Horn Matters | A French Horn and Brass Site and Resource | John Ericson and Bruce Hembd

Mutes?!? It is very interesting to me that Douglas Hill included in his list of fundamentals (found in his Collected Thoughts book) a special place for muted horn.

Is it hard? Did it used to be?

I tend personally to think of muted playing as being easy. Anyone disagree? On horn I don’t think of it being any special challenge – at least now.

I think where it came in as a fundamental to study more was with a generation of horn teacher older than me and before that. Right now, we are at such a golden age for buying horn mutes. When I was in college in the 1980s, it was a bit different world. Unless you were OK with a Stone Lined mute, you had very few options you could easily buy. There were some great mutes out there (Rittich, for example, which is what most mute makers copy today), but it was not like you could go online and buy one from a dealer like you can now.

But I’ll add here also, for any of your friends that play a different brass instrument, especially trumpet, they probably have a complex about playing muted (and they own at least six mutes). My theory why we as horn players don’t have that same complex is that we normally have a hand in the bell and it doesn’t feel that different — if you have any decent, modern mute in your bell.

What makes a bad horn mute?

To my mind a bad horn mute has a poor low range and it may generally feel unstable. If yours is like that, try some other mute. It’s not that hard to find a good mute today.

Tunable?

One great feature of the better horn mutes is they are tunable. You need this feature, as the way you use your hand in the bell will differ somewhat from other players, and your bell size will also impact pitch level of the mute. You should be able to play your mute with no concern of it being out of tune.

Balance in ensemble

Once you have a mute that plays well and easily at pitch, the other factor to think about, which you may need to consider seriously, is balance in ensemble.

Speaking generally, if you have a similar mute to other horn players in your section, you will balance well with them in orchestra or band. Some are louder and softer, brighter and darker. You may need to experiment to match in your section better.

However, in brass quintet, you might want to reconsider your preferred mute choice. A standard, “orchestral” mute sound from a horn player won’t match a muted trumpet or trombone very well. In my own case, in brass quintet, I used to use my Stone Lined mute instead of the higher dollar one, as the tone color better matched the sound of a trombone mute.

Mute in the trunk of your car

Finally, I always mention that you should keep a Stone Lined mute in the back of your car, just in case you forget your preferred mute at a gig. Better to have a mute than have no mute at all!

Update: For a podcast on the topic of this and the previous two fundamentals see Episode 64 of the Horn Notes Podcast (direct link, but find it anywhere you get podcasts).

When the series continues, the topic is a major fundamental for horn, transpositions.

Continue in the Fundamentals series.

Continuing our series on fundamentals (using, as prompts, the list of fundamentals found on pages 92-93 of the Douglas Hill book of Collected Thoughts), is stopped horn a fundamental? Certainly!

The three rules

Well over 20 years ago I posted an article about this in Horn Articles Online, “Understanding Stopped and Muted Horn and Right-Hand Position.” There I wrote the following, very central to the topic of playing stopped horn:

Stopped notes are an effect unique to the horn. The basic rule often given for fingering stopped notes on the horn is to finger the note a half step below the note you want to play, close the bell tightly with the right hand, and play only on the F horn for intonation.

As you slowly close the hand in the bell the pitch will get lower. However, once the bell is TIGHTLY closed, the pitch will rise or appear to rise by approximately a half step. This is not actually what is happening acoustically (interested music educators should read the discussion in Scott Whitener, A Complete Guide to Brass, third edition, page 57) but a practical way to think of it as a performer or educator is that you are effectively shortening the horn by “cutting off” the end of the bell with the hand. It should be noted though, again, that this is not what is actually happening acoustically–actually you are lowering the next higher harmonic to a half step above the harmonic you are playing–but the result is the same as in the suggested, practical method.

Reading it now, the angle I took in that was certainly more aimed at a music educator. But the three basic rules are there; tightly close the bell, finger a half step lower, and use only F horn fingerings. This will work well with a stop mute and for a fair percentage of horn players.

But there is an issue of hand size and your bell, which might lead you to look at alternate fingerings to get pitch under control.

B-flat horn fingerings? Flat harmonics?

Turning back to the old Horn Articles Online article (which is no longer online),

If you play stopped horn on the F side of the double horn pitch will generally be close to being in tune, raised ½ step above the open notes. If you play stopped on the B-flat horn though, many notes will be nearly 3/4 of a step higher–in other words, badly out of tune. Some naturally flat fingerings are however quite usable on the B-flat side of the double horn; experimentation is very much in order when in doubt.

Here’s where I give away a secret for the Saint-Saens Morceau and other works

For smaller hands and bigger bells, stopped notes are likely to be rather sharp. Good teaching involves problem solving, and at some point early in my years at ASU I came up with the idea of using the harmonic that would be a flat B-flat as the basis of fingerings. The year the Women’s Brass Conference was at ASU I gave a presentation about it as well.

Backing up a step, another way to say this is this. Instead of playing a B-natural in the staff with the standard B-flat F horn fingering (first valve), instead play it open which is a quarter step low. For some players it is just magically in tune, totally solves the intonation issue. Try this:

They are strange looking fingerings but all based on the flat B-flat harmonic and will likely be much better in tune for many players. There are many stopped passages right in this same range that can benefit from taking this approach.

The other very useful flat high harmonic, for Gliere and other works

Besides the “flat Bb” harmonic just described, the other really useful harmonic is high A fingered T0. It is flat enough to solve some higher range stopped issues. Here’s a couple versions of how to play the end of the second movement of the Gliere with that harmonic.

Stopped notes in Mahler, etc.

This is one of my favorite horn memes. Mahler did love some stopped horn! It needs to be really loud.

For this type of excerpt, you won’t find proper balance in ensemble unless you use a stop mute, likely at more or less your maximum volume. On paper it looks like it should cut through the texture, but reality is it won’t.

Final questions to ask: Is it loud, or is it soft? Present, or distant?

All stopped notes are not created equally. Some need to be very loud and with as much bite as possible, but many need to be very soft and distant, like an echo. Use your good judgement to put them in the right place. With a final tip being, for solo works on a recital especially, it is really difficult to gauge if it is loud enough or not, this is something you have to check with another set of ears in a dress rehearsal or sound check.

When the series returns the topic is a related one, muted horn.

Continue reading the Fundamentals series.

Lip trills are a must for any hornist playing on the level to perform a Mozart concerto movement.

Spoiler alert: Lip trills are easier on the natural horn

Before getting to the topic of how to work on lip trills, it is important to note that, speaking very generally lip trills are easier to play on the natural horn. Especially so on one that is reasonably authentic with a mouthpiece of a design that is plausible for the 19th century or before. Why? A period instrument is less “slotty,” more flexible. Lip trills are very idiomatic for the instrument of the time of Mozart, and are more of a challenge for us on modern horns today.

For those that teach: Don’t project your issues on your students

There is a quote in the Douglas Hill book (which is the source of our list of fundamentals driving this series) in the chapter on teaching, related to his teacher demonstrating a trill (page 67). It is an important point to consider:

My first teacher … kept his attitudes about the difficulties of the horn to himself. While in high school, I was learning a Mozart concerto and needed to know how to play a lip trill. He demonstrated one with very little fanfare, and I returned the next week performing lip trills with ease, which is the only way they can be produced.

PSA: Use a fingering that will work for whole step trills

The main thing is to understand the harmonic series enough to find a fingering where both notes of your whole step trill can be played on the same fingering.

What about half step trills?

Those are always fingered! Yay!

I’m not a fan of the “Kopprasch” exercise

Honestly, I think trills are over taught. It may be a function of how lessons work. Something comes up, teacher assigns exercises, etc.

One of the main exercises we have all tried is the one in the Kopprasch book. I don’t think it is a very good exercise, it ties you up in knots. Instead, you are better off with a different approach

Cross train to build the skill

The most effective way to learn trills is by working on fast lip flexibility exercises. I have some favorites I give to students, there are good ones in The Brass Gym, etc. But overall, you are best not practicing trills but to instead practice fast flexibility studies. This also may be getting at why Hill mentions lip tremolos; those end up being really fast flexibility studies, and set you up for playing trills.

When the series returns the topic is another favorite, stopped horn

Continue reading Fundamentals series

Concentration is not a topic touched on directly by many horn teachers. However, the ability to focus is a key fundamental for effective practice and successful performances, highly worthy of inclusion as number 13 on the list of fundamentals put together by Douglas Hill and presented in his Collected Thoughts book.

Are we are “wired” differently?

Looking at the French horn world generally first, the ability to concentrate is an interesting topic.

There are probably personality types that are attracted to the horn. One thing I’ve observed is that good horn players are different than the average person or even average brass player. How so? It’s like we have a personality flaw, we could have done something easier than play horn, but here we are. Doing something that is hard, day after day, enjoying on some level the challenge, but also on some other level somewhat beat down by the challenge.

Thinking of myself, I know that in some situations I personally can really dial it in and concentrate, and in other situations my mind seemingly goes all over the place. Probably that is part of the human condition, with different people having differing abilities in terms of concentration. Fortunately, when I’m playing horn I know I have a very strong ability to concentrate.

The importance of taking mental breaks

Before getting directly to concentration, there is a tactic you should consider – the tactic of not counting long rests.

What? Yes, this sounds risky. But you can’t concentrate constantly in every piece on every concert, you’ll burn yourself out.

In many pieces, especially orchestral, there are long sections of rest that end at easily recognizable structural points. Don’t count those long rests, just be aware of when the next structural point is and start counting again then. Write in extra cues if it helps. With a little practice this tactic is not nearly as risky as it sounds, and your brain will appreciate the break.

Building your ability to concentrate

Which brings me back to our main topic; how do you build up your ability to concentrate? Looking around online, I see mostly very generic advice. Although, if you are eating badly, not sleeping enough, etc. you have plenty of reasons to not be able to concentrate very well. Keeping healthy routines will help.

I’d suggest strongly that if you want to build up your ability to concentrate, look into sports psychology resources. There are tactics to bring your focus into the exact present moment, not on what just happened or what you hope to do shortly. I know personally I found tactics presented in The Inner Game of Tennis (a classic book on sports psychology) to be helpful with building my concentration and focus before auditions and for general performance.

One thing I often mention to students is at one point, while not that into baseball, I picked up a couple books on the psychology of pitching. Professional baseball pitchers in particular, they have to concentrate at an extremely high level in a high stress, high distraction environment. Lots of money rides on their ability to focus and perform at their peak! A whole industry exists around pitching and also around all sorts of other professional sports activities. The materials you can find on these topics are often very focused and practical, and can be easily translated to horn.

If you have never read The Inner Game of Tennis, more thoughts on this publication may be found here. A highly recommended read!

Episode 63 of the Horn Notes Podcast looks at the topics of Accuracy, Endurance, and Concentration. Download it where you get podcasts, or listen online at this link. 

When we continue the topic will be a fun one: lip trills.

Continue reading the Fundamentals series

Sometimes I think of batteries when I think about endurance on the horn. Batteries run down with use, and as they deplete the energy level produced is less and less. Similarly, there are only so many notes you can get your chops to produce before they run out of juice. We all know the feeling.

Building chops for endurance

As I’ve done now several times in this series, I’ll start with a story to illustrate the topic.

I started taking professional auditions in earnest after finishing my MM, and made finals for several jobs. Which was great, but I was not winning a job. One of my personal conclusions was I felt my chops were running out of gas in the finals.

I went back to school to work on my Doctorate at IU, and my first semester there I did my second major embouchure change (having also changed my embouchure as an undergrad). This time, my goal was to get the mouthpiece a bit higher so that it was better supported by the skin above my upper lip, rather than resting only on my fairly heavy upper lip. It was with that embouchure setting that I eventually won the Third Horn position in Nashville.

Fast forward, in Nashville I still felt my endurance could be better, and I stared doing some Caruso studies. It was like “weight lifting” for my chops, and it was helpful. I had some strong chops going.

Fast forward a few more years, and I’m teaching at Arizona State. I’m still feeling OK about my endurance and chops, but then I made a trip back to Bloomington and my teacher, Mike Hatfield, had photos of my IU embouchure that had been taken by Farkas in one of my very few lessons with him. I was kind of shocked, my embouchure had slipped lower over many years to between embouchure #2 and #3 (the IU change being #3). I briefly tried to change it further, back to the #3 embouchure in the photo, and realized that was just a terrible idea and left things as they were. To this day I still play on embouchure #2.5.

There are things you can change

Which is all to say, you can alter several things with a goal of building endurance. Mouthpiece placement and equipment choices can be part of it, but also how you train your lips and how smart you are about how you manage your playing from day to day.

Ease of production at all levels of fatigue, or, playing smarter not harder

Returning to the prompt from the Hill book (this series is based on a list of fundamentals from Hill), playing mostly third horn for a number of years is a taxing thing. I leaned on maintaining healthy routines and I knew the value of rest and pacing.

Pro players think in terms of the number of services per day or per week. You will never have more than two services a day in a full-time playing position, and there are days off built into the schedule. But sometimes, especially in the busy time before Christmas, you will have a number of three service days to contend with. It can be done, but you really have to plan and be careful with your chops.

One bottom line being that there are only so many notes you can play in a day, and you need to be fresh enough to play the important ones well. Plan ahead. Be smart. If it hurts, you have pushed things too far, and will need some recovery time. Build lighter days into your schedule, and take a day off sometimes.

But sometimes there is no way around being tired at the end of a long concert. I recall one series in Nashville in particular, the final work was Brahms 3. If you know the third horn part, on the final chords you are holding an E on the top space for ages. I remember so vividly the thought I had playing it — “I’m not falling off the last note!!” I was using extra pressure and willpower to hold it up. Fortunately, I never fell off it, having paced myself carefully enough during the week.

An assistant can really help

Related, I’ve also played plenty of first horn, and an assistant is so helpful.

If you are not very up on the topic, I have a print article on the topic, published in The Horn Call 34, no. 2 (February, 2004). Be sure to talk with your teachers and observe other players, but the following excerpt gives some basic guidelines most would agree with.

In general there are four types of passages that I look to give to the assistant horn when I am playing principal horn:

• Passages closely aligned with the trumpets. This is especially common in Classical literature where the first horn and first trumpet are in octaves.
• Passages where the first and third horns are doubled. Unison tutti passages are great places to lay off on first for a moment or longer.
• Passages before major solos. The classic example is the end of movement one of Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5, where the first horn should rest for most of the page before movement two. Even for less extended solos I personally find it of great help to insert even a very short rest before exposed passages.
• “Footballs,” long strings of whole notes (or similar) when not overly exposed. Some “pass offs” from the first horn to the assistant can be of great help.

In all of these situations it is essential for the principal and assistant to match in terms of volume and general style. It is also very important for the principal horn to have a clear sense of where the first part is doubled down the section.

In short, if you don’t use the assistant effectively you are setting yourself up for potential failure. They are a very important member of the section and of great value to you if you are principal horn.

For a more specific example, I shared this musical example and text in my Playing High Horn book as well.

While assistant horn markings will always be very individualized, the following is an example of the opening page of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 with assistant markings. Try the first horn passages with and without the assistant; the passages covered by the assistant horn will certainly give the principal horn more freedom to play the conclusion of this work with greater abandon and better accuracy.

When the series of fundamentals continues the topic is concentration.

Continue reading the Fundamentals series