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Copyright week, part IV: So where can you legally obtain horn excerpts from Shostakovich 5?

John Ericson
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Perhaps cramping your creative enterprise as a horn player is the fact that some music is not actually in the public domain and likely won’t ever be public domain during your lifetime.

At this point an aside is appropriate. While it is now out of print, I included one Shostakovich 5 excerpt in the original version of my high horn book. The licensing fee for that excerpt was a flat rate, and there was a similar fee to be paid to the publisher of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G excerpt also included in the book. The total cost reached into four figures, and as a result I don’t know if I ever made any money on that book. But I did offer to buyers a legal source for these excerpts.

Turning to IMSLP for a little more context, they note that the music of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky was once in the public domain but in 1995 returned to being copyright protected. The money quote from their article: “In fact, the music of these three composers was public domain before URAA § 514 restored copyright in 1995.”

Looking again at Shostakovich 5 and horn resources specifically, I used this text in an article on excerpt books in Horn Articles Online (UPDATE: no longer posted):

A note on legally obtaining excerpts from Shostakovich 5. This popular work, frequently asked on horn auditions, was in the public domain in the west for many years but the copyright was restored in 1995 and upheld in a case that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 2012. Any new or newly revised excerpt publication (since 1995) will need to fully comply with copyright law for this or any other work under copyright (such as for example some works of Ravel that are frequently asked on auditions), including paying significant fees to the copyright holder accompanied with the required copyright notices with the music.

Turning to your options for legally obtaining this excerpt today, among “old standard” horn excerpt publications the LaBar book, Thompson Edition, volume 2 of the Chambers excerpt books, and volume 2 of the Pottag excerpt books contain legal versions of Shostakovich 5 (with Pottag not including the critical low horn excerpt). All of these were published prior to 1995. Among newer publications, the Randy Gardner low horn book and the Eli Epstein book contain legal versions of Shostakovich 5 complete with proper copyright notices indicating they paid the appropriate fees to the copyright holder. There are “other sources” out there, but if it was published after 1995 and does not have the copyright notice published prominently with the excerpt it has in fact been published illegally, be it a print or an online publication. Some may argue differently, but the fact is that there is no “fair use”** for excerpts of copyrighted musical works in books that are for sale or for online publications that reduce in any way the value of the copyrighted work to the copyright holder.

Directing this final comment toward horn teachers out there, it is up to each of us to set a good example for others in regard to copyright law. For this reason I would particularly commend and recommend the use of the Gardner and Epstein sources for study of Shostakovich 5, they are completely legal and follow the spirit and letter of current copyright law.

[**”Fair use” was discussed in part III.]

I know of at least one printed publication dating to after 1995 that contains Shostakovich and Ravel horn excerpts which appear to me to not be legal, as no copyright notices are included of the type I was required to include in my high horn publication. But, as noted in the long quote above, there are clearly legal sources out there, including recent sources. We at Horn Matters highly recommend their use. Set the right example and insist on supporting the good guys who follow the rules.

The series will close with a few thoughts on dissertations and more.

Continue to conclusion of Copyright Series

Copyright week, part III: The inconvenient truth

John Ericson
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Want to kill creative enterprise? One great way to do this is to illegally reproduce copyrighted music and recordings.

One of the ways people will justify reproducing portions of copyrighted materials is via the doctrine of “fair use.” There are four pillars of law regarding fair use, and you can’t cherry pick the most favorable three and think you are doing OK! The Wikipedia article on Fair Use quotes the relevant law statute:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

-the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
-the nature of the copyrighted work;
-the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
-the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Or click here to see the actual statute in full. You can’t cut corners on this topic; almost any “fair use” you can conceive of actually would impact the fourth pillar, as it will have an effect on the potential market for a copyrighted work (as in you won’t buy a work or a properly licensed portion of a work if you can get it for free). Also, selling portions of a copyrighted work in any form is a problem, one that really can’t be whitewashed over. Just as “borrowing” [stealing] images from a website can be illegal, actual music or recordings that are under copyright need to be treated very carefully, lest some company with lawyers and deep pockets go after you.

Turning to sheet music, one composer that shows up on horn audition lists is Ravel. His earlier works such as the Pavane are in the public domain now, but later works are not such as the Piano Concerto in G. With that work ISMLP posts this notice:

Since this work was first published after 1922 with the prescribed copyright notice, it is unlikely that this work is public domain in the USA. However, it is in the public domain in Canada (where IMSLP is hosted), the EU, and in those countries where the copyright term is life+70 years or less.
IMSLP does not assume any sort of legal responsibility or liability for the consequences of downloading files that are not in the public domain in your country.

There is a practical reality that you can put short musical excerpts from copyrighted works in a handout or power point, but if you then go post those same things online it becomes problematic.

kopprasch-Op5Speaking generally though, if it is a published edition and it was published before 1923 it is in the public domain as of now in the U.S.A. and you can do anything with it (post it online, reprint it, etc.). For a little broader picture of the topic the Wikipedia article on public domain is as good a place to start as any.

But digging a little deeper, turning to the Wikipedia article on public domain in the United States, the lack of a copyright notice does not necessarily mean that the publication (or manuscript) is in the public domain. There we read the following:

Until the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, the lack of a proper copyright notice would place an otherwise copyrightable work into the public domain, although for works published between January 1, 1978, and February 28, 1989, this could be prevented by registering the work with the Library of Congress within five years of publication. After March 1, 1989, an author’s copyright in a work begins when it is fixed in a tangible form; neither publication nor registration is required, and a lack of a copyright notice does not place the work into the public domain.

What about orchestral excerpts you need that are not from public domain works? The conversation will continue in the next installment.

Continue reading Copyright Series

Copyright week, part II: Are you a pirate, or a thief?

John Ericson
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Students need to clearly realize that creative enterprise is funded by copyright protection, and that sharing musical files (print or audio) is really a bad idea.

Photocopy machines have been around for years. The next step beyond photocopying copyrighted materials, seen widely today, is to scan them and share the files.

Requests are often seen online (such as in Facebook) for scans of musical works that are not in the public domain, perhaps out of print but more often in print and available for purchase. Bruce Hembd recently wrote in a note that “File sharing is a tricky issue when it comes to works that are under copyright.” It is tricky for a variety of reasons. People sometimes really do need music in an emergency situation. But the fact is that “With good planning, legally-acquired music can be bought or physically borrowed.” Continuing, he noted that “the right thing to do when acquiring printed music materials” would be to:

– Plan ahead.
– Buy the music in time for when it is needed.
– Support the composers and editors who put this stuff together by buying legal copies.

Otherwise we end up cannibalizing ourselves by discouraging people from creating the materials and rightfully profiting from them.

Fortunately, the administrators of the Horn People group on Facebook have been pretty on top of this issue. Legit emergencies can come up, but really there is not that much reason to legitimately file share music that is under copyright. Sharing of copies online in any form is a slippery slope for sure, and “your bad planning” is no reason to become a pirate and thief.

Some recent publications are in E-Book format, including several of mine. These you could file share really easily but I would like to think I can trust the honesty of the horn playing community that they would not undercut me as author/publisher in this manner.

In a closely related topic, one thing you will need to learn about if you record or arrange music is the topic of mechanical license. As noted in the Wikipedia article on this topic, “In copyright law, a mechanical license is a license that grants certain limited permissions to work with, study, improve upon, reinterpret, re-record (etc.) something that is neither a free/open source item nor in the public domain.”

Many people seem to think if you are a non-profit you don’t need to pay for or obtain the mechanical license to publish or record an arrangement. As a non-profit the copyright holder may give you a free license, but you still have to apply for and obtain mechanical license. There is no free pass because you are a non-profit on any of this. Without mechanical license you are a pirate and a thief in reality.

Another related concept thrown around a lot is “Fair Use.” There is more to it than “it is only illegal if you get caught.” More on that in the next installment.

Continue reading the copyright series

Copyright week, part I: Never take Xerox music into a lesson

John Ericson
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“Creative Enterprise” is a major buzz phrase in the musical world today, and relates generally to the idea that you want to actually make money from your musical work. That income can be from a variety of sources and copyright law is potentially a very important element of what allows financial gain from your creative enterprise.

Copyright is a big topic and one that really needs talked about more widely. This series will explore a number of angles on this topic as experienced in the French horn world today.

This series is in five parts and grew from a series of E-mail conversations. To begin, we learn on a basic level about copyright from our teachers and how they approached this topic. Among all my teachers, Verne Reynolds was perhaps the most clear about following copyright law. Bruce Hembd and I both attended Eastman at the same time and he recalled that “I remember Verne not liking Xerox copies one bit.” I remember the same thing and basically I would not have dared to take photocopies of copyrighted publications into a lesson with him.

Which really should still be the reaction of any modern student to any horn teacher today.

Part of the creative enterprise of Verne Reynolds was composition and he had many publications to his name. He was certainly OK with a Xerox page to facilitate a page turn (bad page turns are really a publisher error), but I hesitate to think what fate would have come on some sophomore who walked in with a Xerox copy of anything from the 48 Etudes!

Students today it seems to me have much less inner clarity on the topic of copyright than they would about a topic like “borrowing” permanently (stealing!) a mouthpiece from a teacher.

While social media contains many great resources for the horn player, at the same time those very resources have erased some of the clarity that might have existed in regard to copyright law for printed music and recordings. There are a lot of videos with easily notable copyright problems, seeming to teach a new generation that “there is no copyright law.”

Going back to the topic of sheet music, when I was a student we often shared physical Xerox copies of orchestral parts, which was the only way to get them in those pre-Internet days. Then along came the big Thompson Edition collection, which was legally produced and widely used. And then we get to today, with new go-to resources to consider.

Jumping way ahead, while we do host PDF public domain resources at Horn Matters, we also have a lot of content here that people can access for free but it is not public domain. Readers can’t do anything they want with our words without permission, such as for example compile our writings into an E-Book. A “Best of Horn Matters” E-Book is not a bad idea actually, but it would be our project to do, not something an unauthorized person or group can or should ever do on their own.

When the series returns the topic will be piracy and theft.

Continue reading copyright series

Warming-up before Farkas: Basic Technical Studies by Harold Meek

John Ericson
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Recently I had a realization that so far as I can tell I don’t recall seeing a warm-up routine described in any horn publication before WWII. You can find random exercises and technical studies of course many places, but nothing actually presented as a warm-up routine using that wording.

It would appear that the first horn warm-up routine that was called a warm-up routine was published in Farkas, The Art of French Horn Playing (1956). But there were at least two, separately published routines for horn that were clearly warm-up routines already in print at that time.

One I have written about before, a 1948 publication, Tonal Flexibility Studies for French Horn by William Mercier. In the preface he dedicates the book “To Louis Dufrasne, whose studies comprise a large part of this book.” Dufrasne was the main teacher of Farkas, which renders this book rather significant. The Mercier book is better known today in the version republished as Dufrasne Routine in an edition by Thomas Bacon (more on both publications at the links).

Meek-Basic-Technical-StudiesThe other earlier publication of this type I have located is Basic Technical Studies for the French Horn by Harold Meek (1914-1998). Perhaps better remembered today as the first editor of The Horn Call, Meek was an Ohio native and had a long performing career in the Boston Symphony (1943-63), following studies with Anton Horner at Curtis and Arcadi Yegudkin at Eastman.

(When I was a student at Eastman many years later Meek was one of the few guests to give a presentation to the horn studios. In cleaning my office just this week I stumbled upon my folder of his handouts. I recall him bringing a natural horn, but the topics on the handouts are unrelated to historic horns or the warm-up.)

Basic Technical Studies was published in 1947 and is clearly intended as a warm-up routine. In the introduction he states

The following technique studies are intended to be practiced in the order in which they are presented. They are progressively arranged so that the lips are exercised and built up with the least possible strain to them. Therefore it is important that the studies be practiced in their chronological order. All the exercises are to be practiced every day, with the exception of the section devoted to intervals….

He goes on to explain that you are to select one example in each key every day, rotating through exercises in this section. He concludes,

The estimated amount of time to be spent “DAILY” on this material before the player goes on to the study of Etudes, orchestra studies and solos is about forty minutes.

The routine itself starts fairly slowly and stays in the lower range longer than most horn routines I have seen. Notes above G at the top of the staff are not approached until page 27, some 30 minutes in (!), and even then have a note cautioning that they only be practiced daily if “the student has a sufficiently developed embouchure.”

It is a very workable routine that addresses long tones, interval studies, arpeggios, slurs, and tonguing. I have enjoyed experimenting with it and would rate it well worth seeking out, especially if you are into the history of warming up on the horn. I suspect it may actually be the first published routine of the type, and it is still in print today!

Going back to the lack of horn warm-up publications before WWII, my initial conclusion is that warming-up as we think of it today was a concept being developed by some of the more progressive brass teachers of the early 20th century. It would seem that the idea originates with brass teaching in the USA, perhaps influenced by athletic training methods of the day.

If you look way back to natural horn methods you can find lots of little, one line exercises. I strongly suspect that players of that time used those short studies much as we would to warm up, but did not do them in fixed routines as we tend to, doing just enough to feel ready to go into playing actual music or to work on specific technical issues. “Warm-up” probably was generally more along the lines of noodling some passages until you felt ready to go into real playing. Which was probably also not a great way to start playing sessions – which some players had undoubtedly also figured out even then, but had not presented in a book.

The benefits of warming-up seem to have become clear to better teachers by the 1930s. Meek seems to have had good instruction on the topic during conservatory studies with Horner and/or Yegudkin, and Farkas is another great example. Farkas was a talented high school age horn player in the early 1930s and he benefited greatly from having a teacher like Louis Dufrasne who taught an organized warm-up routine as a foundation of his teaching. Having benefited from this as a student Farkas went on win his first professional, full time first horn job while still in high school, and passed on his experiences in his famous 1956 publication.

After the Farkas book pretty much every subsequent horn publication has something more to add on the topic. For an overview of the warm-up in horn publications, the series of articles beginning with “Understanding the Hornmasters on the Warm-Up” is a good place to start.

To close, I love warming up. It is my favorite part of the playing day. Over the years my warm-up habits have changed drastically. When I was taking auditions and playing full time in Nashville I had a very fixed routine. That routine became longer and more variable during the early years of teaching full time, but now over time it has become shorter and more open ended. The actual “warm-up” is presently fairly short — then moving to a “menu” of short exercises and routines. With having played horn seriously now for (gulp!) close to 40 years changing things up from time to time has kept things fresher. The point being I still warm up, but as a career goes on there really is no need to be a lifetime slave to any one magic warm-up routine.

On the single F horn, part II: Mouthpieces for the serious player

John Ericson
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Continuing this brief series on the F horn and the 19th century, spending close to two months mostly playing the F horn on period solo literature has been an interesting project and learning experience.

In part I of this series I hint at some thoughts on tonguing, and I would briefly repeat that certainly the F horn requires very careful attention to tonguing in the upper range (the Eli Epstein book, reviewed here, has some of the best advice you will find).

Another part of the puzzle is the mouthpiece. About three years ago I posted a two part article on mouthpieces for horns with a high F side (starts here). In short, a shallower cup is advantageous on a triple or descant.

But when it comes to long horns like a single F horn or a natural horn, a deeper cup is advantageous; it is acoustically more suited to the F horn.

The interesting thing I have found though is that, among those available in my “collection,” the several that have what I would call a double cup work the best.

Double cup mouthpieces are more associated with other brass instruments, especially the trumpet. Basically for a horn mouthpiece the design as you look at the main cup looks the same but then there is a secondary “V” shape (the “double cup”) that leads down to the actual straight bore (the small point) of the mouthpiece. It results in a very deep cup that has a throat that is closer to the small end of the mouthpiece than where it is typically placed.

The three mouthpieces that have the most promise for me right now on the single F are a 1980s vintage Atkinson H-10 (H being for Horner, but this one somewhat modified by me in grad school), a Moosewood Anton Horner 12, and a Moosewood LGC model. All of them have the double cup to varying degrees, which seems to help substantially with the rough attacks in the higher range that I get on any “modern” mouthpiece, and it also helps with slurs. Right now I am leaning toward the Atkinson example, but each has good points to consider.

The big picture point being that if you are playing anything serious on the F horn or on the natural horn your normal, modern horn mouthpiece is likely not the best choice.

Gumbert-model-hornThe other “update” to note as this series progresses is that in part I I was mostly playing on a reproduction period horn made for me by Rick Seraphinoff. At this point now I have however gravitated to another horn I own, one I made with his help but combining new, authentic parts with the body of a modern single F horn. The body is a vintage King horn but it was rebuilt with a crook to match the design of a Gumbert model horn (ca. 1880) that I saw photos of in a book. This photo is of the horn when I was rebuilding it; presently it also has a screw bell. That a Horner cup mouthpiece works well on it makes total sense, too, as Horner was a student of Gumpert (the name is actually spelled with a P, but on all of his publications it is spelled with a B).

Playing mostly this instrument for so long has taken this type of project to a new level for me. This project has given my accuracy a checkup too, in the same way that natural horn playing does. The F horn playing will continue into the summer, be looking for another update in a month or so.

Continue to Part III of series

An inside look at tonguing (and more) on the horn

John Ericson
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One of the big, important topics of horn playing is tonguing. A new video making the rounds this weekend is the newest episode of Sarah´s Music, the classical music program by hornist Sarah Willis from Deutsche Welle TV. The episode of interest is “Music and Science,” and from the episode description,

Sarah and the team go to the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany to meet scientists who are using the latest MRI and Motion Capture methods to find out exactly what goes on inside a musician´s body whilst playing an instrument. Sarah talks to kinesiology professor Peter Iltis, head of the MRI department in Göttingen, Prof. Jens Frahm and motion capture specialist Erwin Schoonderwaldt.

“The good part” starts about 1/2 way through the show and it is well worth watching.

The topic is of huge interest as, so far as I know, no horn teacher out there has X-ray vision! I believe that the Willis episode is part of a larger MRI horn study involving Iltis and others, looking not just at tonguing but also at the use of the tongue and oral cavity in general. I understand from recent posts on the Facebook feed of Eli Epstein Productions that Iltis also did MRI studies at the Max Planck Institute with Epstein and with Richard Seraphinoff, and that Seraphinoff fashioned the horn that was used. (He used a similar horn, plastic tubing connected to a natural horn corpus, for practice when I traveled with him on a road trip years ago. And yes, it is the same Peter Iltis of Dämpfer Mitt fame. A brief review is here).

It is a great topic that only recently could be studied safely. Last year I was able to see my own tonguing via ultrasound when assisting a student of mine, Alex Austin, with his Barrett honors thesis project here at Arizona State. I feel I have a very clear handle on how I tongue but, at the same time, I feel sure that certainly I have taught people who used rather different tonguing motions and that the descriptions of tonguing in some well known, older horn books can’t possibly be physiologically accurate. I have tried to address that issue various places in my Horn Matters writings, and for an overview with a connection to this article check my review of the recent publication by Eli Epstein, Horn Playing from the Inside Out (begins here).

Modern MRI studies have opened up this study further in a new, safer way, and I certainly look forward to seeing more of the findings from these MRI studies. [UPDATE: There is another MRI horn video online here. Video quality not as high as you might wish, but includes a close look at Beethoven 3 (starting about half way into the video) with a focus on the larynx and vocal chords.]

Until then, there is an older and not nearly so safe study you can check out on YouTube. I wrote about it in a bit more depth in an article back in 2011 (here) and also in 2010 (here, with a focus on jaw position), but in short it is actual X-ray video of horn playing, filmed as a part of Joseph A. Meidt’s 1967 dissertation, “A Cinefluorographic Investigation of Oral Adjustments for Various Aspects of Brass Instrument Performance.” The video (direct link here) is actually quite similar to what you see in the new Sarah Willis episode, with her MRI video being clearer and offering more detail about the interaction of the back of the tongue and the throat. The big technical difference is this one is performed on a valved horn and allows performance of scale passages into the low range. It is still a little spooky to watch as it is X-ray video, but worth checking out as you can clearly see the tongue motion and jaw position changes by range.

And to close, to those that say looking at videos like these encourages paralysis by analysis, I understand your point but still would say you are better off approaching things from a physiologically accurate direction, and these resources can help in understanding that physiology.

Review and First Impressions: Paxman Academy and Series 4 Horns

John Ericson
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One exciting development in the horn world is that Paxman has not only expanded their product line but also has expanded their dealer network. In particular, a store local to me in Arizona, Milano’s Music, just received their first shipment of horns from Paxman, including Paxman Academy and Paxman Series 4 double horns.

Many people have said that it was only a matter of time until the Chinese brass instrument makers figured out how to produce very good French horns, and that time is clearly now. Paxman has been working for a number of years now with Chinese maker Briz, who only produces French horns (website here, in Chinese). While Briz is a new manufacturer (founded in June of 2000), Paxman itself has been producing horns since 1945 and needs no introduction as a leading maker of high quality horns. Clearly Paxman and Briz have in this partnership developed a very fine line of horns that it is time to be highly aware of.

In recent years I have had two brief encounters with the Chinese Paxman horns, both mentioned previously in Horn Matters. I was “particularly interested” at the Australia IHS symposium in the single Bb Paxman Academy horn, and at the UNT IHS symposium I was “very impressed” by the Paxman Academy double horn. [UPDATE: The articles where I’m quoting myself are no longer online, but the quotes are my reactions at those times.]

And that brings me to my brief trials this week here in Arizona. My overall first reaction is this: these are very solid horns.

Paxman-Series-4I will start with the Paxman Series 4. This model was, according to their website, introduced in 2008. It is priced somewhat below that of the very comparable Yamaha 667 and Hoyer G-10 models, and first impressions make clear that the Series 4 horn is a contender!

The very first impression of any horn is how it feels in your hands. At this point a brief aside is appropriate. About 15-20 years ago I tried my first Chinese double horn at a show. It was terrible in basically every way. It was very heavily constructed (a tank!), the mouthpiece did not even fit in the receiver correctly (!), valves felt bad, harsh sounding, etc. It simply screamed out that it was a cheap, poor quality instrument. In contrast, the Paxman Series 4 horn gives every first impression of being an excellent horn. The instrument looks to be well designed and constructed, and I immediately liked the feel of the quiet, string action valves very much and the weight and balance.

At Milano’s I was able to test it comparing it with a Hoyer and a Yamaha side by side. The Paxman feels more like the Yamaha in terms of “feel” in the hands — the ergonomics of the left hand are very good, and the overall weight is similar — and the sound is also generally similar. That said, and maybe I have been conditioned a bit as an owner of three Paxman horns, but it really has the look and feel of being a Paxman, with no feeling of it being “cheap” in any way.

The wrap is what is sometimes called a “modified Geyer” wrap. I think the only real plus the Yamaha and Hoyer have compared to the Series 4 horn is I suspect that they will prove easier to remove water from, as this type of Geyer wrap has the extra “knot” (loop) of tubing on the F side rather than the more open F side of the traditional Geyer/Knopf design. High and low the horn plays well, with a very solid high Bb. This would make an excellent instrument for a strong intermediate player or a serious amateur. I have had a number of people come audition for me at ASU — potential performance majors! — who were playing horns that were clearly not nearly as good that cost more. In total this is a horn that really cannot be ignored at the price point.

Paxman-Series-3The other horn I tried is the Paxman Academy double, also known as Paxman Series 3. The horn is generally similar to the Series 4 horn already described, but has a slightly different wrap (look at the the F horn tube coming out of the first valve slide on both horns) and it sells for just over half as much as the Series 4. It also looks to have also been built very well. The sound is not quite as good as that of the Series 4 but still compares favorably to instruments sold for twice the price — it does not have the shrill, harsh edge I associate with a very cheap horn.

On the example I tried the high range was quite free with a fine high Bb but the low range was somewhat unresponsive (while the Series 4 horn was very good high and low). A possible factor on this is the slightly simplified wrap that eliminates that more rounded bend on the F horn. But being aimed at younger students I am sure that was probably the right business decision from the makers, to set the horn up to favor the high range and save a bit on construction costs.

As with the Series 4 the ergonomics of the left hand are excellent with the same, quiet string action valves. This horn is definitely one to consider for school program purchases, as if played back to back against traditional USA brands this horn will certainly not disappoint. The only “negative” I could see is that it is not as heavily made as some other horns intended for a school market. In terms of playing qualities this is a plus, but I suppose it might dent more easily? But a horn built like a tank is no fun to play and sounds like a tank, I think Briz/Paxman made the right decision in not using overly heavy/thick materials on this instrument.

Series 5 is the top level instrument in the line of Paxman/Briz horns and is their newest model, described here in the Paxman website. I have not had the opportunity yet but I very much want to try one of these. It has what I have been told is a “more complex tone,” of the type we associate with a fine custom horn. The Series 5 horn hits a little higher price point and is built on a more open pattern very similar to the venerable Paxman 20. From what I am hearing this model is one that a professional really would consider playing, it is that good. I look forward to the opportunity to try one!

To repeat one point, both of these horns appeared to me to be very well made, and both models have been in production now for a while. If Briz maintains this level of quality, these horns and their related horn production will certainly be seen more and more worldwide.

One other final note on the horns and my testing. For my trials I had a Laskey G cup mouthpiece and a similar Moosewood BA mouthpiece with a European shank available to me. These horns work well with a standard shank mouthpiece, no European shank is necessary, the horns playing better with the standard shank. Yet another good decision on the part of the maker in relation to our market in the USA.

There are now several dealers of Paxman Academy horns in the USA and it is to be hoped that there might be even more by the time new horn sales pick up for dealers in the fall. It is also worth noting that other Briz branded horns are sold directly in the USA through at least one dealer (Google it, they produce a Kruspe wrap model as well), and then there is also the Pope-Balu Briz Alliance horn that was recently introduced that I would very much like to try too, a Knopf wrap horn. Based on my brief observations with the Paxman-Briz horns this maker is positioned to sell in the coming years a large quantity of horns in the USA. I feel there is certainly a market for these horns — if the number of locations where you can try one in person expands — and at the price points they hit the days of the traditional USA band instrument makers may be numbered. The fit and finish and the playing qualities combine to make these horns an excellent value.

Photos from Milano’s Music website, with permission

On the single F horn, part I: 19th century low horn playing (and solos)

John Ericson
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A major long term interest of mine is the valved horn in the 19th century. It was a time frame dominated by single horns built to take crooks — instruments that are very different than those generally used today.

Richard Strauss noted in 1905 (in his annotations to Berlioz’s Instrumentationslehre) that “horn players now use almost exclusively the horns in E, F, high A and high B-flat…,” continuing that

Generally, the players of the first and third horns use the horn in high B-flat for almost all pieces in flat keys and the horn in high A for all pieces in sharp keys. The players of the second and fourth horns use horns in E and F.

The central point to grasp is, in the era before the double horn (invented in 1897!), many high horn players by the late 19th century had adopted the single Bb horn and low horn players were still using the single F. In some places it clearly became basic to the division between high and low horn playing, as they played different types of horns.

In the USA today reality is the division between professional high and professional low horn players is minimal, especially in terms of players preparing for auditions. The general expectation is that any really good horn player can play anything. Every professional needs to be a master of every part of the range.

That clearly was not the case in the 19th century. An interesting passage in Fergus McWilliam, Blow Your Own Horn!, 2nd edition, sheds light on the situation back then (and today, still, in some places).

There is a long tradition, most notably but not exclusively in Germany, of teachers classifying their students as either high or low hornists and streaming them accordingly….

This writer has even heard it argued that low hornists should “know their place” and not aspire to things beyond their reach. I knew one section leader who quite openly forbade the low hornists from warming up above g2, claiming that such ambition would not only endanger their low range capabilities but also upset the hierarchy of the section….

Particularly in Germany, too many young players seem to accept their classification quite willingly and are required to abide by it for the rest of their professional lives.

Which brings us back to Strauss and the two types of horns at that time. One of my goals over many years has been to make a recording on a 19th century style horn. I had one made for me by Richard Seraphinoff way back in 1997 (more on that horn here), and periodically return to it and think about rep and finally making that solo CD.

It is a challenging instrument to play. In short the low range is great but the upper range is kind of like playing natural horn but worse! The articulations are by a degree even harder to control, especially toward the top of the staff. It takes great attention to detail to produce good tonguing in that range – tonguing is much easier in the upper range of the Bb horn. Careful mouthpiece choice is also part of the puzzle of higher range F horn articulations.

Recently I saw a link to a source of PDF music from the Eastman Sibley Library. If you follow the link (here), they really have some interesting music and I noted in particular a group of solos by Müller (or Mueller, better known today for his horn etudes), and also a (low horn) sonata by Fritz Spindler. [These are also on IMSLP.]

The bottom line is these pieces work very well on my instrument in F and provide some musical evidence of the high/low horn split in that time frame. I think we generally tend to look at solos of this type (if we look at them at all) as solos for “younger” players with weak high ranges, at least from our USA perspective, as again we think a good player can play anything. But actually these works are quite idiomatic for a low horn player on a single F horn, as they hardly go to the top of the staff and tend also to not have a lot of articulations right at the top of the staff. Plus, when they do have articulations in that range they tend to be lighter, thus less likely to be obvious double/split sounding articulations of the type the instrument is prone to produce. It is a very different writing style when compared to some of the better known works of the period (like Strauss 1), which are much more idiomatic for a high horn player on a single Bb.

I am enjoying getting even better in touch with the “vibe” of the 19th century valved horn in F and the “low horn” solos of that time frame that suit the instrument. Be watching for updates: this may be the year I finally make that period instrument CD.

Continue to Part II

Knopf or Geyer?

John Ericson
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One of the perennial favorite articles in Horn Matters is on the topic of Kruspe or Geyer. Both terms reference the names of classic horn makers (Kruspe still being in business [UPDATE: see the comments]), but both terms in a sense have also become generic terms. How makers work out their individual horn designs will vary a bit, there is no one successful Kruspe or Geyer design but rather many subtle variations on themes.

Which brings us to the topic of Knopf or Geyer. Conventional wisdom is they are similar horns, and many use the terms interchangeably. The essential visual difference is the Knopf has the tube come out of the first valve at an angle and the Geyer has this tube straight across the instrument.

A good place to see a lot of horns is the ever-useful Horn-U-Copia website, the source of these photos. First up is this image of a Knopf horn, and about the maker I would note right away they are still in business (website here). Which is probably why makers don’t often refer to their instruments as being Knopf-style instruments, as Knopf still sells them! Horn-U-Copia dates this instrument to around 1960, but the Knopf family goes way back as a maker of horns of this type to the early 20th century and has been making brass instruments in Markneukirchen, Germany since 1852. Presently this type of instrument is their Model 16.

Then we get to Geyer. According to his bio in the IHS website, German native Carl Geyer (1880-1973) “became an apprentice instrument maker at age 15 in Markneukirchen” and

While working in a music store in 1903, he saw an advertisement in a Leipzig newspaper that Richard Wunderlich was seeking a horn maker because musicians in Chicago were forced to send their instruments to Germany for repairs. Geyer immigrated to the US and arrived in Chicago in 1904. He worked for Wunderlich until Wunderlich retired during World War I.

In 1920 Geyer opened his own workshop to help meet the great demand for American-made horns. His Chicago shop was widely known for both his distinctive horns and his repair service. In 1955, at age 75, he sold the business but continued working for the new owner until he was 90.

The horns he was famous for were ones of this design, again seen in this image from the Horn-U-Copia site. Visually you can see a few dimensions are a bit different. The Knopf pattern opens up the space where the valve mechanism is a bit more so it can potentially be a bit better for valve action. There are also a lot of other dimensions subtly different, the most visible being the leadpipe length and the overall wrap. Where you would notice the latter is fitting the horn in a case; often Geyer-style horns need a little larger case than a horn inspired by the Knopf version of this wrap.

With those two classic makers described, it is worth noting also that their products varied a bit over the years of production. Which brings us to the topic of “almost” Geyer or Knopf horns, there are many ways to vary the basic wrap and still be visually similar, especially at a distance. Every maker has their own take on how to best address specifics of design toward getting the best result.

If I had to pick one I would tend to pick Knopf if only for the elegant look of the bend going into the first valve. This does not get at the topic of which is better though, as honestly both types can be great. Try them both! In the end it is all about the build and the way the maker has worked out the various small dimensional differences toward making a product that meets their expectations.

And for another article getting at the above topic that is one of the most frequently read in Horn Matters see Thoughts on ‘Quality’ and an Overview of Trusted Brands in French Horns.

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