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Bordogni-Gumbert-Ericson is back, in a second edition for all brass

John Ericson
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In 2016 I put together, set in six different ranges for all brass instruments, a new edition of the venerable Bordogni vocalises. For my version, initially developed for use in low horn teaching, I had went back to an earlier edition than the popular Rochut version for trombone, with some light updates of my own.

That original edition of 21 etudes is described here, and they were initially put up for sale in a PDF only version. Honestly, they did not sell too many copies, not many people knew about them, they were only sold directly from the Horn Notes Edition website, and of course there was no printed version available. Ultimately, I pulled all the PDF versions of all my publications off the market and in 2018 updated all the book-like publications into Kindle format for better distribution, dropping the music publications.

Fast forward to this summer, and I had the big project to upgrade my Kindle editions and update them to again be available in print (more on that here). With a positive review from the International Trombone Association also to spur me on, I took the plunge and the Bordogni-Gumbert-Ericson collection is back in print in a second edition. It is available worldwide in print and Kindle formats through Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing. Search for them in Amazon, or go to this page of the Horn Notes Edition website for links to all versions. My description of them there:

The Bordogni-Gumbert-Ericson Collection (six versions of Bordogni for all brass), second edition

These classic vocalises (vocal etudes) by Marco Bordogni (1789-1856) are a favorite among brass players today. This new edition is based on the 1880 edition by Ferdinand Gumbert (1818-1896), following Gumbert closely for the first 21 of these classic melodies. Intended for vocalists, Gumbert has indicated more articulations and less slurs than the typical edition, providing for us more musical variety to the treatment of the original Bordogni melodies. To better suit the modern brass player his edition has been lightly updated, and is presented here as a collection of six versions, covering ranges from Standard Treble Clef to Ultra-Low Bass Clef.

“Sold at an incredibly reasonable price … this new edition of the classic Bordogni Vocalises is a must.” Review of Standard Bass Clef and Low Bass Clef versions, International Trombone Association

In terms of my own teaching, the version I most missed using was the standard treble clef version, and I’m buying a few copies to use with my students. Give them a try! I believe these are great additions to what is out there for horn and all brass teachers.

A final little note of random interest, as with my other publications I took the cover photo. The instruments are all vintage, silver plated instruments in my small personal collection. That King trumpet belonged to my dad, and my parents picked up the other instruments for me at auctions in Kansas. The Conn trombone in particular is an interesting design with very artistic braces. I’m happy with the cover and how it all came out.

UPDATE: A question came in about the piano accompaniment, if it might be available. It is! Go to IMSLP and search out the Gumbert edition of Bordogni 24 Vocalises. They are in the same sounding key for horn players as the low treble clef and low bass clef, and for bass clef instruments in the same sounding key as the standard bass and extra-low bass versions.

10 years of Horn Matters! A look back at the top 20 articles

John Ericson
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Horn Matters officially launched on September 1, 2009, and has made a big impact on the horn world. What articles were the most significant?

The articles below are the top twenty: all have over 10,000 page views since October of 2014, the point back to which shows up in the stats available now. The below list is in order, with the articles at the top of the list having the most page views. It is an interesting one to ponder, as you can see what people are looking for and imagine how searches brought them to these articles.

PDF Library (Ericson/Hembd)

French Horn Transposition Chart (Hembd)

Thoughts on ‘Quality’ and an Overview of Trusted Brands in French Horns (Hembd)

Choosing a French Horn Mouthpiece (I): The Basic Parts (Hembd)

Symmetry and Balance: 3 Reasons to Not Worry about an Off-Center Embouchure (Hembd)

The Vintage Conn 8D (Ericson)

The Top Ten Orchestral Works for Horn (the last one might surprise you!) (Ericson)

Hornmasters: Even More on the High Range (Ericson)

(Ouch!) Four Practical Tips for Painful, Swollen Lips (Hembd)

Choosing a French Horn Mouthpiece (II): Cup, Throat and Bore (Hembd)

Transposition Tricks: Bass Clef (Hembd)

Hornmasters on Mouthpiece Placement (Ericson)

From the Mailbag: Kruspe or Geyer–Which is Better? (Ericson)

University of Horn Matters (Ericson)

4 Tips on Orchestration and Horns (Hembd)

Choosing a French Horn Mouthpiece (III): Weight, Plating and Shopping Tips (Hembd)

The Three (or Four) Types of Lubricants You Need (Weiner)

What is “Red Rot”? (Weiner)

Transposition Tricks: Old vs. New Notation (Hembd)

Hornmasters on the Low Range, Part I: Older Resources (Ericson)

Will we make it another ten years? We could – only time will tell. For sure, there is no other site like Horn Matters.

As I close, I would like to thank especially Bruce Hembd again. He actually picked up the Horn Matters domain with an idea that it was a great website name, and then things came together and we were able to create the site you see today. I am more of a content/editing person, and Bruce not only wrote quite a lot of our top content, also, he is the brains behind the site; my actual web skills are not nearly as high.**

Thank you to our advertisers and readers for your support for Horn Matters, and keep spreading the news that we are still open for business!

**Very much reminded of this with struggles this past week with my hornnotes.com site. I could never develop a site like Horn Matters on my own.

Introducing the French Horn Warmup Collection

John Ericson
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With the summer project of converting my E-book publications back to being available in print versions, there were sections of several books that I wanted to compile together for my students to use, related to warming up. Then a thought occurred, why not pull them together as a separate publication? I had drafts of a warmup book back in 2016, related to warming up to improve intonation, but had abandoned the project.

The result of this late summer work is I was able to bring together a new publication that will hopefully generate some interest, The French Horn Warmup Collection. From the product description,

The topic of warming up needs little introduction; hornists who wish to excel should plan to warm up every time they get the horn out of the case to play. This practical and effective collection brings together the warmup materials and technical exercises presented in four recent publications — Introducing the Horn, A Mello Catechism, The Low Horn Boot Camp, and Playing Descant and Triple Horns – with additional exercises designed for the improvement of breathing and intonation.

One footnote on the edition, the cover is unique but maintains the “family” look of the series, as I was able to use an image I had created for possible cover usage back in 2007 but I did not use at that time.

It is available inexpensively in Kindle and print formats, worldwide. For links to purchase visit the Horn Notes Edition website, or search for me or the publications by title on Amazon.

Mozart K407 – We should be playing this work more often

John Ericson
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In my summer practice I’ve kept coming back to the Mozart Quintet for horn and strings K407, and the more I look at this the less I understand why this work is rarely performed.

Sure, it is for horn and an unusual string quartet of violin, two violas, and cello. Good luck putting that group together! But it can be performed other ways. One of those ways is done sometimes, there is an arrangement for horn, violin, and piano that is pretty effective really. Another way is you could play the work with piano only, which recasts the work into more of a sonata sounding work.

At this point some readers are thinking hey, the last movement of the K407 is in the Mason Jones Solos for the Horn Player book, and those readers would be correct. That one movement is played pretty often for horn and piano; in fact, it was the solo I took to contest when I was a high school senior. I have also performed the second movement from an old Sansone edition for horn and piano, it is a great movement that I know some have used (with adjustment to horn in D) as a second movement to “complete” Mozart 1.

Looking on YouTube, maybe I need to look harder, but I can’t find any performances of K407 with piano except for the last movement (this one, for example). There have been at least two versions of the complete work published for horn and piano, a complete edition by Mason Jones that seems to be out of print and also Peters has a version in print for horn and piano. There probably are others. I strongly suspect it would sound rather nice with piano.

I go back again to that question, this piece has some wonderful melodies and moments, why is this not performed more often? High Bb shows up in every movement so that might deter some people, and others are just not fans of arrangements for artistic reasons. Still, I’ve been practicing it on valved horn and on natural horn, I think how Mozart has you approach the high notes is pretty friendly. And yes, to play it with piano is not as Mozart wrote it, but I would argue that I think an audience would find it an attractive work, give it some thought as you think about your recital choices.

Should you practice 50% of the time with a metronome and tuner?

John Ericson
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Metronome. Tuner. How much do you use them in your practice?

At Arizona State we have a new trumpet professor starting this fall, Joe Burgstaller. In his instructions to students preparing for their placement auditions he suggests that they record themselves every day in their practice and listen to the recordings. But just as important is this instruction:

“Use a metronome and tuner 50% of your practice.”

This is really much more critical than you might think, as you can totally get used to how you sound, you won’t even notice the funky rhythm or intonation on a recording, as it sounds correct to you.

In my recent summer practice I’ve worked to use the tuner more than 50% of the time, and when I don’t use it I use drones. I’m liking the Tonal Energy tuner/app for this purpose a lot, as it has not only a tuner but built in metronome and ability to produce drones. I do suggest the winds/wide setting to make it a bit more forgiving, and for this challenge I think you are best to use equal temperament.

A couple key tips are worth mentioning. One is to don’t use the tuner for at least the first five minutes of your playing session, get things going and get comfortable. Your next step is to aim for on an open note like C or G, playing it in the most comfortable and centered location, with the result being exactly in tune. Adjust your main slide to hit this pitch level. Then stay with the tuner and as much as possible don’t bend the pitches, set your valve slides so that you can play in the most comfortable and centered place consistently. You may find some harmonics tend to be low (frequently the E on the bottom line for example) but, again, do your best to get it all centered with slide positions and a comfortable centering.

Give it a try! I suspect that not only will your intonation improve, your accuracy will also improve, perhaps greatly improve, by being more in tune.

On tight valve strings, thin oil, and alignment

John Ericson
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Rotary valves can be a bit of a mystery for horn players and musical instrument repairmen. Three topics you should consider.

Strings too tight. I’ve seen this more often than I would like. I think that at the shop the repair person thinks that the strings should be really tight and it will keep things quiet or something. Reality is that if the strings are way tight it holds the valve over to one side of the bearing instead of letting it spin freely. Your valves may catch or not even go all the way up or down. You don’t want them to be loose, but don’t have your strings very tight, find a happy medium where the valves spin easily.

Thin oil. I think part of the problem is that people are very influenced by marketing. If you have rotary valves you have to use rotary valve oil, right? But reality is if you have an expensive horn with high tolerance valves, oil that is too thick just slows everything down. Speaking generally use thin valve oil and use it often, unless there is noise in the bearings or linkages and then use as thick as you need.

Alignment. It seems real basic but it is important that the marks on the top of the valves actually lines up correctly. If they don’t, your horn won’t play optimally. Remember that thousandths of an inch matter in horn construction, and if any of your valves are rotating say 1/16” further than those marks, that is just not a good thing at all. If not rotating far enough, take a sharp X-Acto knife and trim the bumper. If rotating too far, replace the bumper.

I’ve seen horns come back from shops with poor alignment. I think what they did was just use the type of bumper stock they have and they did not modify it to get the alignment right. Those same shops may offer “scope alignment” of trumpet valves – they would not think of sending out a trumpet with valves 1/16” out of correct, but horn is another story.

In the case of all of these things, these are not things to be afraid of, take control and make your valves work better.

UPDATE: See also this article: PSA: Your Horn will Play Better if the Valves are Correctly Aligned

Hindemith on Tempos in the Hindemith Sonata

John Ericson
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Tempo choice is always an interpretation question.

At the 2019 IWBC Gail Williams performed the Hindemith Sonata on her recital, and told a story about what tempo Hindemith wanted.

The story is actually a Farkas story. Hindemith was a frequent (and favorite) guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony, and at one point, riding on the train to Milwaukee for a run out concert, Farkas was chatting with Hindemith and the topic of tempos and his horn sonata came up.

What Hindemith wanted was for all the movements to be at nearly the same base tempo, just with different characters. As printed the first movement is around 100, the second movement around 96, and the last movement is 92-100. Compared to typical tempos, the first movement is often performed a bit faster at around 108, the second movement often slower at around 80, and the last movement I think is typically around 100. With recordings varying, of course.

Tempos of all movements being nearly the same is what Williams aimed for in the IWBC performance, and also in her Summit recording, which was the source of the story — Farkas had heard that she would be recording the work soon, and relayed this important information from Hindemith.

In the case of the IWBC performance, it was a wonderful and intimate performance, avoiding the temptation to be overly aggressive, as I have sometimes heard done. And it was a wonderful conference with a great, supportive atmosphere; if you have the chance to go to an upcoming IWBC you most certainly should.

Revisiting the “buzz pipe”

John Ericson
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I’ve had phases where I made much use of a B.E.R.P. device for buzzing on the mouthpiece to work on improvement of accuracy. But there is another type of device; during his recent horn day visit at ASU Richard Seraphinoff mentioned that he has all his students use a buzz pipe, cut from about a foot of brass tube with a hole drilled in the side.

This caught my interest, as I tried to use a buzz pipe that I had cut from a broken leadpipe and found it was unusable, there was an obvious harmonic that I had to fight against right in the middle of my upper range. What I wanted was something that did not have that harmonic to fight, something that offered a bit stronger playing experience than buzzing on a mouthpiece alone.

Also, I knew in the back of my mind there was an article by Bruce Hembd on his inexpensive creation, the French Horn Articulation Resistance Tube (F.H.A.R.T.). His device was a 3-inch piece of vinyl tubing. In this article he notes the same problem, and a solution,

One drawback of this homemade version on the B.E.R.P is that at some point in the high range (depending on length), the buzzing lips crash into what I presume are the fundamental overtones of the tube itself.

Something goes really wonky and the F.H.A.R.T. hits a fan. Or something.

For my 3-inch design, this happens around top line G in the treble clef staff. At this point I must remove the tube and buzz without it. With the B.E.R.P. this is not an issue – its advanced design overcomes this problem.

One solution for this upper range constipation is to heat a large nail and burn a clean, small hole in the vinyl tubing.

I decided to carry the science a bit further with making four variations of design. Cutting to the chase, the best design is a longer tube (around 1 foot) with a hole cut in it about 3 inches from the mouthpiece end (I used metal cutting shears to cut the tube quickly and easily). The hole seems to eliminate the harmonic that you otherwise on every other version have to fight against into the upper range.

In the photo also seen is a trombone mouthpiece (I’m using Kelley plastic mouthpieces in my buzz pipes) which I tried using as a “bell,” but it was not a good idea, it further reinforced the harmonic “slot” in the upper range.

Overall the experience is different than using a B.E.R.P. If I had to pick a word, I’d say it has more depth than the B.E.R.P. or a mouthpiece alone.

I should mention also, there are makers who sell these devices! (Do a google search). But if you have never tried a buzzing device give it a try, they are a great practice aid and I think more practical than the Hosaphone travel horn I made a few years ago (more here)… the tubing I used is actually cut off the corpus of that horn….

Looking closer at the topic of breath support with Eli Epstein

John Ericson
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Those familiar with my teaching know that I almost never use the term “support,” and when I do I add disclaimers about the word and what I mean. I have felt it to be too much of a vague term to use often, and one that means different things to different people.

That is not to say, however, that I do not advocate for support and playing with a supported sound. It is something that I worked on in my studies, mainly with reference to good breathing. This is one angle to use, but now thanks to Eli Epstein I now have a better and more physiologically accurate way to describe it.

Continuing his series of videos, this new one on Breathing and Breath Support is excellent! I love the comparison to picking up a chair, that is exactly the correct feeling and a great way to visualize it. The direct video link is here. https://youtu.be/2LccA6A_M1s

While looking at videos, there are two others Epstein produced in the last year or so well worth a look:

Relaxation Before Performance: https://youtu.be/1j5iVdg08-A

Radical Practicing: https://youtu.be/Z67FMvjfLzI

Bravo to Epstein to continuing to add great content to the Internet, I’ll be watching to see what else is posted as the series continues.

Wellness, practice, and how to actually improve

John Ericson
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This semester our guest for our horn day was Richard Seraphinoff. One focus was on injury and wellness, and that is a topic I have a conversation with him on in Episode 33 of the Horn Notes Podcast (available on Spotify, iTunes, etc.). If the topics of brass playing and injuries are of interest at all (and they should be!) give it a listen! The direct link is here.

However, our first session of the horn day was on the topic of practice. A version of his handout materials may be found online (here), but one particular statement, made almost in passing, has really stuck with me. It was this:

You can practice for years and not get any better.

This is absolutely the case. We tend to think of practice being something that should directly lead to constant and linear improvement in your playing ability. However, it is no guarantee of progress, and the results of your practice will vary due to potentially multiple factors. In other words, your playing can absolutely stall out and never get better – if you do not practice correctly, or get some key suggestions on how to fix your problems and go beyond your present issues.

Part of the solution is to practice in a way that works to solve problems. Which is easy to say but hard to do sometimes, and then you get stuck. Repetitions at some point only reinforce the problems rather than providing insights toward solutions.

If you are stuck a fact is that you are not likely to fix the issue working only on your own. It may take a number of lessons with multiple teachers in fact to figure out what the key thing is that is missing, what is holding you back.

Over the summer I often tell students that you can make a semester of improvement over the break from school. I feel sure I did probably every summer, but that was the result of not only practice but lessons with competent teachers. Do your best to find those teachers, get insights into how to improve, and practice in an effective manner that confronts your weaknesses. It will certainly pay off with better horn playing.

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