Horn Matters | A French Horn and Brass Site and Resource | John Ericson and Bruce Hembd

On instruments for beginners Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique keeps his advice simple, not taking a stand for any particular type of horn, noting on the very first page of his text to “seek professional advice from an established teacher or player.”

But what about using the Internet?

I’d like to digress for a moment now. Back in 1962 you were basically only going to get advice from either other players or teachers or a dealer in instruments, with some influence from print advertising. Today, it is almost like we have too many resources and voices. You would be well advised to dial down those voices to just a few trusted, established players or teachers when it comes to looking for horns. Don’t let random people on the Internet be your main resource.

Schuller does later in the book go into a bit more detail. It is from a time when double horns frequently had more intonation problems than the instruments a professional would choose to play today.

Except in special situations (e.g., the performance of works with especially high tessituras), I think the ideal instrument for today’s normal playing conditions is the double horn in B flat and F. It satisfies more of the demands made by the orchestral and chamber music repertoires than either the single F or the single B flat horns. The double horn, being a compromise instrument, admittedly has a theoretical loss in quality compared to the single horn. But this factor is more than outweighed by the gains in accuracy and flexibility.

Also notable is his apparent reference to the use of descant horns for high range performance in certain works, that was on the cutting edge in his time and is a tool to be used today to be sure.

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For the next topic in the Hornmasters series we turn to horns and begin again with Philip Farkas. For the average reader today, this section of The Art of French Horn Playing must seem especially dated (the book was never revised, and a lot has changed since 1956!), but is still worth a closer look. Because…

Conventional wisdom comes from somewhere

Because the book was so iconic and influential, in many respects the Farkas book defines conventional wisdom that continues to today.

In the context of his era there were three possible models or types of horn that could be used, the single F, the single Bb, and the double horn. Farkas came out strongly against the use of the single Bb for beginners, saying “elementary organizations should use F horns exclusively. Beginners should always start with F horns if they intend to have a firm foundation for their advancement.” However, earlier on the very same page Farkas wrote that by use of the B-flat horn players “will miss fewer notes, have a fuller tone in the high register, and gain in endurance and confidence.”

In short, in his era and continuing to this day there is a divide between players who advocate for starting horn players on the Bb horn as they will advance more rapidly and those players who advocate for the F horn out of a sense of tradition. To again quote Farkas,

The F horn, having an inherently “correct” horn tone plus requiring the student to develop a really good embouchure in order to negotiate the many lip changes which produce the notes unaided by valves, invariably gives a more solid foundation to the student who intends to continue into professional playing. Because of this ability of the F horn to instill the proper tone and general approach to horn playing, I prefer to see all beginners use the F horn.

Personally, I think this advice has set beginning horn players back, there is a lot to say in favor of beginners starting on a single Bb. But his argument for the single F is the definition of conventional wisdom on the topic.

A note of caution, and two types of players

Farkas also presented one important caution about trying new equipment, from his perspective as a professional player.

There is one necessary warning, I believe, about this experimenting. It is best to do little or no experimenting during the playing season, as it is quite detrimental to precision, tone, and finesse. Wait until the off-season.

My observation is there are two types of players, those that are extremely reluctant to change anything (such as he suggests) and those that are always looking and would switch happily and immediately to any better horn or mouthpiece that they found. Some restraint is good, don’t insert a lot of change into your equipment at important moments, but do always keep looking, and in particular don’t be afraid to make small incremental changes.

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Farquharson Cousins in On Playing the Horn opens his discussion of mouthpieces with this most interesting statement.

A box of mouthpieces is a fascinating possession and potentially fatal. The hornist’s beatitude could well be: “Blessed are they who start with a good mouthpiece and stay with it.”

Tactics toward finding a mouthpiece

As to selecting a mouthpiece, “There are two approaches to this most difficult and ultimately important matter: either we can observe the shape, size, depth and rim of mouthpieces used by leading players and try to deduce basic principles governing choice, or we can consider the findings of an individual who has deliberately experimented and acted upon them.” As to the first tactic, if you were to look at the mouthpieces of some to the leading orchestral horn players in the world you would according to Cousins observe that

…almost all use a relatively thin-rimmed mouthpiece. How thin is ‘thin’, you may ask. The answer is to observe for yourself…. Generally it will be found that 1st and 3rd horns have a smaller and thinner-rimmed mouthpiece than their 2nd and 4th horn colleagues.

He observes that there is an embouchure difference visible between successful players who play on mouthpieces with a smaller inner diameter compared to those who play on a larger inner diameter. The smaller mouthpiece demands an embouchure with more of a “stretch” to it and the larger demands more of a “bunch” of the lips.

What about modifications?

Another topic for Cousins was that of modifying mouthpieces, on which he has an interesting perspective, but one clearly from the day when screw rim mouthpieces were a novelty.

This brings us to the final and most exciting mouthpiece sin: altering the rim. Whether by lathe or by hand this is a dangerous business. What is scraped off cannot be put back. And yet … a slight ‘taking down’ of an offending lump, or a slight rounding-off of a too sharp inner edge, can make a great difference. My past is littered with ruined mouthpieces. I urge you most earnestly not to alter a rim unless it is absolutely necessary.

Today we really have little need to modify rims, a wide variety are available as screw rims in several lines. Giardinelli was an initial leader in this, and their threads are the most common style used in the USA.

When the series returns the topic will be that of horns

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Famed New York freelancer Harry Berv was clearly an experienced teacher, and has a number of thoughts on mouthpieces in A Creative Approach to the French Horn.

The groove theory

Intuitively, we know over time that the mouthpiece creates a “groove in the lips.”

The correct mouthpiece is important in producing a beautiful tone and in adding strength and endurance to the embouchure. It will influence your general approach to playing horn and help to achieve security in attack and elasticity in traversing the range of the horn in a beautiful, unbroken line. It stands to reason then, that the mouthpiece must insure utmost comfort and control in the playing. As you can start to see now, the mouthpiece must be selected with infinite care and intelligence. Every player’s physical makeup is different; one cannot attempt to select a mouthpiece by listening to someone else play on it and judging from the performance. This next point is vitally important: once you have by process of elimination chosen a mouthpiece, you must stick to it, play on it, and get accustomed to it. After months of playing on it, the mouthpiece will form what is called in brass terminology “a groove in the lips.” this placement “groove” is made by the constant pressure exerted by the mouthpiece on the lips. When it has been successfully formed, the mouthpiece, when placed on the lips, will fall right “into the groove”—and will feel comfortable. The lips will react to the mouthpiece with sensitivity and complete familiarity.

Worded another way, our playing will adjust subtly to accommodate the mouthpiece and especially the rim shape.

Mouthpiece fit and more

Moving on to specifics, Berv is perhaps the first author to note clearly the importance of mouthpiece fit, a critical topic! He explains that “The proper fit of the mouthpiece into the instrument is important, for if the mouthpiece goes in too far or not far enough, the intonation, tone quality, and response of the instrument can suffer greatly.”

He does not suggest the use of a large bore mouthpiece, as a large bore combined with a deep cup will produce “a foggy sound and blatty attacks.”

As to rims,

If the rim of a mouthpiece is too wide, it will lack the sensitivity of the medium-narrow rim. The reason for this is that the wide rim covers too great an area of flesh on the lips, reducing the sensitivity and flexibility of the embouchure. The medium-narrow rim against the lips has far more sensitivity and gives the lips more freedom to move. A very narrow rim can bite into the lips too much and severely reduce the player’s endurance.

Next Berv presents the dimensions of his own personal mouthpiece, “one that I have used throughout my entire symphony career.” The two most easily notable dimensions are that it is number 14 bore with an inside diameter of 17.8 mm. This is a similar bore to the mouthpieces suggested by Farkas but with a bit larger inner diameter. A modern equivalent might be something like a Laskey G cup or the Houghton H-1 at their 17.75 inner diameter.

Go for the gold

Finally, he notes a strong preference for a gold-plated rim.

I highly recommend a gold-plated rim, which, together with the moist lip, helps the coordination of the embouchure muscle tension and provides a great feeling of smoothness and cleanliness on the lips, so that together they work like a well-oiled machine.

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In A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing Milan Yancich notes with regard to mouthpieces that

Special care should be taken in the selection of the correct mouthpiece for the student.….

In my opinion the student should start with a large-bore mouthpiece. This will automatically force the learner to take bigger breaths and use the necessary muscles for the development of his entire breathing apparatus.

Start large? Or start small?

While I generally like the Yancich book, I disagree with this point. One goal with younger students is that they not quit horn, and really a smaller bore mouthpiece is easier to play, some early success will help them stick with the instrument. You can work on breathing better later — if they don’t quit the horn!

And an interesting note from Carl Geyer

Yancich also references Carl Geyer in relation to the secret of a successful mouthpiece — but pretty generally, this quote is one you can’t easily apply directly to your teaching or playing. More recent mouthpiece designs have largely solved the problems he describes.

According to the great horn maker, Carl Geyer, two-thirds of the horn players today use the straight cup mouthpiece, but in fifty years of observing hornists who have played for him, he states that there is no one mouthpiece. With the straight cup mouthpiece the problem of intonation is more easily handled than with the other two types of mouthpiece. If the cup of the mouthpiece is too short, the low notes of the horn register are difficult to play. If the cup is too long then the high notes suffer. The throat of the mouthpiece is of great importance to tonal production. The greater the development of the breathing apparatus in playing the horn the larger the opening required in the mouthpiece. The throat opening is, in essence, the secret of the successful mouthpiece.

Milan Yancich had his own series of mouthpieces produced, the MY models made by Alexander. They are classics and were innovative products, as they were produced with a larger inner diameter than commonly seen at the time.

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