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Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day: Thoughts on Writing 1,000 Articles

John Ericson
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Something my father used to often say, of big projects, was that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” That is a very appropriate thought, as I today arrive for a second time at a personal milestone at Horn Matters: 1,000 articles! [But see UPDATE at end.]

A second time? Well, actually in July of 2012 I originally passed this milestone, but then later we rebuilt and tightened up Horn Matters and cut something like 300 older articles. Either way it is a milestone, there is certainly no other horn player with more than 1,000 articles online. And it is more than 1,000, as there are over 50 other articles of mine online elsewhere, in my original Horn Articles Online site and on the IHS site. My nearest “competitor” is Bruce Hembd, who has over 700 articles; anyone else I am aware of being far behind that number.

When Bruce and I developed Horn Matters in August of 2009, we were excited about the new platform for our existing online writings. If it was not obvious enough already, I do enjoy the creative side of transforming notes and ideas into finished products. I actually have little starts of drafts of hundreds more potential articles. But that being said, I am very aware of blogger burn-out, which is part of why I have slowed down actual article production in recent years. At one point I was posting three articles a week! My goal now is 3-4 a month. And I do go back to older articles in the site and fix things periodically as well; I know they keep getting read. The archive at Horn Matters is immense; we have no shortage of content.

As a online writer my goal has been to be in general positive and encouraging, with a focus on news and topics of help to horn players. We get pushback occasionally, and of course elements of the older generation of horn playing still barely know that Horn Matters exists! But the negatives are minor and the stats continue to show that a lot of people are out there reading us — plus we are still enjoying what we are doing.

Among my writings here, I am most proud overall of the University of Horn Matters (series starts here), which is slated actually for some revisions, probably over the summer. My goal is to focus it down a bit more, tighten up each article a bit, there is too much content in it to really take it all in. As part of the same project, too, I want to be even more critical and aware to point readers in the text toward points that are physiologically accurate over visualizations.

In the original 2012 version of this article I mentioned that I was really itching to do more performance based projects. Getting a little more personal for a moment, my friends, colleagues, and former students know that I am a parent of a handicapped child who is now 22 years old. This fact has altered my trajectory a bit these past few years in terms of performance toward more of a focus on publications and recordings. The general idea being to focus on doing things I can do rather than things I can’t. So I have been able to recently record another solo CD (to be released in 2016) and I have several publications on the way very soon, with more in the pipeline.

As to ongoing goals for Horn Matters, I hope in the next year to add a short series of articles on musical enterprise as another course under the University of Horn Matters banner. And maybe add a volume IV to the PDF Excerpt E-Book series.

To close, a sincere note of thanks to Bruce Hembd for his support (Horn Matters is really not possible without his expertise behind the scenes) and also to my wife who supports me so much, making it possible to do all that I do. Finally, a note of thanks to all of you out there for reading and seeking horn information on Horn Matters, the online magazine and Open Educational Resource on the horn.

UPDATE 2021. And actually — currently I have exactly 866 articles on Horn Matters. This is a function of several things, I moved some articles to my new “small blog” in my personal website, and a lot were low traffic or dated in various ways and moved to the trash. Summer 2021 was another a big reset for the site. At this point I doubt I’ll ever have over 1,000 articles of my own on Horn Matters again, but you never know … as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

From the Mailbag: On that 1860 onwards CD project

John Ericson
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Received recently was a message with questions on my CD project that I mentioned in the summer/fall. It is coming! The articles on this project start here. Only a little more editing, just have not had time to get in the studio to do it yet this year. A reader had a few questions, which I will try to answer below.

Interesting project, from the photo of instrument and mouthpiece, I guess your using a modern mouthpiece. This would contribute to the intonation problems, after all the mouthpiece your [sic] using is not historically correct. Besides performers of that era would have been used to correcting the pitch with hand and lips. It is only modern players who seem to complain about out of tune instruments, back then you just got on with it.

In part II of my series on developing this CD project (here) I mentioned that I was trying several mouthpieces on the horn but to clarify I settled on the Moosewood LGC model which is a copy of a historic mouthpiece (now out of production) based on I recall a Courtois mouthpiece. Just I would never use that mouthpiece on a modern horn, I would never use a modern mouthpiece on the Seraphinoff horn either — a modern mouthpiece is not a good acoustical match.

IMG_0265I think the reader has a point about tuning though, natural horn has out of tune notes and if you started on it, correcting those notes always, then when you switched to a valve horn back in the day (late 19th century) that would seem pretty normal. Horns just had bad notes and you dealt with them. For for modern horn though, really, a good horn certainly has very good intonation.

But back to the photo in question (also seen in part III, here), that day that moment I was playing the modified Atkinson mouthpiece which is a bit more like a modern mouthpiece, I will grant you that. But it was not used on the actual recordings.

Continuing,

Look forward to hearing the completed project. I do have one question. What criteria did you use to decide whether the solo was intended for natural horn or valve horn? Or could some of the solos have been intended for either instrument?

They are defiantly all valved horn solos. Some say Ventilhorn right on the music, but the from gamut of notes used in every piece it is also very evident they are valved horn solos. The requested written pitches being the main criteria to know if a work is for the valved horn or the natural horn.

I will be swamped for a few weeks but hope to get the final edits done and the CD mastered by the end of February and released not too long after that. More then.

From the Mailbag: How to Play Solos Better

John Ericson
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In the Horn Matters inbox this past week was this brief question:

Hi!

I’m performing these two pieces for a [music school name] exam next week. Any final artistic or technical tips for either in my last week of preparation?

Thanks!

Hi as well! I love the friendly tone, but actually the message had a critical error, it did not specify what two pieces were on the exam. I prefer the question as it is though, it is really open-ended and allows an answer that applies very broadly. For this kind of exam, focus on the basics which are:

  • Accuracy
  • Intonation
  • Rhythm
  • Musicality

Hit all those things and it does not matter what the piece is, for an exam the faculty should be pretty happy.

How to improve those all those things is a big topic, with Accuracy being the biggest. If you are fairly advanced accuracy is related to your chops and preparation. I plan to post something more specific to accuracy soon.

Next up, Intonation. In final preparation practicing with a tuner is vital, you have to line up your playing with reality and you may need to define a new reality! As you may be so used to being slightly out of tune that it sounds normal to you, but the faculty on your exam won’t miss this obvious a problem.

wrong-rhythmFor Rhythm you have to record yourself and be critical (recording can also be a good way to check tuning). An important thing to remember is the rhythm is either right or wrong, it is really easy to judge, so be sure it is correct.

Impressions of Musicality for listeners are above all driven by dynamic control, make sure you don’t sound bland, all the same dynamic. What happens is in a pressure situation some will forget to play dynamics. Be sure you do!

These are the key elements to hit, good luck!

Is it a Reality Show? Tips on Auditions

John Ericson
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This article of tips on taking auditions was originally posted to the site in early 2009, but was later cut (along with a large group of articles), and saved for possible revision. Looking at it again, I think it needs mostly just set up a little bit better. The article is based on notes taken at several audition days (not during horn auditions), and was not at all meant to disrespect those that came to audition! The general idea I had was to share a few tips in a creative format, encouraging students especially to look at auditions from a different perspective. Auditions are a reality show, and you create perceptions about yourself based on how you present yourself in the situation. If you have auditions coming up, good luck!

first-world-problems-tchiak5Reality shows are very popular now days, and there are a couple shows that I watch somewhat regularly. I have a concept for a new one; I will call it “Brass Audition.”

Here is the idea. You set up say two to four world class brass teachers in a room and offer a prize, say at the least acceptance to a great brass program and at best an offer of a good scholarship or Teaching Assistant position! OK, then the potential students sign up and make travel plans and get to the site. Presumably they prepare the materials with their current teachers, but not always! That is part of the entertainment value, to hear those that really can play mixed in with dreamers who don’t have their acts together or at least together enough that day.

in-EAt the site they are greeted by the teachers who then have them play. No ambush to the audition either; the committee starts them out playing something of their own choice, and goes on based on what materials they have brought to offer at the audition. So those things could include their high and low range (including extremes), ability to multiple tongue, scales, control of dynamics, of course sight reading, transposition (combine sight reading and transposition for variety) and for sure also check their ability to match pitches. Points off for excuses, especially from grad applicants with a weak knowledge of excerpts or transposition (always makes you wonder what their teachers had them work on!), and also points off for blasting! No blasters win the prize, but musicality with good tone, rhythm, and intonation gets extra credit, they have potential to really go places. And no “hesitation attacks” please, those are the kiss of death.

Today as you might have guessed is the end of our little reality show for this year, brass auditions at Arizona State University. Except it is not a reality show, it is reality….

New Publication: 12 Modern Preparatory Etudes

John Ericson
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Available now from Horn Notes Edition is the first of several publications for 2016, a group of twelve etudes I have composed in a modern style.

Ericson-etude-8-snip

These new etudes are intended to fill a gap in the horn etude literature, functioning as a concise, modern version of the classic Schantl/Pottag book of Preparatory Melodies.

What I had noticed after years of teaching horn at the college level was that the jump from the typical 19th-century technical etude to those of Reynolds and Schuller was too large. Clearly there was a need for a short group of etudes to bridge that gap, etudes that were easier and shorter than the typical modern studies. Years of looking told me that there was no material available that could provide the bridge that was needed, and I took on the challenge to create the needed materials.

The etudes are by design short and can be learned relatively quickly. Various technical issues are a focus, but the goals overall are accuracy and to prepare students toward playing more difficult 20th-century etudes and musical works of a similar character.

This group of etudes are a concise, ten page E publication and may be purchased directly through the Horn Notes Edition website, where you can also view sample pages:

  • 12 Modern Preparatory Etudes for Horn

UPDATE: These went off the market, but are now back in print in a much revised and expanded publication,

Check it out, it is part of the series of print and Kindle publications from Horn Notes Edition.

2016 Update: Advertising at Horn Matters

Bruce Hembd
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thumbs-resourcesSales-e1414302307455With the 2016 New Year we are offering a new format and pricing structure for our banner ads.

We have had banner ads at Horn Matters for several years now, and after much thought and deliberation we have decided to open up all spots to multiple advertisers and cut prices accordingly.

Flexible locations & prices

In the past, we limited advertising locations to one, single advertiser. If an advertiser happened to acquire the best location, that spot was exclusively reserved for that single advertiser.

This year, we are opening things up and are switching over to a rotating system. Now, ad locations can house multiple ads from different companies. Each ad will display one-at-a-time, in a random order, in a rotation along with other banners.

Since we are taking away the old exclusivity feature, we have also cut prices significantly – roughly 20% overall.

For more information, please take a look at our Advertising page. Look for the big green button to download a PDF of our rates and ad locations.

Commentary: Listening to CDs on YouTube

John Ericson
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Quite a few commercial recordings are now showing up on YouTube. Not long before Christmas I discovered in fact that the full content of my solo CD Les Adieux and also my trio CD Table for Three are on YouTube. Both are on the Summit label, but curiously my other Summit solo CD, Canto, is not up. [UPDATE: It is also online. All three may be accessed from this YouTube channel.]

In any case, my first honest reaction was shock, not only because I had no idea they were there but also the sound quality is terrible on YouTube. I had only previously heard the CDs played on good speakers. The below is the title track of Lex Adieux, give it a quick listen. If you have no perspective I suppose it sounds OK but really, the actual audio quality is considerably better than this. (Direct link here)

Besides that it also seemed on first blush like a clear theft of my artistic product (my series on copyright starts here), I did not put these tracks up there, and it was clear that Summit did not directly post them either. Somebody other than me must be trying to make money off of my product on YouTube, from the ad revenue and such.

Turns out that it actually is legal. At best I will see maybe pennies on this new use, and Summit is not doing much better on this deal either. This use certainly is not helping me much financially as the artist who funded the CD entirely.

Besides the money issue, I keep going back to the bad audio quality. It may sound OK to readers out there in horn land, but this was my baby, my first solo CD, it is very well produced and mastered. I heard it in the mastering lab and have studio monitors for speakers at home; trust me in saying that the YouTube version is really but a shadow of the genuine product.

Then again, maybe the bad audio is a feature and not a bug? To really experience the audio you do have to buy a different version.

In an ideal world the YouTube versions of tracks from Les Adieux would inspire you the horn public to go ahead and buy real versions of the tracks or the complete CD! I hope I am wrong, but my impression is that these YouTube versions will do the opposite — depress future sales. My final reminder being this: the CD may seem dead, and you can find free versions of CDs that sound OK to you on YouTube, but if you care about audio quality and if you care if the artists actually make any money on their products please buy the CDs, or at least the tracks.

But, of course, “resistance is futile.”

One final note is that there are two theme and variation works on the CD and for both of them the sections of the work come up as individual tracks! Thus, if you are looking for them on YouTube you could go to any part of the work as the tracks online are not marked in any way. When I update my Les Adieux CD page I will put links up to all the tracks in these works in order to hear the work as you would experience it if you listened to the actual physical CD.

How to Clean Your Horn

John Ericson
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The topic of cleaning your horn has come up a few times in Horn Matters, Dave Weiner addressing the topic of having a shop clean your horn here:

mp-brush4And Bruce Hembd with this review:

If you need a reminder why to clean your horn…

Breaks are a great time to do a quick cleaning of your own horn. My personal, simple, three-step routine is as follows:

First you run a “snake” (flexible brush) through the lead pipe. A trumpet snake will usually work fine if you can’t easily find a French horn snake at your local music store. This will get the “big stuff” out of the worst area of your horn. Protip: push the snake gently from the large end toward the small end of the lead pipe and put a paper towel over the opening so that you don’t spray “stuff” out on yourself when it emerges. If the brush is too big diameter it won’t go through the small part of your horn; don’t force it!

After doing that a couple of times, put the mouthpiece back on the horn and pour water from a plastic cup into your mouthpiece. When the lead pipe is full blow the water through the horn (having replaced the main tuning slide first!). Do this a few dozen times (over a kitchen sink!) with various valves depressed (start with open). This will remove most of the other, light “stuff” that is down in the horn further than the lead pipe.

Finally, take out all the slides, wipe them down and re-grease, and oil the valves well.

It does not take long and will make a difference you will likely notice. And of course clean your mouthpiece as well! This was a topic of a prior article by Bruce Hembd, linked below, with another good Hembd link following on the topic of using a sink hose adapter to rinse the horn:

The one time I used a sink hose adapter it was admittedly fun but I am not sure I got more out than with my usual routine. Some people have even more involved cleaning routines that include putting the horn in the bathtub, etc. I am also not convinced that gets you any further than the simple routine I describe above. If it really needs more than the simple cleaning, my personal suggestion is to take it to a reputable shop that can do a proper ultrasonic cleaning.

Index for The Horn Matters PDF Excerpt E-Book series

John Ericson
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Recently we introduced a series of three, concise (around 20 page) horn excerpt E-Books that print and display easily on a computer or tablet device (iPad, etc.). An overall table of contents will be of use to our readers; below is the content list of all three volumes.

But before that we have answers to two general questions about the series overall. First, the volumes are arranged in overall content by importance to the horn student. Volume I focuses on the excerpts often asked for graduate school auditions, volume II focuses on the additional excerpts asked very frequently in professional auditions, and volume III covers even more excerpts of importance but not asked as frequently on professional auditions — all choices of works being made based on actual survey results. With all works included of course also being clearly public domain works, works of Shostakovitch and Ravel (for example) that have copyright restrictions are not in our E-book series.

The other big question that readers are wondering is how do the overall contents of these books compare to the hornexcerpts.org excerpts presently housed in the website of the International Horn Society? The choices of works and excerpts were made without making any reference at all to the IHS excerpts, they are not some “official list” of excerpts for the horn world. So our coverage is not the same, includes several works not found on the IHS site, and we believe more accurately reflects upon which passages are actually the most important to study for auditions from these works.

In total we believe that the books came out great in relation to overall content and ease of use, give them a try! Articles on each volume of the excerpt book series are linked below, and as always you can reach these and other great downloads from our PDF library.

Cover-snipVOLUME I:
Beethoven: Symphony No.3
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
Brahms: Symphony No. 3
Mahler: Symphony No. 5, Corno obligato
Mendelssohn: Nocturne from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Strauss: Don Juan
Strauss: Don Quixote
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
Wagner: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey

Cover-vol-2-snipVOLUME II
Beethoven: Fidelio Overture
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
Berlioz: Queen Mab Scherzo
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4
Haydn: Symphony No. 31
Mahler: Symphony No. 1
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
Wagner: Das Rheingold Prelude
Weber: Der Freischutz Overture

Volume-3-cover-snipVOLUME III
Bach: B Minor Mass
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9
Dvorak: Cello Concerto
Franck: Symphony in D minor
Mahler: Symphony No. 3
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Mozart: Symphony No. 29
Mozart: Symphony No. 40
Rossini: Semiramide Overture
Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3
Schubert: Symphony No. 9
Schumann: Symphony No. 3
Wagner: Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin
Weber: Oberon Overture

Introducing Volume III of the Horn Matters PDF Excerpt E-Book

John Ericson
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Concluding this series is volume III of The Horn Matters PDF Excerpt E-Book. For volume III the focus is the 15 remaining public domain works that contain excerpts that come up less commonly on auditions but often enough to be highly worthy of study by advanced horn students. As before, the works were chosen based on a survey of ICSOM orchestra audition lists that I did a few years ago; for the complete results see John Ericson, “A New ICSOM Audition List Survey,” The Horn Call 33, no. 1 (October, 2002), 53-55. Volume III features these works:

Bach: B Minor Mass Volume-3-cover-snip
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
Dvorak: Cello Concerto
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9
Franck: Symphony in D minor
Mahler: Symphony No. 3
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Mozart: Symphony No. 29
Mozart: Symphony No. 40
Rossini: Semiramide Overture
Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3
Schubert: Symphony No. 9
Schumann: Symphony No. 3
Wagner: Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin
Weber: Oberon Overture

Volume III may be downloaded from our PDF library or can be directly downloaded here:

The combined orchestral excerpts the three volumes of this series would be the minimum of what I would hope that a graduate horn performance major would know well by the time they graduate – with the goal being that this basic study spur on a deeper study of all of these works, that the student is equipped to win auditions.

If you have studied these excerpts in order through the three volumes it would also be valuable at this point to go back to the works in volume I and study them in more depth, there are many more passages worthy of study from those works in particular but not included as they were beyond the scope of initial study of those works.

As with the other volumes, this E-book was designed not only to print easily from a computer but to also display well on an iPad or any tablet device. It is hoped that a new generation of horn students will find this new presentation of these excerpts of great use as they reach new levels in their horn study.

Will there be a volume IV?

When I started laying out what became the first volume of this series I was not certain if I wanted to do more but even then had a fairly clear idea what would fit in a second and third volume. Liking how volume I turned out it was easy to produce volumes II and III. I also have in mind what would potentially be in a volume IV, but at this time will hold off, the key thing for me being my students and seeing if there really is a need for an additional volume or not.

I am excited to start teaching out of these new books and I hope you will be excited to study this great music from these volumes.

Information on Volume I here

Information on Volume II here

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