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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 4: “Dropping the jaw” in the low range?

John Ericson
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Some players seem to think this is bad conventional wisdom at least, as they found that “dropping the jaw” did not work for them. However, I must start with a spoiler alert. Dropping the jaw into the low range is not a myth, this conventional wisdom is correct. The issue is do you actually drop your jaw? Do you just imagine that you are dropping your jaw?

If you want to see it for yourself, there are MRI and X-ray videos online that confirm the motion of the jaw going into the low range of the horn. In summary,

  • The jaw drops markedly below middle C among elite horn players
  • Students often have to be convinced to make this “break,” but it is essential
  • In the Willis videos you will see her jaw goes down and forward, which is typical of the motion involved
  • Say “taw,” this type of motion will be helpful
  • You can see this in MRI, but it is easier to see jaw motion in the X-ray videos, as MRI focuses on soft tissues
  • The Eli Epstein book (3rd edition) has great illustrations as well.

What I have seen repeated in many horn lessons is students have heard that they need to drop their jaw, they think they are dropping their jaw, but actually they are not doing it! In this case, the conventional wisdom is correct. Of course, it is just one element of many in relation to improving the low range. The low range is highly individualistic, but dropping the jaw ends up being among the most critical elements, along with not being overly relaxed and keeping good contact with the mouthpiece.

In my publication The Low Horn Boot Camp I present a technique for self-study of your jaw motion. It involves taking your hand out of the bell, putting your thumb on your chin, and playing into the low range. Try it! You may be surprised to learn you are not doing what you thought you were. For more on this and many other low range tips see the book.

When the series concludes the topic is mouthpieces

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 3: The dreaded topic of too much mouthpiece pressure

John Ericson
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Another topic I want to address in this series is mouthpiece pressure. We have all seen the page in the Farkas book where he has the horn on the shelf in an exercise to reduce mouthpiece pressure.

First, I would mention that I personally heard Farkas himself in masterclasses more than once state that he regretted putting that photo in the book. Partially a safety issue, you could lose the horn on the floor (!), but also he I think realized that this exercise, while perhaps creating extra awareness, was advocating for too little pressure.

I have concluded after years of teaching that good students trying to play with too little pressure is the bigger problem. As mentioned earlier in this series, there are different setups, and certainly, some players need differing basic amounts of mouthpiece pressure. Remember the story of Goldilocks and her porridge. The ideal mouthpiece pressure is not too little, not too much, but “just right.”

It is not just a range thing either. You will find that at different dynamics you will need differing amounts of pressure to produce a good tone. Do what you need to do! Focus on the good sound, and you will be in an OK place for pressure.

In short, looking at the big picture of all of this, some mouthpiece pressure is certainly appropriate. I suspect many fine players use heavier pressure without being aware of it or admitting it in print.

Speaking personally, my embouchure formation with my slightly heavy lips seems to require more mouthpiece pressure than what Farkas advocated, and my guess is that the very light pressure described might only work for people with very thin lips. It would be interesting to see this aspect studied specifically.

There have been a few studies on mouthpiece pressure by the way. Most notably, I like to point people to the study of trumpet players by Joe Barbenel, John Booth Davies, and Patrick Kenny, “Science proves musical myths wrong,” published in New Scientist, April 3, 1986. It is an interesting case study. From the article,

From these experiments, we can make several guarded statements. First, it is simply not true that professional players of the highest calibre use low levels of force on the mouthpiece. We could not differentiate amateur players from professionals in terms of the amount of force they used to perform a given task. Secondly, skilled players were no better than other groups at ranking photographs of players for the amount of force the subjects were using on the mouthpiece. The experts appeared to base their judgments of force on the general appearance of effort rather than on any specific cues. When asked to judge between different players, experts could not reliably tell who used the most force and who used the least.

The bad conventional wisdom result they expected was that professionals used less pressure and amateurs used more, but that was not the case at all. There was also little ability to look at a photo and tell if a player was using heavy or light pressure. One take away is that some fine professional players, while looking all relaxed, are actually using vastly more pressure than you would ever guess.

Where you actually fit in the spectrum of mouthpiece pressure will become clear as you above all listen and look for the very best sound. Pressure takes care of itself, especially if you have a friendly mouthpiece rim that is not too round or narrow.

When the series continues the topic is the low range.

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 2: Tonguing misconceptions

John Ericson
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Returning to the story of 2008 and my teaching and playing, I faced a reality that I did not do what I thought I was doing in the tonguing department. That fall (like every fall), I was working with students on a common problem, making shorter articulations. Every student comes in having studied with other people, and a common instruction, stated very clearly in the Farkas book, is to not tongue on the lips, with an exception for only one situation. To review Farkas on this,

  • For a sforzando the tongue is “placed very near the lip opening, perhaps even touching the lips, but not protruding between them”
  • As to tonguing on the teeth/gums, “Generally, better definition is obtained by attacking progressively farther forward on the teeth …”
  • “… conversely, tonguing higher onto the gums and farther back will produce softer attacks.”
  • “… never stop the air column abruptly by using the tongue …”

I knew – for years! – that I was actually tonguing on my lips for short notes, which I could very much feel in the middle and lower range in particular. What I did not know was that in most other situations I also tongued at least lightly on my lips. Which was wrong by the way I thought of things.

Consulting with some trusted sources, I learned that many people had figured this out, but it was not very reported, or known. In my own case, I was especially reassured by this passage from chapter V of A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing by Milan Yancich on the topic of articulation. After a discussion of first teaching a student how to start notes, Yancich makes it clear that you have to develop a wide range of articulations on the horn,

I then demonstrate different kinds of articulation: placing the tongue out very far between the teeth for heavy, marcato or hammered playing; placing it behind the upper teeth for legato playing; putting the tongue to the roof of the mouth to give an even more legato articulation; and finally placing the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth, using the flat of the tongue against the roof of the mouth to produce even another attack. The student then understands that the tongue, very much like the bow on a stringed instrument, can be used for many different types of articulation.

I certainly tongue differently in different situations. Returning to the Farkas book, he describes tonguing itself in a manner that is not physiologically accurate or possible really. The MRI horn studies have been very important to our understanding how things really work. In my recent podcast interview with Peter Iltis (MRI horn studies) he describes the motion of the tongue in tonguing as being oblique. It really is neither up and down or forward and backward.

Furthermore, if you look at the MRI studies of for example Sarah Willis online, you can see clearly the tongue motion into the lip opening which is not at all as Farkas described.

The reality is that some teachers have advocated for tonguing into the lip opening for many years. The most notable old source is from Anton Horner (1877-1971). If you have heard of him, you might think of him as the designer of the Horner model Kruspe, the horn that Conn copied to make their 8D horn. However, he was a very notable player, principal horn in Philadelphia and longtime professor at Curtis (1924-42). The following quote is from page 4 of his Primary Studies for the French Horn, where it may be found right before study No. 1.

Attack each note with your tongue as though you had a small hair or tiny piece of thread on the end of your tongue and wanted to force it out of your mouth.

Try it! The tongue is incredibly facile. Tonguing is simple; many teachers have made it difficult by using too many words and by using those words to describe things that are not possible.

In my own teaching, I am very concerned that students are able to achieve everything from the most connected legato to the most crisp staccato possible, and at all dynamics. Pick any one note, you will actually be tonguing differently at either end of that spectrum, there is no possible way to tongue everything the same and get the best results loud/soft/short/long. The shortest articulations in say Kopprasch require a “dut dut dut” attack that touches the lips (and stops the air column with the tongue), which really conflicts with the instructions found in Farkas.

You do not want to overthink it, but especially if you are a horn teacher you cannot just tell a student to imagine a result, you need to be able to give some specific instructions that are physiologically accurate. Instructions that do not simply repeat bad conventional wisdom.

When the series returns the topic will be mouthpiece pressure.

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 1: Background, and a breathing story

John Ericson
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As I shared in a workshop presentation back in 2010, I became a better teacher in 2008. I generated an article for Horn Matters related to that, Beyond Farkas: A Workshop Presentation (Update: no longer on the site), but that article only went so far, and did not get as directly as I should have at the topic of the dangers of conventional wisdom. I gave the topic another try on June 24 this summer, with a presentation to the Horns-United camp on the topic “Is ‘Conventional Wisdom’ holding back your horn playing?,” which got closer, but in this series this week my hope is to dig even deeper into the issues.

In the big picture, some of the issues are the result of lack of knowledge and repeating things told you by teachers or read in books. Where this is especially bad today in our world of horn teaching is that conventional wisdom comes from horn teaching that grew from a time when most horn players were mostly of one gender and ethnicity.

I studied with a number of good teachers. After finishing my Masters at Eastman with Verne Reynolds, I was playing well, but was helped greatly while taking professional auditions by private lessons with Becky Root, Peter Kurau, Milan Yancich, and especially Eli Epstein, all of the Rochester Philharmonic at the time. He was still developing his pedagogy (in comparison to that seen in his method, Horn Playing from the Inside Out), but his overall pedagogy was a big influence at the time in my audition preparation.

However, backing up a step, there was a group of very memorable lessons with Becky Root, Principal Horn of the Rochester Philharmonic at the time, where she talked to me about breathing. None of my teachers to that point that I can recall had ever taken time to work directly with me on the mechanics of breathing, and it was extremely helpful at the time. I later came to realize that 6’ tall male horn players can sound fine breathing OK only, and I sounded fine breathing OK only. For Root, almost a foot shorter than me, she needed to breathe very well all the time, and she had more awareness of the issue. I have taken this to heart in my playing and teaching over years, and this is just one of many issues that the modern horn teacher needs to be aware of in relation to gender and ethnicity and playing the horn at the highest level.

When I went back to school to work on my Doctorate, I chose the Doctor of Music in Brass Pedagogy program at Indiana University, working with Michael Hatfield, as I was especially interested in pedagogy. Part of any effective pedagogy is an understanding of the actual mechanics of brass playing. In that period, it became more and more clear to me that people were very hesitant to be critical of the Farkas book. Let me state clearly, I have no personal axe to grind against Prof. Farkas, I treasure the memory of several lessons with him and being part of the horn quintet that played at his 50th Wedding Anniversary reception. Not to mention that the Farkas book was a revolution to my horn playing when I first read it in High School. However, in that period I began to really question elements of his published pedagogy.

After IU, I won the position of Third Horn in the Nashville Symphony. Over time with that full time playing experience and then teaching at the college level (since 2001 at Arizona State), what became more and more clear to me was there is a spectrum of ways to play the horn. Stated more clearly, I began to see how Farkas in 1957 in The Art of French Horn Playing was toward one end of the spectrum, and the approach presented by Gunther Schuller in his 1962 publication Horn Technique was toward the other end. They are interesting publications to compare directly, as you get the sense that Schuller probably thought everything in the Farkas book was wrong, but he never says the approach is wrong, he just presents a completely different approach in his own book.

What has happened in the horn world over time is that even today (!), some 60 years after the book was published (!!), teachers and students are hesitant to be critical of the Farkas book. The result is the continuation of a conventional wisdom approach that is in some ways on one end of a spectrum, and other ways very dated or applicable only to a subset of players. It is really time to move on from dated sources, bad conventional wisdom approaches do not lead to the best results for a horn world full of diversity.

When the series continues we will start with the topic of tonguing.

Mailbag: How to hold a Concert Mellophone

John Ericson
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Getting back to the mailbag, a question came in a while ago on how to hold a traditional, concert mellophone.

The short answer is I have seen concert mellophone resources from the 1930s/40s that show the left hand holding either the rim of the bell or the valve section (fingering, of course, with the right hand). It was/is not normal to put a hand in the bell of a traditional mellophone.

However, backing up for those confused by the above, what is a concert mellophone? They are those horns that look like compact, right handed piston valve horns. They were still popular 100 years ago for young players and community bands and such. They take a different type of mouthpiece than the modern mellophone. I have a longer resource on these instruments here:

For a visual look at the topic, just this week a great video was posted by Robert Levine, a part of his “Week With a Horn” series, which reminded me of this question. He describes how to hold it and much more.

This is part of a series he has been posting on his YouTube channel and on his website, REL Brassworks. Check it out the website for even more here:

https://relbrassworks.com/media/

New: 30 Modern Preparatory Etudes and Solos

John Ericson
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Stuck in Kopprasch? Tired of the same-old-same-old? Looking for a group of short, contemporary etudes and solo horn works?

Just in time to brighten up a long summer of practice is a new publication, 30 Modern Preparatory Etudes and Solos for French Horn. An expansion of a shorter publication I brought out in 2016, you will find these etudes and solos to be incredibly useful in your teaching, study, or personal practice. Affordably priced at $9.99 in print or $4.49 as Kindle, search for these on Amazon or follow the links from http://hornnotes.com/

Here’s the blurb, and I have a bit more to add after it.

These new etudes and solos, composed in a modern style, bridge a gap in the horn etude literature and function as a concise, modern version of the classic Schantl/Pottag book of Preparatory Melodies. The 26 short etudes focus primarily on technical issues, but the goals overall are accuracy and preparing students for performance of more difficult 20th-century etudes and works of a similar character which present a variety of challenges. The book concludes with a set of four new works that review the melodic materials of the etudes, formatted as solo horn works suitable for jury or studio class performance.

The solos are a special feature of this publication. The Cugnot Thirty Etudes for Horn, a 19th century etude publication, divided their etudes into groups and had a “recapitulation” etude that covered those materials as a review. Taking that idea as an inspiration, I used melodic elements from each of the etudes to create “solo horn works” patterned (in form and character) on the most popular of those for horn, to serve as a review of the etudes and to challenge students toward a higher level musical performance. Laudation is based the Krol Laudatio, Fantasia for Horn is based on the Arnold Fantasy, Allegory for Solo Horn is based on the Persichetti Parable, and Intergalactic Corona is based on the Messiaen Appel interstellaire. If the resulting solo works of mine are worthy of recital performance I will let you decide, but I think you will at least find them an interesting feature to explore.

Finally, I return to the topic of Kopprasch. It is an effective study and teaching material, but also overused, and maybe emblematic of lazy teaching if it is the main or only material used. TRY SOME NEW MATERIALS! Especially right now, as so much playing time is being devoted to individual practice, time to play something new. For these new etudes and more check http://hornnotes.com/

UPDATE: Two sample etudes to try from the publication may be found in this article

On the topic of “Flow Studies”

John Ericson
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I recall a point in my Doctoral studies, I was taking a pedagogy class led by a trumpet player, and he used the term “flow studies” as though everyone knew exactly what he meant. One of his key points was that we should all be assembling “flow folders” for our practice.

Reality was that I was somewhat stumped by the term. I remember thinking at the time that it had something to do with melodic etudes, and I had plenty of them in standard materials. For me, even today, when I use the term “flow” in relation to any horn playing I hear, it is almost always about the flow of time. Either it flows at a steady pace or there is a change of flow felt in an accelerando or ritardando. Any other thing that breaks the musical flow, such as extra time taken at a breath when this disrupts the flow, is bad.

Over time though I realized that for trumpet players flow studies were a broad category and were certainly considered by many to be the most essential type of thing to study. One blurb I found states that flow studies are studies “designed to help trumpet players learn to effectively use their air flow to achieve smoothness and enhanced musicality.”

So what I’ve been doing in recent weeks in the coronavirus practice routine is look at classic trumpet flow studies. Some of the most essential flow studies are found in the venerable Clarke book, Technical Studies for the Cornet. I’ve been looking at that (I’ve never previously done anything other than the first two studies) and I’ve also been looking at another classic trumpet publication, Twenty-Seven Groups of Exercises for Cornet and Trumpet by Earl Irons, and also a more recent publication, The Allen Vizzutti Trumpet Method, book, 1.

In the big picture I think there are two main benefits. For the chops these studies are like long tones with smooth air flow. And for the fingers they are exercises in scale patterns so that those become effortless.

The issue is that trumpet flow studies don’t always translate to horn well for several reasons. The main ones being the phrases can run too long and they go too high. I find myself shortening exercise and putting them in different ranges. It is OK to change things! It’s all good practice.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are a number of what could be considered to be flow studies in The Brass Gym, if you would rather stick to horn publications, check out the horn version of this for some great flow studies.

Podcast: The Low Horn Session

John Ericson
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As part of my ongoing series of podcast “workshop presentations,” we come to the topic of the low horn, always a good one. The podcast, episode 42 of The Horn Notes Podcast, may be found at the link below or listen wherever you like to access podcasts.

Low horn is a topic I could talk about for quite a while. As I say in the podcast, I did not start out as a teacher that focused on low horn a lot but over time, I became one, as it is the weakest playing area for many students. I have learned a lot about teaching the low range over these years. Many aspects are very individualistic. Your success in this range will not likely come not from a guru with a single specific approach. Effective teaching involves problem-solving skills with a view that each student is an individual.

I cover two big topic areas in the podcast – materials to use and an overview of specific aspects of low horn playing. I develop the second topic further in my publication The Low Horn Boot Camp, which I believe is a very practical publication. Amazon reviews are a mixed bag,** but I especially appreciated what one recent buyer said of this publication, as this is exactly why I present the Bordogni etudes in it as I do:

I love the way these exercises are presented in treble clef an octave above so you can become familiar with the tune. For me, that was a real barrier for low horn studies, struggling with finding the notes while doing basement playing. So this has been a game changer.

For links to this publication and others of mine, be sure to check the Horn Notes Edition website or search on Amazon.

**I really do love helpful reviews. However, of other reviews of my publications, one stating that they don’t like the Kindle format is not real helpful (Kindle is what it is), and yet another states the Kindle version is overpriced. I did actually somewhat lower the prices after that, but really, you put a book through a third edition, there is only so low you can price things before they are not worth the effort to put out.

Looking for positive horn content in a difficult time?

John Ericson
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A big tip of the hat to David Cooper, principal horn of the Chicago Symphony. A student of mine at ASU (thanks Jeremy!) pointed me to his YouTube channel, where he has posted in the past month 20 (!) new videos with quite substantial content to listen to. In particular I told my student I’d really get interested if he did an interview with David Griffin, who I got to know in real life just before he joined the Chicago Symphony, and there he was:

Bruce Hembd and I both enjoyed this particular interview. This is nice positive content in a time where a lot of people in our horn world need some positive content.

There are many nice, positive videos popping up on social media of various types, this is a great development, because as I’ve commented this before, some other people seem to have it as their personal mission to ruin Facebook, etc. Seems like I’m muting someone for 30 days almost every day because they can’t resist sharing their hot take on whatever. I’m certainly spending less and less time on social media, working on non-horn hobbies has been especially good for me as these past weeks of teaching have been a huge challenge.

Stats show people are still finding Horn Matters a safe and positive place to visit, and we intend to keep it that way! And keep your eyes peeled for other positive new horn sources out there, good things can come out of a difficult time.

While on the topic of positive things, the sad news just came out that the IHS Symposium is cancelled for this year, but, saving the summer, the Kendall Betts horn camp will be online, June 22-27, 2020! More info at this link, and perhaps others will take up the challenge of creating viable online camps for brass and horn:

Workshop presentation: Playing the Wagner Tuba

John Ericson
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Continuing the series of short podcasts on topics in the form of workshop presentations, filling a need with all the cancelled workshops this year due to the corona virus outbreak, the topic today is the Wagner tuba! Listen to Horn Notes Podcast episode 41 at the link below or wherever you listen to podcasts:

http://hornnotes.libsyn.com/hornnotes-41-playing-the-wagner-tuba

In real life I’ve presented about the Wagner tuba at several horn workshops, not to mention have performed on it a number of times on works of Wagner, Strauss, Bruckner, and Stravinsky — and I have a publication out, Playing the Wagner Tuba, available on Amazon (print and Kindle versions) in a second edition.

I’ve also posted about it quite a few times in Horn Matters. The main hub as of [UPDATE] 2025 is here:

BONUS: What to Play on your Wagner Tuba

For many years, basically hidden in an obscure corner of Horn Articles Online, a version of the following article was to be found. With the 2025 demise of that site, and in the sprit of this overall article being a “workshop presentation,” the following is on the practical topic of what to play on your Wagner tuba. It goes beyond the topics addressed in the podcast. 

First, it would be ideal that you became familiar during your studies in college with the Wagner tuba. The best initial materials to study are something along the lines of a Kopprasch etude or two and the Wagner and Bruckner excerpts found in Playing the Wagner Tuba (Horn Notes Edition). Spend some time on both the tenor and the bass if possible; you want to have no fear of either instrument with some basic understanding of the notations and fingerings. Public performance of a short etude or solo work on a recital or in a studio class would also be a good idea–more on that in a moment.

However, what happens more often is that you need to figure out how to play Wagner tuba in just a few weeks or days (!) before an important performance of a major work by Bruckner, Strauss, or Wagner. In this case you need to order the Wagner tuba book ASAP, figure out the notations, practice your music for the performance, and drill a bit of technique on something like a Kopprasch etude or two. It is very important to work out some sort of general technique that is not just rote learning of your parts for the concert.

In my own case, I had a few weeks to figure out the instrument and did exactly the above; I got my part to Bruckner 7 (the second bass tuba part in F) and also worked on some Kopprasch. It helped a great deal that also we had an extra sectional rehearsal before the first full orchestra service with the Rochester Philharmonic, always a very good idea. You don’t want to sound like you don’t know what you are doing in your first rehearsal.

A year later I was able to play the Wagner tuba again on Bruckner 8 with the Rochester Philharmonic. For this one I got the instrument shortly before Christmas and took it home with me. One of my former teachers was conducting a “tuba Christmas” concert at the mall and I played it on Wagner tuba! It was a nice diversion, and got me out of the box of orchestral music a bit.

Since that time I have performed the instrument in a number of different venues. The following are my two main suggestions for non-orchestral works to perform on Wagner tuba:

Horn ensemble works. A single Wagner tuba sounds great as the bottom voice in many horn ensemble works, bringing more depth to the ensemble, and there are duets and quartets that will sound great on Wagner tubas or combinations of horns and Wagner tubas.

Solo works. This is a controversial topic; some say the Wagner tuba should never be used for solo performances. There are several solo works that are actually for the instrument, in particular the Skurrile Elegie über Richard Wagner, Op. 86 No. 2 for tenor Wagner tuba and string quartet by the Dutch composer Jan Koetsier. This work is unfortunately only performable with a string quartet.

I have two personal favorite solos with piano that I have performed on tenor Wagner tuba. First, the Air (“on the G string”) by J. S. Bach, as published in Frøydis’ Favorite Prunes, Vol. 3 is just lovely on Wagner tuba. The Suite for French Horn or Bassoon or Cello and Piano by Frank Levy would also make an excellent recital selection. This work, published in 1961, is in eight short movements all of which lie well in the range of the Wagner tuba.

It may take a little thinking out of the box but there is quite a bit of music that really will work well on Wagner tuba. I have even tried to play a little jazz on Wagner tuba; it is a very interesting sound with some potential.

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