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

To close the topic of the high range we have quotes and tips from six more classic horn texts.

Two quick tips

William R. Brophy in his Technical Studies for Solving Special Problems on the Horn points out that “Generally speaking, the more work that can be done with the air stream, the less work there is to do with the lip.”

A slightly different approach to aperture control is proposed in Practical Hints on Playing the French Horn by David Bushouse. He suggests “moving the bottom lip and jaw” to close the embouchure.

Some unclear suggestions, perhaps including anchor tonguing

Farquharson Cousins brings the air and tongue into play as he notes secrets to the high range in On Playing the Horn. But exactly what he is thinking in regards to the tongue is a bit unclear…. I’m not sure that is how it works really for anyone, certainly he is not describing the “eee” position seen in MRI horn studies, it is more like one of the old school ways of playing which involves “anchor tonguing,” where the tongue is set against the lower teeth and articulations are made further back on the tongue (this article has a bit more on that topic).

The main secret of making high entries is to keep the air pressure dominant to the physical tongue movement. This is only a description, not a scientific statement, as there is no way of correlating the units of energy involved….

It may well be found that the high notes come out most easily and safely when the tongue is braced with its tip curling downwards and pressing forcibly outwards against the inside of the bottom teeth; the sides of the tongue likewise pressing, but against the upper teeth. This is the ‘de’ or ‘doo’ position and the mouth cavity may feel almost non-existent.

Five physical factors

Frøydis Ree Wekre in Thoughts on Playing the Horn Well offers a list of “five physical factors that will help improve the high range if they are used correctly.” They are:

1) Quantity and speed of AIR
2) SUPPORT in the lower abdominal area
3) FACIAL MUSCLES, especially inside the mouthpiece and around the lips
4) The TONGUE which may be lifted somewhat towards an ee-position for higher notes. Attention to the sound!
5) PRESSURE (WARNING) is a last resort when everything else is gone or not working…

Let’s look at that list a little closer. Number 4 is very critical and has not yet been mentioned. The MRI horn studies clearly show that in the high register the tongue does go to an “ee” position. This is very consistent among elite horn players and is certainly not a “may be” item, it must be lifted to an ee position. This topic is expanded upon much further in Eli Epstein, Horn Playing from the Inside Out. 

Be aware of how your playing overall impacts your embouchure any given day

Verne Reynolds notes in The Horn Handbook, that “For young embouchures, the high register is especially sensitive to what and how much one played yesterday and how carefully one warmed up today.”

Eight necessary actions to play in the high range

Finally, Douglas Hill in Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance has an extended discussion of approaches to the high range. The necessary actions for high-range success include:

1. A progressively smaller, more focused aperture opening.
2. A faster, more concentrated airstream.
3. A higher tongue position (more towards the vowel sound eh).
4. A descending airstream (in tandem with No. 3).
5. A slightly descending mouthpipe angle (pressure off the top lip).
6. A focused top lip, with more muscle towards the center (like a beak).
7. Consistently firm (but not tense!) cheek and chin muscles.
8. A bit more mouthpiece pressure anchored on the bottom lip.

Note number 3 on his list, this is a very important point confirmed by the recent MRI studies. Expanding on points three and four above Hill notes that

Directing the airstream downward as if across the chin, combined with progressively higher vowel formations within the oral cavity, always seems to help. The vowel ah may be your desired mid-range setting. Gradually allow the tongue to raise upward but never back towards the throat, into an eh moving towards an ee. Combined with a rapid air stream through and open throat, this change of vowel formation can help to support and secure a relatively strong high range.

Equipment choices are important too

And of course descant and triple horns are a part of this discussion, they can certainly enhance security and ease production in the high range. I recently made available a book on the topic, Playing Descant and Triple Horns, which is based on my earlier print publication Playing High Horn. It is available now through Horn Notes Edition. Appropriate used of descant and triple horns is a key element to understand for the very advanced student hornist and young professional.

When we return the topic is the low range.

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Continuing our series, we have more ideas for developing the high range.

Breath accents?

In A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing Milan Yancich suggested when warming up to apply the concept of breath accents to aid in high register production.

In applying the breath accent… one’s attention is drawn to the source of his breath power in playing the horn. It is important that when going for the higher notes and especially the top note of the arpeggio, the force of the air in the breath accent rather than a squeezing of the lips or a violent pressing of the mouthpiece should help attain the note. It is far better to make the correct approach to the high note and miss it than to get the note by squeezing out a tight, small tone. Eventually one develops the feel of securing the high notes by having the tone ride on the air.

A different way to think of aperture control

This series has been looking in each installment at books in chronological order by date of publication, so next we turn to Fred Fox. Fox has much to say on this topic of quite a bit different nature than other authors. In a chapter titled “The Key to High Notes” in Essentials of Brass Playing Fox points to a way of visualizing aperture control, inside the mouthpiece, to focus high range production.

The embouchure consists of two pairs of separate control muscles. The corner pair, the ones used when pronouncing “eeeeee,” and the middle pair, the ones used to pronounce “mmmmmmmmmmm.” It is possible to tighten the corner pair and keep the middle pair relaxed. Conversely, it is possible to tighten the middle pair and keep the corner pair relaxed. Try it. Notice that you can control the corner or middle muscles separately. If the embouchure consisted of one muscle only, the corner and middle muscles could not be controlled independently of each other.

The tendency, as one goes to the upper register, is to tighten the corner muscles and increase the mouthpiece pressure. The lip area inside the mouthpiece remains comparatively relaxed. Obviously, beyond a certain point, there can be no high notes possible with the vibrating area inside the mouthpiece too relaxed, no matter how much the corner muscles strain, and no matter how much the mouthpiece is pressed into the lips. The “safe” won’t open unless the middle muscles are tensed properly.

The middle muscles must be exercised and developed consciously for high notes….

Changes of notes are made with the middle muscles spearheading the action, the corner muscles acting only as secondary support to the middle muscles. If the middle muscles do not tighten properly, then at a certain point, no matter how much mouthpiece pressure is applied, no matter how much the corner muscles tighten, the flaccid lip vibration inside the mouthpiece will not give you higher notes. Nothing will occur.

Tighten the lip area inside the mouthpiece consciously. Use that action in all registers primarily, and you are on your way to greater facility and better higher notes.

Try the “eeeee” and “mmmmm” idea out, it gets at a bit different concept of aperture control than that presented by Farkas.

Getting toward the idea of “support”

Fox also offers the following suggestion to obtain the best sound on the highest note in a phrase. First, Fox reminds us that for his purposes he calls “the abdominal muscle above the belt line the upper diaphragm, and the abdominal muscles below the belt line the lower diaphragm.”

It is common for high notes to tend to sound somewhat strained. The cause is a tight throat. This tightness can be overcome.

…The upper note will sound freer when you harden the lower diaphragm at the moment of attack. The vowel sound does get smaller with the upper note. The lower diaphragm kick is only used to keep the throat open….

If the lower diaphragm is hardened before the attack, there is no beneficial effect. If the lower diaphragm hardens after the note is played, there is no beneficial effect. It must harden at the moment of the attack, like a tug on a rope to be effective….

There is one physical act that opens the throat. That is sudden tensing of the lower diaphragm. This action causes the throat to open up more, sympathetically.

…The basic purpose of the downward kick is to neutralize the throat, keeping it the same opening on the high not as when the lower note was played…. Simply enough the kick is used to keep the throat from tightening.

I call this “the accordion effect.” Visualize an accordion being squeezed together, then expanded. Imagine the same accordion being played in a vertical position….

Rule: The lower diaphragm kick can be used for the highest note of any phrase in any register. It sets the best and fullest sound for the high note, which is the most important note of a phrase. The lower diaphragm relaxes after the highest note is played and thus can be used again whenever the next highest note occurs. With some practice the “accordion effect” will keep the throat open at all times. This is one of the most important factors in effective wind playing tone production.

Of course, as presented in the preliminary article to this topic, elements of what he is saying are clearly only visualizations. Any good instruction, taken to extreme, can lead you to problems. But hopefully his instructions will still be helpful ones for readers, and to his credit I like that he is willing to talk about the throat at all. A lot of teachers studiously avoid the topic, with the idea being if you even mention it you will create problems by thinking about it too much.

When the series returns we have even more tips on the high range.

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High range development is nearly universally a major goal of students of the horn. There are a lot of approaches out there to consider carefully.

An embouchure focused approach

Philip Farkas in The Art of French Horn Playing felt that the most critical element in developing the high range was the embouchure.

The very highest notes demand, above all else, a strong, well-developed embouchure. This muscular strength is gained, as in all physical endeavor, by constant exercise of the muscles involved. Therefore, the first requisite of a good high register is to play in it often enough and long enough.

Besides reminders about avoiding mouthpiece pressure and to use plenty of air, he presents the following as his central embouchure related idea.

As it is of utmost importance in obtaining a free sound in the high notes, let me again reiterate that the tension comes in toward the center from the corners of the mouth and not from a clamping together of the upper and lower lips. Keep the lower jaw and chin down!

The diaphragm is very important in this high register. The lip opening is of such small size and the tension of the lips so strong that there is considerably more resistance to the air-stream than is found in the middle register. Therefore, in ascending to the highest notes, one has almost to make a crescendo with the air in order to avoid making a diminuendo in sound. This is accomplished by steadily increasing the pressure underneath the diaphragm. At this time, good use can also be made of the definite striving to allow the air to escape through the lips with very little impedance.

A folksy analogy

Farkas was a firm believer in this approach and explains it further with a typical folksy analogy later in the chapter, where he states

Finally, but very important to the success of obtaining high notes easily, there is the knack of lipping the notes up or down with almost a “flick” of the lip … inside the mouthpiece … a “mouthing” such as a goldfish makes; a “mouthing” similar to saying a series of the letter “P”, P-P-P-P-P, however, without ever closing the lips entirely. The result, when properly done, produces a slur from note to note which jumps into place so easily that there is almost no effort connected with it….

Airstream direction as a key element

Other teachers would react to this advice as certainly his advice goes against the idea of rolling the lip down or in, including for example just a few years later Gunther Schuller. He states in Horn Technique that

The direction of the air stream is controlled by the jaw and teeth positions I have described…. Obviously, a slightly forward position of the lower teeth will direct the air more horizontally, while a receding jaw position will point the air stream correspondingly lower. Such jaw movements also alter the angle of the mouthpiece in relation to the air stream. It is in this connection that I have found a slight ‘riding up’ on the upper lip for the extreme high register very helpful. It too helps to direct the air stream in a more vertical line, at a reflection point in the cup which is closer to the rim than to the bore.

I believe that Schuller is getting at a more physiologically accurate approach in his desire for the air stream to hit a more vertical position as you approach the high range.

However, there is more to high range production than muscle and air. When we return to this series we will have more on the topic from Milan Yancich and Fred Fox.

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