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

I recently had a thought, that playing the French horn well favors people with a strong sense (and need for) routine. Let me explain.

I have mentioned at various times in this site, my son has Down syndrome and autism. It is at times a challenging combination, with a central need of his being that we have routines and we do those things consistently. Many elements of life are the same from day to day. Recent family conversations have only emphasized how his need for routines has impacted our lives in the entire family in various ways.

Routines and me

I grew up with parents that were also very much into routines of life. Both of them grew up on farms in the 1930s, and they knew what was called a routine – with the chores to do every day, and the various seasonal routines of life.

The benefit for me as a horn player was that I also got into various routines in life. Practicing being one of them!

If your life is on the other hand very free form, very spontaneous, I suspect that you are not likely to be so consistent with practice.

Did you practice every day over the entire pandemic?

A little story. My son has his routines, and part of his routine is for me to practice after dinner around the time of his bath every day. Over the entire pandemic I think I practiced every single day other than about 10 days. 6 of those days I was on a road trip with my son. I did not have much specific that I needed to practice, so I had to come up with projects for myself. Thankfully, I also enjoy the process of warming up as well; many days were just an easy warmup and a few random etudes. The benefit of all that pandemic practice was my chops came through in great shape.

Is it the “spectrum,” or just routines?

At one point someone asked me very seriously if I was on the Autism spectrum. I really don’t think so, but then again, the spectrum is a very broad term. I do have some preferences in various areas of life — but I really don’t think any of them are serious enough to put me on the spectrum.

As a horn player though I can see some potential benefit of being on the spectrum or at least the fringes of it, as part of the diagnosis of Autism involves a deep need for routines. My son can melt down badly when his routines are too far from normal, and that is not the case for me, I am pretty flexible. But I do in the big picture have life routines, and that is good, as I think a case can be made that you really do need a good sense for and need for routines to excel on the horn.

And to the bigger topic of horn player personalities

It might end up being a little hard to study, but I’d still be interested to see if some motivated DMA student would study this general topic, that of high-level horn players and the spectrum. I think some general trends of horn personalities would come out, in perhaps unexpected ways.

To close I will go back to the opening thought; good horn players likely also have a strong sense of routines in how they organize their life. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I suspect that many of the top horn players do crave routines on some level.

As mentioned in part I, recently I stumbled across my notes from the first big horn master class I ever attended, October 18, 1982 with Barry Tuckwell at the University of Kansas. That Saturday was one that undoubtedly impacted the course of my life and horn playing, and my notes from the class will I hope find some resonance with Horn Matters readers as well.

Another comment on Tuckwell

Turning the page in my notes, I have another comment on Tuckwell at the top of a page. Again, I had an impression of his playing that was exclusively from his recordings, so hearing him in person was eye opening. My comment was “Tuckwell — seems to play too soft, but can turn it on.”

Hindemith Sonata, page 1

That thought probably came in relation to comments on the playing of our next player, Richie Roberts. He was I believe a Sophomore (I knew him a bit as he had also took lessons with Susan Rankin, who I worked with privately) and was playing a Holton H180. What I wrote down was “Don’t play too ‘bombastically’ in loud spots (–not noisy).” I don’t know that I’ve ever used the word “bombastically” in my teaching, but you can imagine that is not a good thing, it must have been a bit too aggressive.

Roberts was for sure with piano for what was only the opening of the work (just to the low held E), so there was an additional comment to be sure to match the horn and piano melodies. In my teaching that is always a general concern, both for volume and style.

Tuckwell also got to talking about his tonguing. My notes are not real clear but it had something to do with blowing into the articulation and coordination of the tongue and air. “Anticipate with breath.”

Strauss 2:1

On this work and performer I have the fewest notes, but there are some good thoughts. The player was Dwight Pervis, I think he might have been a senior, and somehow I did not write down what type of horn he played.

A major point was for him to not treat this as a virtuoso movement, to give it a more reflective character. This is a great point. He had at least one specific passage in mind, the runs of sixteenth notes right at the beginning, don’t play these too fast.

Beyond that, he suggested he take more risks in terms of tempos. My guess is it sounded a bit “generic” to Tuckwell, that he wanted a more convincing performance and interpretation, but within an overall mood that was more reflective. As I get older, the thought of the more reflective interpretation of this work resonates with me more and more.

Q&A

Then there was time for questions.

One big topic was that of playing standing. I did not make a note of this but my memory says the players did a mixture of sitting and standing to play the solos. Tuckwell was in favor of standing, it projected better. At the time, there were a lot of players dedicated to playing seated, me being of that camp at the time.

Another topic had to do with playing the notes or playing with musicality. I wrote to “aim between” them. A good performance is a mixture of both to be sure.

The next few topics, sadly, I’m not sure quite what he said but he had questions that went into the topics of hand position versus pitch, lip trills, breath support, embouchure, and dynamics.

But his next topic I do have a bit more clarity on, that of practice. What I wrote down was “Balance practice, but emphasize what is needed.”

The final notes I made are worth quoting in full, as they sound like actual quotes:

• Off days, no! Only occasional on days
• Vary [the] warm up with [the] condition of lips
• Make every note count in [the] days practice
• Many problems are mental

Postlude

Oh, to go back again and be able to know better all the points made! But at least I still have these physical notes, powerful reminders of a day some 40 years ago when I was just starting to aim towards a career in horn performance and horn teaching.

Then we get to this photo. I had the opportunity to play third horn on the Konzertstuck at the 2012 IHS Symposium in Texas under the baton of Tuckwell! That was something I certainly never dreamed of in 1982, a memory now just as treasured as that master class long ago.

Return to beginning of Tuckwell 1982 Series

Recently I stumbled across my notes from the first big horn master class I ever attended, on October 18, 1982 with Barry Tuckwell at the University of Kansas. It probably was not the very first master class I ever attended, but I have no clear memories of any prior master classes. I took plenty of notes, which I believe Horn Matters readers will find interesting to reflect on.

I also don’t know for sure how I heard about this master class, but there must have been a mailing from the professor at KU, David Bushhouse, whom I had taken a few lessons with.

John Ericson in 1982

The fall of 1982 found me starting my Junior year at Emporia State University. Emporia, KS, was my home town, and my dad taught Chemistry at Emporia State. I had started college as a music business major with a goal of becoming an instrument repairman, but switched to performance the middle of my sophomore year. The previous summer I had studied with David Wakefield at the Aspen Music Festival and changed my embouchure and horn! I was playing a school E-series 8D rather than the Holton I had played since high school, seen in the photo here. I was at the time taking weekly lessons with my Emporia State horn teacher Melbern Nixon (who was a trombonist) and had just started taking nearly weekly extra lessons with Nick Smith in Wichita. In short, I was pretty motivated, and a master class with Tuckwell was an event I was not going to miss.

That October Saturday at KU, the scene itself of that recital hall and the players on stage, is amazingly fresh in my memories, even though 40 years have passed. As mentioned, I took plenty of notes, enough to split this article into two parts. The players are in the order they performed that day.

The very first comment

Tuckwell must have played a few notes, and I immediately noted something that really surprised me. I was very familiar with his recordings — but he did not at all sound like I thought he would in a room. What I wrote was “Tuckwell sounds like he’s playing muted (cup mute).” It was quite covered to my taste of the time, and was really not what is typically done now either.

I did not write it down, but his horn was a (modified) Holton 180. I did note almost all the other horns, so for sure you can see I was already an equipment person.

Franz Strauss: Concerto, Op. 8, mvt. 1

I actually did not write down what F. Strauss work this was, but memory and the notes taken would indicate it was probably the first movement of the Franz Strauss concerto. The player was Nan Funkhauser. I believe she was considered a graduate student (I knew she and her husband Jim had a good-sized private studio in the KC area, and both of them played professionally — looking online, I see she was subsequently in the Kansas City Symphony for 25 seasons). She was playing an 8D.

The first comments from Tuckwell were about focusing on the lyrical rather than the technical. Then he commented on her dynamics. What I wrote exactly was “Don’t play too soft at all dynamics.” He encouraged her to have more of a timbre change between loud and soft. In particular he seemed to have felt she was losing her tone when she got too soft. With years of teaching now I think what he was getting at was it was simply all too soft, not soloistic enough, needed to expand the dynamic range overall.

Gliere Concerto, mvt. 3

Up next was Lisa Krank playing Gliere on a King horn (probably an Eroica). My impression is she was an undergrad. On this Tuckwell zeroed in on breathing issues, and basically every comment related to breathing.

Stepping back for a second, one of the first things to go when you are nervous is breathing. I would guess that is part of what happened for Lisa that day.

He certainly wanted her to take a big breath without tensing up, saving air at the beginning of longer phrases. He specifically commented that you should not think of compressing air as part of this. I also wonder if she had a bit of a hesitation attack issue, as he wanted her to coordinate her breathing better, that she needed (as I wrote it) to “feel rhythm in breathing & playing.”

Strauss 2:3

Our player for the final movement of Strass 2 was Max Cripe. I had met Max in All-State band when we were high school seniors (I was well down the section from him), and the summer of 1981 we both had been in the Kansas Bandmasters Association Intercollegiate Band. Cripe is one of the players that you potentially have heard of, as he was for many years Principal Horn in the Marine Band in DC. At the time he was playing an 8D, and quite a way ahead of me as a player in terms of rep, I would not tackle Strauss 2 until I was a Master’s degree student.

I have a lot of notes on Max. He seemed to stimulate some extra interest from Tuckwell, perhaps he recognized he was playing on a higher level. I won’t quote all of my notes, but here is a good sample.

• Grade dynamics better between loud & soft
• Arch fingers on key[s]
• Phrase melody – like voice [his concern was that phrase endings needed to be nicely tapered, covered in the next comment in my notes, with drawings to clarify it at the time]
• Don’t play repeated notes exactly the same
• Be more conscious of what you accent
• All alternates [fingerings] — don’t try to cover up what you can ‘t do through them, use for varied tones, etc. (started on G, 1st valve) [I think the basic issue was the G might have been out of tune]
• Look down at high notes, not up
• Lighten technique
• A master can play well even with basic faults

That last comment I’m not sure quite what he was getting at, and there was another one I skipped that had to do with “affect legato” but I’m not sure what he/I was getting at there either.

In any case, the class was not over, and when this series returns next week we will look at the Hindemith Sonata and Strauss 2:1, with some final Q&A!

Continue reading Tuckwell 1982 series