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On teaching styles of horn teachers, and creativity

John Ericson
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Not too long ago a colleague made an offhand comment about another teacher, saying they were a “method” teacher. That observation, and looking at the Jeff Agrell book on creativity (reviewed here), were key thoughts toward this article. Essentially there are two extremes of ways you could teach the horn (or any other instrument, really).

One type is the method teacher with a long list of technical things you have to master. They will have materials they like to use to teach those things, and you have to progress from the foundational things on to higher levels, the idea being if you do it all correctly as the expert teacher instructs you then you will succeed!

I don’t consider myself a method teacher of this type, but I can see how some elements of this teaching style are there. A great low range is a foundation to advancement, great tonguing, great control of dynamics, etc. But I don’t use charts and graphs, there is no one-size-fits-all plan of horn study that I follow. Every student is an individual after all.

One of my own teachers, Verne Reynolds, was very much a method teacher. I don’t think that he would have thought of himself to be, but clearly, he had certain things he expected you to do and had very specific materials that he used to teach those elements – and when I was at Eastman, everyone studied exactly those same materials! His etudes are actually a prime example of materials intended for method teaching. As noted in the prior article, there is absolutely nothing in the 48 etudes that you are supposed to be creative with. The whole goal is to play them exactly as written. Exactly! That is why they are written like they are written. The strong impression he left me with was that the only correct interpretation of his music in general was one that followed the markings exactly. Your job is to develop your absolute control of technique to achieve it.

Many horn teachers do something like this with Kopprasch as well, expecting a very specific interpretation of the music with a very exact control of dynamics and articulations. And there is a lot to be said for that level of attention to detail, especially as you look forward toward orchestral excerpts. Speaking generally, there is a narrow range of ways any excerpt sounds correct. Audition committees are not looking for a new, creative interpretation of Tchaik 5! Method teaching has some real applications toward this.

At the opposite extreme you have a style of teacher that is very free-form. They may not give you as a student any assignments, they simply want you to work on what you think you need to work on. Another flavor in this category would be the teacher very interested in motivating students by inspiration, so that it will propel you forward in your studies. Either flavor might work well with the right student, someone somewhat advanced and self-motivated, but then again, even then that student might appreciate some specific direction (a “method”) to help them toward solving problems and reaching their goals.

Creativity can add a spark to either type of teaching in various ways, but I can particularly see how it would help strengthen the teaching of a method teacher to enhance the interpretative ability of students, so that they can play more convincingly in general.

For example, let’s say you assign Reynolds 5 to a good student. There is a challenge to playing it as written and I believe Reynolds wanted it to stay exactly at the one dynamic he requests for the entire etude; the trap he laid was that the lines naturally tend to change dynamic and you have to counter that tendency. However, how about doing the opposite; ask the student to come up with a scheme of dynamics for the piece of their own. It really opens up the etude, and is a refreshing exercise for everyone as there is no one correct answer.

Another classic publication that I have been exploring more this semester than any prior semester, with an eye to creativity, are the Gallay unmeasured preludes, as discussed in the previous article. What is great about these is you actually can’t play them like Kopprasch. You have to be much freer in style, play it much like you might hear a fine cellist on a Bach suite. You make the phrases and dynamics work. Personally, I really am enjoying working on these on natural horn, it has made a great practice challenge for me recently.

Obviously, this article only scratches the surface of a pretty large topic, that of teaching styles. There is no one correct style but it is something to be aware of as a student. This older article has a few more thoughts on the topic, and this video provides a humorous look at the classic mean teacher. 

Creativity, Gallay, and the natural horn

John Ericson
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When I was working on the review of the new Jeff Agrell book on creativity I was struck by the idea that a lot of horn music we study is written in a way to stifle creativity. For example, one of my own teachers Verne Reynolds wrote difficult etudes, and based on my lessons with him don’t think he was looking for a creative performance of them. He was instead looking for you to pay close attention to every detail he noted in his music and to reproduce it accurately. (See, for example, item #2 in this list).

There is value to learning music in that way, of course. A lot of 20th century music responds well to this type of interpretation, and there are many skills you can hone in treating Kopprasch as exercises instead of as music. But there is also value in creativity of performance.

But what materials can you use to build creativity? One group of etudes that came to mind for me were the non-measured preludes, Op. 27 of Gallay. I describe the historical background of these here, but this time around I was inspired to really look at these with fresh eyes, with a view toward creativity in performance.

To get really understand the works I felt too that I needed to use the natural horn as well. Over time I have realized that one thing that has been lost on a lot of people is that Gallay was the natural horn professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1842 until his death in 1864, and everything he wrote is for natural horn originally. It ups the challenge level of playing the music of course, but if you have the basic natural horn skills it also opens your eyes to what he was looking for as well.

In short, Gallay is nothing like Kopprasch, and if you are playing Gallay like Kopprasch at all you are really doing it wrong. Far from being etudes, the non-measured preludes are wonderful, intimate solo works to play on the horn, crying out for a free and very musical approach.

Continuing that thought, why bother with playing Bach cello suites to work on freedom in performance and musicianship skills? Instead, use these preludes and also the Gallay Grand Caprices, Op. 32. For a brief introduction to those, check out this recent video and recording by Anneke Scott:

The majority of my practice the last several weeks has been Gallay on natural horn, which has been a challenge but a great change of pace. You might guess that accuracy is the big technical challenge, but actually intonation has been the biggest challenge. I am finally getting it there with careful mouthpiece and crook choices being very helpful (along with practice!).

In addition to the above works, I have been making use of the second horn etudes, Op. 57, and also the etudes found in his Method, which are included in the free PDF packet described from this article.

Finally, if you have never explored the natural horn but have an interest, do check Playing Natural Horn Today. It is a practical introductory text for the modern hornist learning to play the natural horn, available here from Horn Notes Edition. This publication was developed with the needs of horn players in mind, and is focused toward introducing the natural horn effectively to players who already play the valved horn and wish to learn the older instrument. You will need a bit of a technical foundation to play Gallay on the natural horn, but music like the non-measured preludes makes it totally worth the effort.

Brief review: The Creative Hornist by Jeffrey Agrell

John Ericson
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Creativity. One observation I have had is that people outside of music, often they are looking for creativity, that special spark, tying that idea with the idea of innovation. Who does not want innovation? That is what moves the world forward!

People outside our musical world would tend to think we in music are creative people. We are to a point of course; we are hardworking and have our skill sets and problem-solving skills. But also we tend to turn to tried and true ways of doing things, including among other things relying on dated resources for our practice and teaching. We tend to have systems of doing things that were passed down to us that we pass on to the next generation – systems that in reality may not work that well, but we lack the some of the creative spark that would be helpful to develop a new system that might lead to doing things better.

Another observation would be that teaching systems and student goals that tend to focus on audition preparation reinforce not being creative. The person with the most creative and innovative interpretation of Tchaik 5 is not likely to win the audition! However, someone who has a greater level of creativity might be able to play it more convincingly at the audition….

Jeffrey Agrell has been working to address the issue of improving creativity in the horn world for years, through in particular a long series of articles in The Horn Call. Have you read them? People do not much read the back issues these days unless maybe researching a dissertation or something, and not everyone is in the IHS either. Online resources such as Horn Matters and books that focus on topics in depth are more likely to be read. Print journals can be a place content goes to die….

This is where the new (2017) book by Agrell comes in, The Creative Hornist. The content is based on his series of Horn Call articles, in the format of topical essays, organized by type of content.

One thing I enjoy about reading Jeff Agrell in general is he writes in a very different style than many other horn writers. What is great about that is he expresses things in a way that can open up new insights for the reader, this is not at all another Farkas book. Subtitled “Essays, Rants, and Odes for the Classical Horn Player on Creative Music Making,” this 229-page publication is a welcome addition to the horn literature.

The book contains 30 chapters divided into seven sections, with plenty of quotes and innovative ways of approaching the topics at hand. There is a comparison to make with his other recent publication, Horn Technique, reviewed here. The Creative Hornist is substantial, but at the same time a shorter and more focused publication. Ultimately, it has a focus on building technique in creative ways, toward a goal also of finding your own musical voice. In the process, you will also develop your critical thinking skills, which will help in working through problems of all types, not just horn problems.

For a little flavor of the content, Chapter 3 is based on a Horn Call column, one that Agrell summarized a few years back in a comment on Horn Matters, which we then expanded into a short article, “The Words of the Great Horn Players are not Infallible Words.” Check it here, the article relates a point I have been making for years in various ways in Horn Matters. I would offer this quote from the book version to consider:

As horn players, we are blessed with a multitude of great books, methods, teachers, and performers, and we can learn much from them all. But watch out. There are hidden dangers, and the danger increases with the level of greatness. The heart of the problem lies not in their greatness, but in that we regard them as Authorities – the special ones who have all the answers. For the Creative Hornist, the danger is that your spirit of adventure may shut down and your mind may close. Since all the answers are to be found in the Authority, you don’t have to think for yourself, since you studied with the One Who Has All the Answers, you may (subconsciously) feel that now you have them too. This attitude may kill the desire to explore new territory, take chances, invent new solutions, play outside the box, so to speak.

I’m not telling you to disregard what they say – on the contrary, you need to study hard and absorb everything they have to tell you. They have, however, one big disadvantage: they aren’t you. You have your own unique needs, desires, mental and physical characteristics, talents, likes, and dislikes. They have discovered what works for them. Much of that may work for you, but you may need more than their words from yesterday to find your way to success tomorrow. Most teachers in fact will be delighted if you show initiative and think for yourself. Surprise them with your discoveries, stand on their “musical shoulders” and surpass them.

As he says later in the chapter, “The future belongs not to those who merely try to clone the success or careers of those who came before. New tradition will come from the amalgamation of the old with the new.” There is much more to absorb in just this one chapter, not to mention the entire book, which I am enjoying reading.

The collection together has a vastly different impact than the long series of articles it is based upon. Nicely printed and bound, a print copy of The Creative Hornist is a huge bargain at only $19.99 and the E-book version is an even better deal. Check the website below for more info:

 

Footnotes on the First Triple Horn

John Ericson
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I was pleased to see my article, “Memories of the First Paxman Triple Horn,” in the October, 2017 issue of The Horn Call. It was timely, as the first Paxman triple was constructed in December of 1967 — 50 years ago this year! — as explained further in the article. I was one of the owners of this exact instrument in the late 1980s. For more details on that, see the article in The Horn Call. The photo below is of me with the horn (with hair, too).

There was one big thing left out of the article, the footnotes. In the first note in particular I attempted to address a more difficult topic, the question of when the very first triple horn was constructed. The footnote begins noting the December, 1967 date of the horn I owned was

Confirmed by Paxman in an E-mail to the author dated December 8, 2015, noting also in the same message that their first compensating triple was constructed in 1975.

Then I continued,

There is a closely related topic, beyond the scope of this article, of when the very first triple horn was constructed by any maker. The date of 1960 is given by Herbert Heyde in his publications; horn collector Richard Martz in an E-mail conversation with the author (December 7, 2015) gives the relevant quote: “Heyde (Das Ventilblasinstrument, p. 187) says … Das Triplehorn wurde von dem Hornisten Richard Merewether vorgeschlagen, zuerst 1960 von der Firma Paxman in London gebaut, im deutschen Sprachraum zuerst Helmut Finke.” In short, Heyde credits Paxman as being first, but seven years earlier than they actually produced a triple horn. Other early, experimental triple horns from around that same time frame do exist. For example, Mike Harcrow posted on 7/5/2017 to the Facebook “Horn People” group photos of a compensating triple horn built by Howard Strong (of C. G. Conn) for Thomas Newell, which is reported to date from 1965 (but was subsequently rebuilt, as it was not very successful as first constructed). Certainly, Paxman serial number 12672 was a successful instrument (I can vouch!) by what became the early leader in triple horn construction. The overall development of triple horn designs would make a great research project for an adventurous Doctoral student.

The other missing footnotes are somewhat run of the mill, but give the sources of the other quotes in the article, which are:

  • Facebook message from Richard Chenoweth, May 15, 2017.
  • Facebook message from Paul Loredo, May 26, 2017.
  • eBay listing 2542866696, referenced on July 2, 2003.
  • E-Mail from Paul Loredo dated October 3, 2003.

The big picture question of who made a triple horn first has an answer, although I personally don’t have it. Would be an interesting one to try to research out.

The other footnote would be, the bio of me at the end of the article, I did not submit that. But I do understand deadlines and space limitations, and appreciate that the article was published. Check The Horn Call for more interesting details on that very first Paxman triple.

The question of water keys and horns

John Ericson
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Here is a question you know you have wondered at some point: why are some horns constructed without water keys?

It is a puzzle for a lot of people, as literally the cheapest versions of every other brass instrument have water keys. But here we are in horn. Some pretty expensive models, with screw bells and everything, don’t have water keys.

Why? Isn’t this the 21st century? What happened?

Having a water key is something that truth be known probably has sold a bunch of Holton horns over the years, when parents compared them to Conn models. No water key on the Conn! Must not be as good; horn with water key must be better!

But the question remains, why no water key? One possible angle is that horn buyers are complacent or resistant to change. Over years, we have just accepted that while other brass instruments have often multiple water keys, on horn we don’t have them. We make do without them. Tradition or something.

But the real answer probably lies with some of the people that assisted with certain horn designs when they were created. In short, the same people (or type of people) that were really reluctant to have a screw bell on a horn (“it will ruin it!”) are the same folks that did not want a water key either. Theory being it might ruin something, a note in the high range, something.

Also, those makers would be correct to say at this point that people are in fact buying every one of those horns without water keys that they make. Why change anything? Ignoring the fact that of course lots of buyers have water keys added after purchase to rectify the omission.

How do horn players actually feel? I did a quick Twitter survey, not scientific of course but still a cross section of our horn world. In short, 90% of horn players want water keys! My only surprise was that the result was not 100% in favor of water keys.

To close, horn makers, it is the 21st century, give us our water keys please. Looking at you Conn and Hoyer in particular … you are cheating horn players of something basic that you offer on every other type of brass instrument you sell.

Introducing the Horn Notes Podcast

John Ericson
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Those following Horn Matters for a few years know that there are a group of videos on YouTube related to posts in Horn Matters. The original idea was to develop a series of videos — the channel is HornmattersTV — but most of what has actually been posted there are episodes of the Horn Notes Video Podcast. Some have live video included, but mostly they are audio with still pictures related to the topic at hand. All 24 episodes may be found here:

The series has accumulated some views, but not quite what was hoped. Part of the problem was my low interest in video editing, so visually they are not as exciting as they should be. But also, they were not available to their natural market. Podcast fans are looking for actual podcasts that you can download from iTunes and listen to as audio, not videos.

Realizing that, I also saw that many of the video episodes would be suited to present again as straight podcasts. Those are now being converted to podcast episodes which you can download and listen to basically any way you wish to access podcasts. The main podcast page is located here:

As of now the first six of the podcast episodes are up and are also available on iTunes, etc. The rest of the existing video podcasts will roll out over the coming months at a rate of about four a month, with the plan being to add an occasional new podcast as well as part of the mix.

The initial result of the change is it appears there will be many more downloads overall. If that trend holds up be watching for more new episodes!

Check them out, they are generally under 15 minutes long and cover a wide variety of topics, perfect for listening to when running, driving, working, etc.

On the Dreaded C on the Third Space, the Best Note on your Horn?

John Ericson
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They have all been off the site for a while, but in the early years of Horn Matters there were a series of articles by a certain “Professor Corno” which addressed some issues of horn playing and teaching in humorous and pointed ways.** One article in particular was on the topic of the dreaded C on the third space.

The gist of the article was this: C on the third space, fingered T-0, should be a note you have absolute faith in that it will be in tune.

Certainly, you can find very reputable players that firmly believe that 3rd space C should be looked at as being the most in-tune note on the horn. Their idea would be in fact to tune the horn to that note; start the process of adjustment of all the other slides on your horn with the idea that note is correct, adjusting everything to agree with that note. Embrace it!

On the other hand, you can also certainly find very reputable players who note that the harmonic involved is naturally sharp. The idea being that C is the sixth partial of the overtone series when played on the Bb horn, and therefore tends to be slightly sharp. If the note truly is a sharp overtone for you depends on the horn you have (how the maker handled the tapers) and your mouthpiece. Theoretically the C might be slightly sharp, but in reality it might actually be completely in tune due to the skill of the maker.

From the above I think you can see I am in the camp of people who think that note should be thought of as your best note, one you are never afraid of. You really should not be afraid of any note, but if you are afraid of one, be sure it is not third space C! If you are in fear it will be sharp, give the system I describe a try, tune the horn to that note. You will likely need to do less adjusting around your horn if all the notes you normally finger T-0 are ones you don’t fear due to an imagined intonation tendency.

But what if you really can’t lower that note? Well, actually you can, even if your horn does not have a separate Bb horn tuning slide. See this article for more.

**At least that was the idea. The series was cut in 2014 as part of a content review, the Professor was ready to move on. But there were some good topics cut, which will be returned to in a few upcoming articles.

More on The Art of (Slow) Practice

John Ericson
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Back nearly ten years ago Bruce Hembd posted here a brief series (in two parts) on The Art of Practice:

I was reminded of them as I recently saw a link to an article with data from a recent study related to the topic of slow practice. Over at Bulletproof Musician the article is:

Feel free to read it all, but what particularly caught my eye was the premise of the article and also a study cited within the article.

As to the premise, doesn’t everyone practice things slowly and work them up to tempo over the course of practice? Our natural assumption (especially as teachers) is that all would practice like we do, but actually it is not, some of you (and your students) practice in a very inefficient manner. What you do is just sort of slam away at the music until it is better, more or less at full tempo.

There is a better way, demonstrated in a study using school children and beanbags. Basically, they were first all tested for throwing accuracy, and then split into two groups for practice. From the article,

Over the course of the next few weeks, the students received a weekly 15-minute practice session, where they practiced throwing beanbags at a square target taped on the wall, again from 5 meters away.
One group of students (the error-reduced or “imperfect practice” group) threw towards a large, easy target area in week one (2.4m x 2.4m), a medium-sized target in week two (1.1m x 1.1m), and a small target in week three (.45m x .45m).
Another group of students (the error-strewn or “perfect practice” group) went in the reverse order, throwing at the small difficult target in week one, the medium target in week two, and the large target in week three.
And then a week later, they were tested on their throwing accuracy and form once again, just like they were at the beginning of the study.

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The first group practiced in a manner analogous to practicing slowly and speeding up the tempo, and the second group practiced in a more random manner. The results?

In terms of accuracy, the error-reduced group (i.e. where they progressed from easy to more challenging standards over the course of training) made significant strides in accuracy from the beginning of training to the end. On the contrary, there wasn’t a significant improvement in performance for the error-strewn (i.e. perfect practice) group.

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So, there you have it in black and white: slow practice works! If you are not making use of this technique, you need to try it ASAP, and if you teach it might be worth being sure your students understand this essential principle of The Art of Practice.

From the Mailbag: Online Materials for High School hornists

John Ericson
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One question that periodically comes (in various forms) asks about online materials that would be of use to high school hornists.

Certainly, the number one “material” overall is Horn Matters itself. It is more comprehensive and up-to-date than any other horn publication you can name, covering for example all the topics in the Farkas book and more! (And, teachers, your students do actually recognize how dated the Farkas book is, it really is time to rely on more recent sources.)

Within Horn Matters there are a number of specific materials and areas to point student hornists toward.

One topic of much interest is the “where to study” horn question. This article gives a good rundown of the topic.

One type of material that is of interest are technical materials. You could certainly build a very effective warm-up from the technical studies in our downloads page. With an important tip for students being this: there is no one magic, secret warm-up that will get you there; no one “path” or approach to practice that will take your technique forward. There are many roads to be explored, and in particular it is to your advantage to “cross train” using several different styles of warm-up. If I had to pick one to purchase, I am still partial to The Brass Gym for horn.

Etudes are wonderful for working on technique. This article on materials I used as a student can get you going in the right direction, and if you really don’t have any materials, there are some good choices for practice in our free PDF download page, such as the Franz 29 etudes.

For those aspiring to a higher level of study, orchestral excerpts are important. This article gets at the question of which ones to study.

Transposition is often required! Check out our transposition chart.

And you will need an excerpt book! We have you covered with all the standard excerpts that are legal to put online for free with our Horn Matters PDF excerpt E-book.

You will also need to work on some solos. We have horn parts to many of the standards in our PDF page. As to which ones to study, the key thing would be, after noting it is not so much what you play as how you play it, college professors do ask certain solos for a reason, they are good choices. Our current list here at Arizona State for undergraduate admissions is:

Two contrasting movements from works that are comparable in difficulty to the following representative samples: Hindemith – Sonata; Mozart – Concerto No. 2, 3, or 4; F. Strauss – Nocturno; R. Strauss – Concerto No. 1

And of course, you need a good horn and mouthpiece; generic horns and mouthpieces produce a generic tone and limit your results. Much information may be found in Horn Matters, largely in the categories devoted to horns and to mouthpieces (see the “Browse by Topic” feature for even more categories).

If you want online resources outside of Horn Matters, one obvious resource is the website of the International Horn Society, specifically The HornZone. While not nearly as organized as Horn Matters (there are no categories of content, for example), there is some very interesting content worth spending some time with too. Not to mention there are a huge variety of things to be found on YouTube and Facebook with just a bit of searching.

Finally, do buy some music! Not everything you would want to study is free and in the public domain. Music publishers are there to serve you and are not really making that much money, support them as much as you can.

Brief Review: An Inexpensive Natural Horn

John Ericson
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With a small amount of funds available, I had an idea how to use them for something that would help the studio. What I learned from a source was that the body of the natural horn sold by Berkeley Wind Instrument, made in China, was nicely done, but that the crooks might not be so good. Which could be OK for my students at Arizona State, as I will explain shortly.

The horn arrived over the summer and I have had some time to work with it. The bell/body is really nicely done and the bell appropriate sized for natural horn (smaller throat than a modern bell). The inside of the bell is painted black (I joke with people for a darker tone) and nicely decorated.

The crooks that came with it look pretty but don’t play well. They have sort of an odd design with a tuning bit piece at the receiver. Ours came with 5 crooks; I would rate the G and A crooks as bad and everything lower the key of G is terrible.

However, we at ASU have the set of five crooks and a ½ step coupler associated with a vintage Hawkes piston horn (over 100 years old! More info here), and with those crooks the horn plays quite well! The receiver design used on the Berkeley horn is larger than that used on the Hawkes, so to use the crooks we have to wrap the end of the crook in paper or thin cardboard. When you get them on the horn though, the horn is vastly better and plays quite nicely. Besides fit, the other major issue with using the Hawkes crooks is that the horn is ½ step sharp! So for example Hawkes Eb crook plays in E on the Chinese horn body. It is not really a problem in the big picture, just a slight math problem, and we do have that ½ step coupler as well.

Special mention should be made of the case. The design is really nice, it has pockets to hold five crooks and the coupler, for our purposes at ASU it is a great case. However, within two weeks of arriving the hinges failed. They seem very small and are not attached to anything firm. I plan to rework the attachment point and probably also affix more robust hinges.

In short I give the horn body itself an A+ at the price, it works great! The case I would give a C to, the design is good but has an execution problem. As to the crooks, those are now all up on the wall in the horn studio. Shiny and decorative! But not very good crooks for actual horn playing.

This horn, because we have the Hawkes crooks, perfectly fills a niche for us. I am looking forward to some natural horn quartets this year, as now ASU owns two natural horns and I have two more we can use.

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