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

For younger students of the present day who are handed a copy of The Art of French Horn Playing to help them get a better start on the horn, perhaps the most confusing section is the section on transposition. It is certainly a topic for the advancing horn student to understand well, and it was explained thoroughly. But looking at it now, it is in an historic sense great to know that Farkas conceived of C basso by reading the music in baritone clef, but today in the United States few teachers recommend any method other than transposition by interval.

The basics

Farkas does note clearly which keys are the most common and how to transpose them. As a part of this he definitely recommends thinking the key that would be implied by the transposition. For example, if you are reading horn in Eb and it is in the key of C major, you read the part down a step in F and the key will become Bb, exactly a step lower. How to transpose could be summarized as follows:

Horn in E (very common) down a half step
Horn in Eb (very common) down a step
Horn in D (fairly common) down a minor third
Horn in Db (very rare) down a major third
Horn in C (common) basso down a perfect fourth, alto up a perfect fifth
Horn in B (seldom) down an augmented fourth
Horn in Bb (fairly common) basso down a perfect fifth, alto up a perfect fourth
Horn in F# (almost never) up a half step
Horn in G (fairly common) up a step
Horn in Ab (rare) up a minor third
Horn in A (fairly common) up a major third

For an easy and popular online reference on transposition, please refer to the French Horn Transposition Chart by Bruce Hembd.

Consider working on it away from the horn

One suggestion made by Farkas that is easy to pass by is that he suggests working on transpositions away from the horn.

Carry a little book of music—any music. Songs are excellent for the purpose. Wherever you have a few spare minutes, perhaps on the bus, train, or just while resting, look at this music. Determine which transposition you are going to practice. Recall which interval or clef is used, determine the mental key signature, and then, proceeding slowly, say the name of each transposed note silently to yourself. You might even depress the correct fingers on some imaginary keys to further link the mental processes of transposition to the physical work of playing the instrument. …some practice on the horn is required to gain adequate coordination and fluency. Some editions of the Kopprasch books have recommended transpositions for each etude, and these are excellent practice material.

The world is in F

Milan Yancich related in A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing that for many horn players in effect the world is in F.

The majority of French horn players today think in terms of their horn pitch rather than concert pitch, and I am one of those. Although I have made the effort to think in terms of concert pitch, my ear seems to be tuned to the horn pitches. When I play in C on the horn I know that it is a concert F, but I hear it as C. There are hornists who think in concert pitch, and I believe that this is an advantage, for C (the sound) is always C.

The interval method is the most common

Harry Berv in A Creative Approach to the French Horn suggests transposition by interval.

There are two methods of doing horn transposition. One is the clef method. The other is the interval method. Whichever one your choose is fine, as long as the end result is correct.

The one I advocate—and one that is used by the majority of students and professionals because of its simplicity and ease—is the interval method.

He recommends practice of transpositions every day to build facility.

The question of Bb alto or basso

He also makes a special note about Bb transpositions. Normally the part will indicate if the transposition is to be read as alto or basso.

However, in the absence of such indication it should be presumed that the part is “Basso,” since the low pitch was used more frequently than the higher. There may be further confusion with a few other keys that are sometimes encountered without register indications. In operatic literature under these circumstances, part in A and Ab are usually transposed down; in orchestral literature, parts in A are transposed up, and in B down. If you are in doubt, hopefully your musicianship and experience will help you arrive at the correct solution.

Transpose up or down in A and H?

This topic is an important one not addressed in other classic methods and actually a potential minefield for the experienced and inexperienced hornist. I would offer first these two supplemental links:

• Horn in A and more in Opera
• Horn in H

And I would repeat that Berv is correct, in terms of alto or basso; “in the absence of such indication it should be presumed that the part is ‘Basso,’” and “If you are in doubt, hopefully your musicianship and experience will help you arrive at the correct solution.”

Eventually it becomes an automatic process

Our final notes on transposition are from Barry Tuckwell. In Playing the Horn he recommends reading some transpositions by interval (E, Eb, G), some by clef (A, Ab, and as alternate approaches to G and Eb) and the rest (D, Db, C, B, and Bb) “can only be learned by familiarization.” This speaks to the idea that with practice transpositions do become somewhat automatic.

When we return the topic is lip trills.

Continue reading in the Hornmasters Series

Return to Week 12 of Pedagogy Course

In short, in this series we have seen that there is no shortage of advice with respect to the critical topic of accuracy.  To close this overview I would offer these additional thoughts, from the preface of my (former) publication Ultimate Horn Technique. While it is a publication related to technique development, a big, underlying topic of this book is in fact accuracy.

We all hate missing notes. Conductors tend to think you are missing notes because you are not focused enough, as though it were only a mental thing and if you had your “inner game” down you would not be missing notes. That is a part of it, but besides the inner game from my perspective as a horn teacher I see three primary reasons why horn players miss notes.

1. You can’t hear what note you are aiming for. If you can’t hear inside your head what you are trying to play, you can’t reliably hit it. Magic will not happen.

2. You’re not buzzing the correct pitch. Try buzzing anything you miss right away on the mouthpiece alone. If you can hear the pitch but are missing it you are missing it either because you are not buzzing it accurately or on pitch (again, magic will not happen) or because…

3. You lack the underlying technique. There is a lot to train and practice. This includes the range of things from chop strength to finger coordination to tonguing to poor equipment and fingering choices, etc.

All of these can be worked on, especially with the help of a competent horn teacher. There really are many things to coordinate from ear to air to tonguing to the buzz to sound.

One tactic I would suggest for working on accuracy is thinking in terms of strikes. On a high level you would ultimately like to be able to play a whole audition with less than three strikes. At the very least though every excerpt needs to have less than three strikes or you will be out for sure; the committee will stop listening.

What is a strike? For our purposes a strike is a chipped note. Because while a committee can argue about what is the best tone and style they can’t argue about you missing or not missing notes. A “small chip” I would call a ½ strike and a full scale chip is a strike.

(Rhythm is another very black and white issue, it must be perfect—listeners may not give you any strikes for rhythm, one strike and you are out).

Part of why the three strikes thing is real is conditioning. Growing up in the United States especially, virtually every child has played at least a little baseball. The concept is firmly entrenched; three strikes and you are out! Beyond three misses it does not really matter because too many notes were missed.

Of all the possible horn playing topics there are, accuracy is really the big topic we can’t avoid. Beyond simple repetition, we all have to search carefully for tactics that we can practically apply to our own practice and performance without turning ourselves into head cases, such as buzzing passages to improve accuracy. For those interested in a more in-depth study of accuracy development I highly suggest investigating this publication:

• Don’t Miss by Nicholas Smith

When we return to the Hornmasters the topic is another essential one, transposition.

Continue in Hornmasters Series

The quest for accuracy is in a sense a quest for perfection. It is a mission taken on by many horn players, and is a mission destined for failure.

On perfection and perfectionism

The last chapter of Living Dangerously with the Horn by David Kaslow is on the topic “Perfection and Perfectionism.” He begins,

We humans cannot attain perfection. To do so would require resources we simply do not possess, including complete awareness, full autonomy, unlimited intuitive and mechanical skills, boundless time and energy, and so forth.

This chapter delves into some of the deep motives that drive us as horn players, motives that drive us to try to play perfectly on a difficult instrument.

110% accuracy is not possible

Speaking of deep motives, I have to digress for a moment as it relates to the final quotations presented here on the topic of accuracy. They are from Verne Reynolds, with whom Bruce Hembd and I both studied with at Eastman. Reynolds passed in 2011 (some thoughts on his passing here) and remains for me one of the most influential people in my horn playing and teaching. Memorable for sure. Yet, at the same time, if I am honest, he remains one of the more enigmatic of characters in my life as well.

If there was one central cornerstone of his teaching in the time frame we studied with him it would have to be the topic of accuracy. He was a extremely accurate player and really did want 110% accuracy in literature like his 48 Etudes. And everything else! In that light I think readers will be particularly interested to examine his published thoughts on the topic of accuracy, written a few years after the time frame that I was in his studio. I find them fascinating to ponder and filter through the memory of two years of MM level lessons.

The role of the teacher

To begin, Reynolds in The Horn Handbook tackles the topic of perfection in relation to practice and accuracy, and addresses the role of the teacher in developing the required level of perfection. This is probably the longest quotation presented in this entire series of articles, but is worth trying to understand, there is much here to chew on.

The object of practice is eventual public performance. Part of every practice session should be devoted to actually practicing performing. Each day of the week, one through seven, might see an increase in the time allotted to the practice of performing so that the final session before the lesson approximates the actual playing conditions of the lesson. This in no way repeals any of the laws of practice such as slow before fast, thoughtful repetition, taping and listening, concentration, discipline in the use of time through planning, realistic evaluation of accomplishment, and insistence upon perfection. Perfection is defined here as that which meets the supreme standard of excellence.

Perfection begins but does not end with accuracy. Accomplishment in the areas of tone quality, intonation, endurance, technique, and musicianship is admirable but meaningless if canceled by lack of accuracy. For some horn players accuracy is confined to “hitting” notes. For day one and two of the practice cycle, this might suffice. But soon the elements of dynamics, rhythm, phrasing, intonation, and style become components of accuracy. Just as perfection must be complete, accuracy must be complete.

Teacher and student might agree that a certain portion of each lesson is reserved during which an assigned passage of appropriate length and difficulty is played to perfection. The teacher (in future, the audition committee, conductor, audience, music critic, record producer, but never the student) decides immediately whether the standard of excellence has been met. We are constantly evaluated by listeners whether we like it or not, whether it is fair or not, whether it is informed or not. Let us hope that the teacher is fair and informed, and that the student welcomes the teacher’s uncompromising evaluation. The student can self-impose the same standard in increasing severity during the practice cycle. If day seven produces the same result as day two, adjustments in practice habits are necessary. Playing up to this standard will not happen suddenly and miraculously on more public occasions. It is more likely to happen as a result of having practiced playing perfectly. Realistic evaluation by the teacher and realistic comparisons with players of greater accomplishment can be helpful in establishing mileposts on our road to excellence. One is reminded of the twelve-year-old tennis player who boasted to his coach that he had won every match that he had ever played. “Congratulations,” replied the coach, “but with whom did you play?”

For these performing experiences in the teacher’s studio, teacher and student must understand their own role as well as the other’s role in the process. For the teacher to function as arbiter, both parties should understand that the teacher will shift quickly from the stern judge to benevolent mentor. If the decision is negative, the teacher must point the way to a better performance next week. If the decision is positive, congratulations are in order and the next event in the ongoing series of performing experiences is agreed upon. The student must fit the process into the weekly practice cycle and understand its relation to the world of auditions, rehearsals, concerts, and recording sessions. An experienced and wise teacher can use these performing experiences to prepare the student for the time when only perfection is good enough.

Note that toward the end he gets at the topic of teaching accuracy. In his case he really wanted it very accurate and could be unhealthily demanding in relation to that quest.

Form mental links between notes

As to specific tips toward accuracy, Reynolds notes that,

No attack may be considered successful if it is not accurate. A large factor in accuracy, tongued or slurred, is the player’s ability to form links among how a pitch looks, how it feels, and how it sounds. These links become more important as the notes become higher, although it is possible for any player, at any time, to miss any note on the horn regardless of height. First notes are most often missed if they are not linked by feel and pitch to another note. Everything else set aside, it is easier to play an F-sharp if we have just played an F-sharp.

“No attack may be considered successful if it is not accurate” is a phrase I feel sure I heard him say a couple times.

Transposition versus accuracy

Also, he has a note about accuracy when transposing.

Accuracy in transposition becomes difficult as the transposition increases the distance from the safe haven of horn in F. The first note in the first horn part of the second movement of the Brahms Second Symphony is a perfect example. It does not look, feel, or sound at all like the same note written for horn in F, since the transposition of B-natural places the pitch a tritone away from our home base of horn in F. In this case, our first note of the second movement is a concert F-sharp. F-sharp is the third of the D major triad. A D major triad is the last chord in the first movement. If we have trained ourselves to remember pitches, we can link these two movements together by mentally retaining an F-sharp during the pause between movements.

Reynolds suggests constructing accuracy exercises that require one to “sing a pitch, play the same pitch, and link the played pitch to the next written pitch.”

Practicing accuracy slowly only trains you to play things slowly

Finally, Reynolds has this suggestion of a method to practice for accuracy.

We all have been convinced that slow precedes fast in practicing technically intricate passages, but few ask why this is so. Slow practice allows us to hear mistakes and gives us time to train our embouchure, breathing, and fingers, through deliberate steps, to place each note securely. Slow practice also lets us check intonation, dynamics, and rhythm. Faultless slow practice does not guarantee faultless fast playing. If we have been practicing with the metronome at 60 we must be prepared to return to 60 many times if 72 is not perfect. If our goal is 100 and we have played the passage perfectly one time at 100, a different kind of practicing begins. Now we have to practice playing it perfectly X number of consecutive times at the proper speed. This could include several temporary returns to a slower tempo, but not without asking why. Quite often success depends upon one or two notes. We must identify the offending notes, ascertain the nature and cause of the mistake, practice these notes many times, and only then begin to add notes in front of the now-corrected notes until we arrive at the beginning of the passage. What is learned today may be gone tomorrow. We should be prepared to repeat the process on as many days as necessary to achieve control. What teacher has not heard, “I don’t understand it. This was perfect yesterday”?

A suggestion how to speed up the learning process

An alternate method you could (and should) apply is to learn the difficult passage at full tempo (!) but only in very short chunks. Start with just two or three notes at a time and group them into longer chunks at full tempo. You may surprise yourself that this is more efficient in learning the passage than the slow, deliberate approach.

To close this portion of the Hornmasters series, when we return I will offer a few final thoughts on accuracy.

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