really got into the whole research/dissertation writing thing and for context and completeness the following are the exact footnotes with this section:
1. Cízek, part 1, 70-72.
2. Tarr, “Romantic,” part 2, 122, citing Johann Branberger, Das Konservatorium für Musik in Prag (Prague, 1911), 277, confirmed again by Tarr, ibid, 151.
3. Tarr, ibid, 201, citing Ahrens, 116, noting reviews of these quartets in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (1831), col. 348, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (1833), col. 30, and in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1834), 195. A review of these quartets also appeared in Cäcilia 18 (1836), 265-67, as noted in Mark J. Fasman, Brass Bibliography (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 82.
In any event, I do enjoy this B. D. Weber quartet and have performed it several times. It is in three movements, the first a Marcia di Caccia, the second a Largo, and the third Allegro Moderato. The copy I own was published by E. C. Kerby in 1982 and was edited by Joel Blahnik.
With that I open it up to your comments and suggested of original works for horn quartet that are accessible in difficulty level for good amateur players, I am sure there are a many works that could be recommended.
This chart roughly represents direct site traffic from the past week. One thing it shows is that readers who come to Horn Matters stick around for a while to to look around.
Last Thursday, we had a pretty epic day – 1,000 page loads! On most average days, visitors look at about 4 pages, and stick around for almost 5 minutes.
According to our Google Analytics, this is well above average.
Other random stats:
Thank you readers for making our little French horn web site such a great success! Your readership and comments are very much appreciated.
A topic that comes up periodically is that of the use of an assistant first horn in orchestral playing in the United States. I have some general notes here, but a side issue is that of how sections run when they do and don’t have an official Associate Principal horn.
As such, this post borders on materials also discussed in my Orchestra 101 series as we get to the topic of how horn sections actually run. Which in this case on a professional level will certainly vary orchestra to orchestra and master agreement to master agreement.
For example, for a heavy program performed by a top level orchestra with a designated Associate Principal horn the Associate would play principal on the first half and the Principal first on the second, with use of an assistant first horn possible/probable on either half. When I played in Nashville however I was Third horn we had no designated Associate so we would have done the seatings differently on the same heavy program; the Principal would have played Principal for the entire concert but with an Assistant. Only if she was completely gone I moved up to Principal from Third (and received overscale for the services impacted), the assistant moved to third, and an extra was hired to play assistant. Shortly after I left Nashville the third horn position was changed to Third/Associate, so I assume at that time the situation became more flexible and no overscale was involved if the third moved to first for a work or two.
Back to the generic heavy program example, no professional orchestra I have ever played with as a member or extra would require a principal horn to not use an assistant on a demanding program, but I suspect that the times they are a changing in the United States! Management will try to save whenever possible. It makes it really hard to play your best when there is no assistant available, especially if it is a heavy program with just four players, but it does save money and the audience may not notice the difference either, even if your chops do.
I should mention there is another model is that I am told is seen in Europe. They don’t use assistant players but “platoon” larger numbers of horns, with a full section on one half of the concert and another full section on the other half, with perhaps no players performing the full program.
In short, what you experience out in the real world of music will vary but in the best orchestras in the United States we typically see five or six member sections that will function along the lines described above and it is a good model to try to follow if possible in your situation be it amateur or professional.
In this series I have titled “Hornmasters” we have focused on quotations from books on the horn published originally 25 or more years ago, books that may or may not be well known at the present day. Today we have quotes from two publications on the topic of horns for beginners.
After his thirteen year tenure as Principal Horn of the London Symphony Barry Tuckwell turned to a career as an international horn soloist. Besides the publication of Playing the Horn (1978) and Horn (1983) Tuckwell made fifty solo horn recordings. In Horn Tuckwell turns to the topic of horns for beginners. He followed conventional wisdom and was in favor of the traditional single F.
The beginner should start to learn on the F horn, since it has a good basic tone and provides a greater number of harmonics within the player’s range; as a result the student will develop a more conscious awareness of embouchure control than if he starts on a Bb horn…. When a reasonable standard of proficiency is achieved a move should be made to the double horn in F and Bb.
David Bushouse was at the writing of Practical Hints on Playing the French Horn (1983) Professor of Horn at the University of Kansas, having previously served on the faculty of Morehead State University in Kentucky. In Practical Hints on Playing the French Horn David Bushouse also addresses the topic of horns for beginners. He notes that the single F is the preference of “most experts” for beginning players, but he also notes that “Band literature for advanced junior high and high school bands demands facility in the high range,” and that “above D or E [written] the F horn is difficult to play accurately with a full tone.” The single Bb horn has some advantages but “encourages a bright, uncharacteristic sound” among younger players. His horn of choice is the double horn, even for young players.
The extra expense prevents a wide use of the double horn by schools and beginners. However, a used double horn can often be purchased for about the same price as a new single horn. The appearance of a used instrument tends to determine the price, but the playing condition is dependent on the tubing and valve condition, not the lacquer.
I have some thoughts of my own on this topic as well in my article For New Hornists. In short, it is a topic that can to this day generate some surprisingly heated opinions. I am personally very open to the single B-flat for young students, and have also hoped that the idea of the 3/4 size double horn might catch on as another alternate. Certainly all agree however that a student should be moved to the double horn as soon as practical if they start on a single.
Finally, I realize part of the problem that hangs up band directors is that F horn music would seem (to them) to require the use of a single F horn. They don’t realize that when we play a Bb horn we just use the fingerings for that instrument (from a fingering chart!) reading the music in F. I try to explain this a bit more in this article, and as I say there I think this topic is rarely covered clearly in music education brass methods classes. .
Continue reading in Hornmasters Series
Return to Week I of the University of Horn Matters horn pedagogy course
Darin Sorley and I go way back to junior high school and I have embedded a few newspaper clippings in this article from that time as evidence that dates us both from the late 1970’s.
In another life, I would most likely have chosen from wish list of alternative careers, including: a travel journalist, high-fashion photographer, an international rock star or … a horn-maker. Seriously, whenever visiting a repair shop, a horn shop, a mouthpiece lathe, or (gasp!) a blacksmith exhibition I stand absolutely transfixed at the hands-on earthiness of it, and … I am curious and envious.
Fast forward to today and the topic-at-hand, and Darin is a well-known horn maker in the American Mid-west. I asked him some brief questions about horn-making, and here are his answers.
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When my old friend from South Wayne Junior High School, Bruce Hembd, asked me to write an article about horn building I was of course happy to do so.
The process of making a horn is too long and involved to put into the content of an article, so instead I decided to focus on some of the main questions I get from horn players about my trade and regarding the purchase of a custom horn.
This is probably the most asked question I receive. The simple answer is, by apprenticing with a known horn builder and learning the trade through a “hands-on” approach. Although that is the direction I took later in life, my actual curiosity for instrument building and repair began much earlier.
Bruce and I were lucky to attend a school together where we not only had great band directors, but also a repair room that was open to us. Under the guidance of my band director, Craig Reasoner, I learned how to take out a valve, find a leak on a flute and search out what had been stuffed into a tuba for the week. This, along with my passion for playing the horn helped lead me towards all of the things I do today.
Although I never met the man, Carl Geyer and his instruments have inspired me along the way. I have had the privilege of owning two Geyer horns during my lifetime. The first was made for David Krehbiel around 1959.
I later sold this horn back to Mr. Krehbiel 40 years after it was made for him for a “circle of life moment” for the horn. The second horn which I still own and was the basis for my horn design. This horn was made for my former teacher Philip Farkas in 1933 and is accompanied in my workshop by several pictures of Mr. Farkas with the horn. One of these pictures is a signed photo of Carl Geyer to Mr. Farkas.
A more direct influence, though, would have to be the natural horn builder Richard Seraphinoff. While working on my doctoral degree at Indiana University, I studied natural horn playing with Mr. Seraphinoff. It was a few years later that I approached him about learning some of the basics to horn building and he agreed to put up with me for a summer. Rick always has made himself available for my many questions throughout the years and I am truly grateful for the experience.
I remember speaking to horn builders well before I got into the business about their horns and how they could guarantee that the horn they were making for me would be as good as the one I had tried. This is also a question I get a lot as a horn builder and I have tried to explain it in different ways over the years, but just recently settled on something which I hope will seem clear.
I play on the very first horn that I made! I use it for every gig and it is a very good horn for me. Although the horn plays very well, I would not use it as a “show horn” because of the changes I have made to the newer horns.
Now, does #18 play as well as #1 even with all of the changes made? Yes! I think if you played any of my horns you would see certain similarities within them. I’m sure this is also true for other horn makers.
I think that horns made by the same person are like brothers and sisters in that although each one has its own personality they are still related.
There are many fine custom horn builders with each making an instrument that expresses the qualities they see as important to a great horn. If you are seeking out a new custom horn, I invite you to talk to various horn makers and the players performing on their instruments.
Find out the likes and dislikes from these players, but keep in mind that just because someone doesn’t like a particular instrument doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be good for you. You need to make the decision for “you” and only use your research as a guide to finding the right horn.
I remember my former teacher at Indiana University, Michael Hatfield, telling a story about his first Geyer horn. He said that he sold the horn after a few years because of a “bad note”. Well, many years later he came across that horn and decided to play some notes on it. The “bad note” was gone, but nothing had been changed on the horn!
Well, the moral of this story is that as horn players we sometimes get a mental block with regard to certain horns based upon a one time experience or by being influenced by others. So, make up your mind for yourself and put your trust in the horn maker to build an instrument that will let your talent shine through!
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In addition to horn building and repairing, Darin Sorley is an active horn player in and around the Indianapolis, Indiana area. He has performed with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and Fort Wayne Philharmonic.
He is currently principal horn of the Richmond (IN) Symphony Orchestra and is the Conductor of the Indianapolis Chamber Winds (www.indyband.org). Darin has degrees from Butler University (BME), The Cleveland Institute of Music (MM in horn performance) and has completed coursework for the DM in Brass Pedagogy from Indiana University.
His teachers include: Philip Farkas, Michael Hatfield, Richard Seraphinoff (natural horn), Richard Solis and Jerry Montgomery.