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

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

Ranges are fundamental. This prompt from the Douglas Hill book is pretty broad, but focuses on two elements; extreme ranges and good control in every range.

By the way, check his book

I have mentioned elsewhere that this semester I have switched things up at ASU in our pedagogy class. Instead of following the University of Horn Matters series, we are focusing on the Farkas book and the Hill Collected Thoughts book. His section on range development (high and low) on pages 31-37 really is quite a bit better than the discussion of the same topics in the Farkas book. This was the topic in our pedagogy class last week, and I suggest anyone working on range development would benefit from reading his discussion.

Extremes

Returning however to the prompt for this week and the context of the prompt, what Hill is asking is for you to reflect on your current status in terms of extreme ranges and your horn playing.

A related question worth considering would be how high and low do you need to be able to play? In terms of standard orchestral literature, there is a definite answer.

• The lowest note seen in standard orchestral works (Mahler 3 and 6, and Shost. 5) is the low E two octaves below treble clef
• The highest note seen in standard works – too numerous to mention!—is high C

Of course we know we should practice lower and higher than that. Myself, I know I’m warmed up when I can comfortably play a low D below that low E, but I can only barely hit the double low C. As to high notes, honestly, I rarely practice above high C, and many/most advanced players really hit a wall at high C. But facts are you need to be able to play up to around high E or F, those higher notes do come up more often than you would like. Skillsets vary from player to player; I can hit a high D relatively comfortably if really needed. But I’d rather not play above high C.

Clear controlled sounds (high, middle, mid-low, low)

In the previous article of this series we touched on tone color, but here Hill is looking beyond that. There is an entire package that involves tone and articulations, leading toward a tone that sounds controlled and easy. Like you are not straining and grasping at high or low notes that are really not in your comfortable range.

This goes beyond keeping the same tone color. There is kind of an “X Factor” that you develop over years of practice that contributes to clear and controlled sounds. There may or may not be quick fixes that can help; hopefully an experienced teacher can help with insights in this area.

When the series continues the topic is dynamics

Continue reading the Fundamentals series

Tone quality is a very important fundamental! If you have a good tone, you are likely doing a lot of things correctly. Strive for tone!

But tone can sometimes be a huge challenge to work on with a student due to many other issues impacting tone negatively. The prompt that is the title of this post (taken from a list in the Douglas Hill book) gives a couple of key areas to focus on.

Centered resonance

The wording Hill uses is very interesting to me. I’ve long used a term I heard in trumpet lessons that I was observing as a Doctoral student. That teacher was very concerned that his students play at the “resonant center” of the pitch.

But backing up a step, part of the issue can be your horn and mouthpiece. I’ve taught long enough to see how, at times, equipment can make a dramatic difference.

Still, I like the idea of focusing on centering and resonance. If you are too low or too high on the pitch the tone will not be optimal. This is where pitch bending can be very helpful, intentionally bending the pitch above and below the resonant center for the purpose of finding and playing at that center consistently.

Consistent tone color in all registers

While the upper range can get pinched, for a much larger number of players the issue is the low range. Specifically, the tone color gets “reedy” in the range below written middle C. And it is something you may not notice unless it is pointed out, as you are just used to sounding like that in the low register.

The solution is easy to say – you need to drop your jaw! But it is not easy to do. The low range is very individualistic. I can tell you this – the tone color change is due to some interference of the lips with each other. Things are not open enough at the lips. The solution can be very challenging to find, but well worth the effort.

Timbre variations?

Can you alter your timbre? Timbre has been defined as “the character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.”

I tend to think that on the horn you just want to focus on always having a good sound, with good control of dynamics. One good sound at all dynamics will get you a long ways.

A real-world example would be what would you do if the conductor asks you some ridiculous thing like “play with a more burnished bronze tone color.” What? In this situation, just play softer.

I’ve had this come up in woodwind quintet a few times. I think some woodwinds really can alter their actual timbre significantly (especially the flute), but, again, I think on horn our options are more limited. Maybe you can adjust hand position a bit and achieve a bit of a difference in some situations, but, again, just focus on producing a good tone.

When the series continues the topic is ranges.

Continue in the Fundamentals Series

Slurring can be a problem, even a major problem. The question you should be asking is this — is the problem you, or is it your horn?

Slurring fact: The issue may be your equipment

I do realize that to a point you just have to learn how to do things on the horn that you have. And most typically teachers (Farkas for example) frame the discussion of slurs around tips for better slurring. Airspeed, stable embouchure, movements of the tongue, etc.

However, I’d like to start this discussion today from a completely different angle. Your equipment setup can hugely impact your ability to make slurs.

Equipment? How so?

You have to try a few horns/mouthpieces and listen carefully to other players quite a bit before you begin to see how the equipment enforces on you a way that your slurs will sound. There is a way that your horn/mouthpiece will allow you to go from note to note, baked into the design of your horn.

In short, the transitions from note to note have to be smooth enough or you will have rough slurs. Slow arpeggio figures should be easy, but if they are not, it’s a big warning sign about your setup.

Some slurred passages will show you that don’t have the right setup

Story time. I was recently recording the first three of the Arizona Regional Band etudes. The first two, no problem. Did both in two takes. The third one, maybe 20 takes in, I knew I needed to reevaluate things. A couple bars of slurred passages centering around middle C were really not happening. I ended up switching horn and mouthpiece for the recording, and since then I’ve had a multi week project to figure out what a better setup is for that one passage.

Changing mouthpiece helped a great deal. Sometimes you need this kind of very specific playing challenge like that to clarify your metrics.

(For more on the etude illustrated above, Maxime-Alphonse 4:12, read more here)

Teaching in lessons I often hear the same issues. I know the student is doing as well as they can with the setup they are using – and that they need to change some equipment things to reach their real potential.

What causes the slurring issue with some equipment?

A term used sometimes is “acoustical transients.” These issues, which arise from design issues such as tapers and bracing, manifest as bumps, clicks, things that get in your way. Sometimes a different mouthpiece will help a lot, but sometimes the issue has more to do with your horn and how it was made – no mouthpiece will really fix the issue and allow easy slurs. And easy music really should sound easy!

On various dynamics and ranges

Returning to the title of this article (a prompt from the Doug Hill book, as are all of the articles in this series), it may be simplistic on my part, but I think if slurs feel fine at lower dynamics in comfortable ranges on the horn, they should also be good at more vigorous dynamics and in more extended ranges. At least with practice. In my teaching I don’t tend to see problems of this type.

When the series continues the topic is tone quality

Continue reading the fundamentals series

And now we have another very big fundamental topic: everything about tonguing. Hill, in his list that we are following for this series, combines tonguing basics and advanced extended techniques in his prompt.

Clarity, fluency, and variety

Right or wrong, most beginners get hardly any instruction on tonguing. Then later, students of the horn tend to get instruction on it when there are problems (which there will be), and the instructions given may just make the problems worse.

In my teaching I think the biggest “problem” is that students tend to tongue too far back in the mouth too much of the time, because they were told to tongue up on their gums or roof of the mouth by some early teacher (probably their band director). This is not to knock band directors either, they have many fires to put out, and tonguing in this manner works well enough as a general suggestion. But when it comes to musical situations where you need to play with more clarity, you will need to tongue further forward in the mouth, towards the point of the teeth.

In terms of clarity, one thing to know is that there is a perception out there in the conducting world that horn players might drag. I think this often has to do with clarity of the fronts of notes. This is why some teachers are so hard core about Kopprasch, you can use those etudes pretty effectively to improve clarity of articulation.

This also leads us to the issues of fluency and variety. You legato tongue differently than staccato, and in either case the movements of your tongue are small. For legato they will be gentle small movements (like doo doo doo) and for staccato the movements are more aggressive (think dut dut dut).

Clarity, part II. An important aid to clarity

I want to mention one more thing that hugely affects your clarity; choice of mouthpiece and horn.

It pains me as a teacher to see online comments that basically say it does not matter what horn or mouthpiece you use, it won’t make a difference on how you sound. I saw one of these topics go by recently on Horn People. This is such poor advice!! You really owe it to yourself to try some different equipment. There is a reason why professional players don’t play cheap horns and mouthpieces made in China! It really can make a huge difference.

Double, triple, flutter

Then we get to double and triple tonguing, which are certainly fundamentals the more advanced horn player must have mastered.

If I had to right now today pick the two syllables closest to how I actually double tongue I’d pick “doo goo.” For sure the traditional syllables suggested, “tu ku” don’t work that well. There is a reason. Those syllables are from the Arban trumpet method, and Arban was not an English speaker, he spoke French. We in America see “tu ku” and say words that are too explosive and harsh, with the tongue in the wrong position. Instead, imagine them said in French; they were much less aggressive syllables for Arban.

Triple tonguing is similar, but with most commonly a t-t-k motion.

Honestly, I don’t like to multiple tongue and avoid it whenever possible, partially because many passages sound better with fast single tonguing. But some passages must be multiple tongued.

I hate to blame anyone other than myself on this lack of liking to multiple tongue, but I could extend some blame to my teachers. In their defense, I’m sure they knew that I could single tongue very fast, so I did not much need to learn to double tongue — until I did! I did not learn to multiple tongue until after my Masters degree, and that was way too late. You should be learning to multiple tongue as early as possible in your studies.

OK, learn to double tongue! And what about flutter tonguing?

I talk about this elsewhere in Horn Matters, but will just say here that in general it is a skill that either you can do or you can’t. I’m in the “can’t do it” category. I can plausibly fake it at higher dynamics, but I know I’m doing it wrong. My technique is to force my tongue against the roof of my mouth and blow. I can’t roll my “R’s.”

Fortunately, I think composers realize that there is a large subset of players that can’t flutter tongue that well and they don’t request it too much. Whew! Because the plain fact is that some players can flutter tongue, and some can’t.

Bonus Podcast?!

Episode 61 of the Horn Notes Podcast reviews and goes into more detail on topics related to Fundamentals 4-6. Direct link here, or check wherever you get your podcasts.

When the series returns the topic is slurs.

Continue in Fundamentals Series