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Brandenburg 2 sounds better on French Horn

John Ericson
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A recent thrift store find was a Phillips recording of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 performed with a horn instead of a trumpet. The hornist is Barry Tuckwell, and it is absolutely a charming recording! I found a version of it on YouTube (from a different Phillips recording), but it is not an official version, just one someone posted from the vinyl recording, so the link probably won’t last. Feel free to first listen below for a sense of that recording, and read on as to why this is not a crazy idea.

The case for horn

In our horn repertoire class in recent years I have highlighted a recording done in the same manner by Steven Gross. In his CD liner notes the case for horn instead of trumpet is laid out very well, as follows:

Concerning the Second Concerto, the question concerning the brass part always has been: trumpet or horn? Original parts are not extant and thus provide no guidance.

Dr. Gross believes that Bach had the horn in mind, and bases his decision on contextual grounds both political and aesthetic, among which are that:

1) there was considerable confusion in Bachs’ day about the use of ‘trumpet’ and ‘horn’; ‘trumpets’ could be called ‘horns’ and ‘horns’ could refer to a variety of wind instruments;

2) Bachs’ score, as copied by Christian Fredrich Penzel who had attended the Thomasschule, at Bachs’ church in Leipzig, says the part for brass instruments is to be played by ‘tromba, o vero corno da caccia’ (‘trumpet, otherwise hunting horn’);

3) when Bach wrote for horn, it was for horn in F; were a trumpet to perform the Second Brandenburg, it would be the only instance in Bach’s works of the use of a trumpet in F. For Baroque composers, the instrument of choice was trumpet in D;

4) the composition’s orchestration offers no compelling reasons to prefer trumpet over horn. By using the horn, the solo group plays in the same register and blends together. The trumpet, on the other hand, plays an octave higher and dominates the other solo players.

And it sounds better

Again, maybe I’m biased, but I think the work really does sound charming when performed on the horn instead of trumpet. The key movements of the Steven Gross recording are below, what do you think?

On the topic of a Horn Guru

John Ericson
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Unless you don’t follow much social media, you have already heard that a certain hornist recently has seen major “negative change” in their career. His local PBS/NPR affiliate headline lays it out thusly: “Music professor retires from Rice following allegations of inappropriate conduct with female students.” Pulling a few points from their article,

  • The allegations involve claims from several former students who accuse William VerMeulen of engaging in inappropriate behavior during his tenure as a professor of horn at Rice’s Shepherd School of Music.
  • There are also allegations of sexually explicit photos being sent to students.
  • … according to a classical music professor who requested anonymity, VerMeulen’s reputation has apparently been intertwined with long-running stories of alleged inappropriate behavior with female students.
  • “People were saying that he would use extremely sexual language with women students and would aggressively use sexual metaphors and things like that,” the professor said.
  • Amid the allegations, VerMeulen was reportedly suspended from his post at the Houston Symphony. A spokesperson for the Symphony told Houston Public Media that they were reviewing the allegations and will “take any actions” to ensure they’re “providing a safe environment.”

A cautionary tale

A primary goal of Horn Matters is educational. My overall hope in the article that follows is that students especially can reflect on this story as a cautionary tale. Just because someone is a great player or has been a highly effective teacher, that doesn’t mean they have their life and moral foundations together, with the right life priorities in place. Be very careful in your choices of teachers and inspirations, it can make a huge difference in the trajectory of your life.

(The text of the meme is two direct quotations from the bio in his personal website).

He called himself the horn guru

The “Rice Horn Guru” has been mentioned in Horn Matters a number of times, although mostly not by name directly. And Bruce and I have both had interactions with him at various times. I’ll just speak to my own – I suspect he was basically on his best behavior when I was around him. I never studied with him (he is less than 2 years older than me!), and the self-promotion and rumors I would hear about his interactions with students gave me pause.

Then also there was the whole guru and cult following thing. It is probably a coincidence, but a TV series ran not long ago on Hulu for three seasons on a fictional religious cult with a similar name to one I grew up near – their group was called The Path. Those familiar with his teaching method already know that he called his signature system of horn playing The Path. That choice of name turned me personally off to his pedagogy even more in recent years than the whole captain and crew thing he also used to connect with his students.

There were warning signs 40 years ago

An interview with him ran in the April, 1984 issue of The Horn Call. If you want to do a deeper dive, another interview may be found in the May 1994 issue, and there is an article on his pedagogy in the February 1996 issue, but I’ll focus here on the initial interview with Catherine Watson. It is fascinating in retrospect.

The interview occurred on June 10, 1983, near the end of the IHS symposium in Charleston Illinois. That was the first workshop I (at age 20!) ever attended, and the 22-year-old guru was a featured artist. He performed a Mendelssohn work for clarinet, basset horn, and piano and I mean, I was there in the hall, it was very impressive. Lots of notes! The audience went wild.

At the time he described his current positions as solo horn of the Honolulu Symphony and artist-in-residence, instructor of horn at Interlochen in the summers. From what he described as a “semi-musical family,” he grew up in Lake Forest, IL, and studied with several highly competent horn teachers in the Chicago area, including in particular for three years with Eugene Chausow (1931-2022). I highlight Chausow because, besides playing and teaching in the Chicago area, he spent a big chunk of his life, including retirement, out here in Arizona where I am presently. A Wagner tuba that belonged to him is now part of our set at ASU. While I don’t believe that I ever met him, he was well regarded here, and at one point was a predecessor of mine as horn professor at Arizona State, in the timeframe that he performed in the Phoenix Symphony. Reading his obituary, it is clear that he was a man with hobbies, very devoted to his wife and children, and a man of faith.

But the future guru idolized someone else.

Dale’s been my inspiration – I had idolized him since I was in fifth grade. Everyone else was walking around with Bobby Sherman on their school notebooks, but I had Dale Clevenger – literally, I had a Dale Clevenger notebook. … Finally[,] I was able to take lessons from him in the summer during my last couple high school years, [and] then as his first freshman student at Northwestern. During my freshman year I won a professional job. That was the first audition I’d ever taken ….

The first job was Second Horn in Kansas City, which did not suit him, and not long after that he landed in Honolulu as Principal Horn at an age when most hornists are undergraduates.

Later in the interview he states that he found Clevenger to be “super-inspirational,” and, in the same answer relating to what he attributed his success, he mentions that he is a “risky guy.” He clearly had a personal game plan or system for success that he had embraced at a young age. Taking some risks because you are optimistic of success is important — but embracing risky behaviors as a general life strategy would not be a good plan.

“What are your hobbies?”

If I were to pick one final item to highlight from this interview it would be the question on hobbies. I’ve mentioned his answer to my own students so many times; if your hobby is self-improvement, you need to find a real hobby ASAP. I have multiple hobbies, and even Verne Reynolds had a hobby, he had a large organic garden. The answer to “What are your hobbies?” is a bit unexpected.

Well, I’m really interested in advancing myself as a human being, because I believe that I’m a person first and a musician second. If I didn’t have the horn I’d still have to be a human being, so my hobby, which I know sounds like a weird hobby, is just trying to better myself as a human being, be it through studying different stress things, as I have done, or reading, or just becoming a little more of a nice guy, trying to deal with life and handle life a little better. Whereas musically I may be a little bit ahead of the game, personally I’m still a 22-year-old guy, going through all life’s ups and downs. Luckily, I’ve gone through mostly ups in my life, but you have to be prepared for the downs, and just try to live life in a beautiful way.

To a point he probably was just a young man trying to give the “right” answer for an interview that he knew would be in The Horn Call. But the answer points out at best a developing personal/spiritual foundation, another piece of the puzzle of the path that leads to where he is today.

BRIEF UPDATE: I’ll add this on hobbies. There is a line of thought that says if you want real success on the horn that you should eat, breathe and sleep the horn 24/7. It is a type of thinking that can sound good to a student, part of being hard core into the horn, but it is not a healthy mindset. Hobbies, real hobbies, help you work out stress in your life and so much more. I’ll have more on this thought soon in an upcoming article, but self-improvement is just not a hobby. UPDATE II: That article is here.

Some very positive recent changes in our horn world

I have been so saddened and angered by the recent multiple stories of very bad actors out there in our horn world, beyond what I ever imagined.

Which is also to say that I am happy to see that among others all the big horn entities – the IHS, the IHCA, and the KBHC – have adopted very serious policies in relation to sexual harassment of all types, with background checks for all officers, etc. LONG overdue. The horn guru was for example at one point on the board of the IHCA, and now we read in their Instagram this summary of their policy:

The International Horn Competition of America is committed to providing a fully professional and safe environment for all those associated with the organization in any capacity, particularly those participating in competition events. All IHCA activities will be free from harassment or judgement based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, or classified disability.

Full policies can be found on the various organization websites. This is very positive change, and leaves me hopeful that the future in our horn world will be better. There is simply no room for old school, sexist behaviors, not to mention sexual harassment or abuse, in our horn world.

Accuracy Encyclopedia: F is for Fundamentals

John Ericson
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As we continue with the letter F, a third elephant in the room is the whole topic of fundamentals, or the study of fundamentals as part of your practice routine. For some teachers, certainly, this is one of the primary methods they use to address the development of accuracy.

But it still could be your horn, etc.

This should be evident to readers of this series already, but it is worth repeating that many things influence accuracy. Keep that in mind! Because you may think for example that you don’t have a good high range and you need to hammer away at high range fundamentals every day — but, actually, your horn maybe just doesn’t have a good high range. Fundamentals are the answer to some problems, but for other issues the solutions are going to be found elsewhere.

Fundamentals – are they Exercise, or Training?

My own horn teachers did not present fundamentals as a type of practice. Working on this article has been an interesting one for me. I am very open to enhancing the study of fundamentals in my teaching, some of which are incorporated into my warmup book and my technique book. But are they exercise or training?

For a teacher I can see how working on fundamentals is a type of training, important work that leads to improvement. However, for students I can also see that working on fundamentals has more the feel of rote exercises. Maybe good for you to do! But not that pressing or interesting.

Working on fundamentals as a type of training for real music would be a good compromise mindset. It really depends on you and how you visualize things in the big picture of your horn playing and teaching.

Kopprasch?

I know for sure there are teachers that have you work on only Kopprasch until you can do all the fundamentals encountered there perfectly. This can be effective, certainly, as you will play everything better with better technique. But on the other hand, this seems like a boring way to practice and to teach.

A digression on practice

Which brings me to the point where I have to digress briefly. As hinted at earlier in this article, anyone who has studied with me could tell you I rarely directly talk about fundamentals at all. Not that I don’t cover them in my teaching, because I certainly do, just they are not a goal in itself. My own teachers basically never spoke in terms of working on fundamentals either. Fundamentals were more integrated with work on actual music – etudes, solos, excerpts. Even the classic scale book I used as a student, Pares Scales, is structured essentially as etudes.

I do like warming up I must say. Warmup I visualize as more like exercise, although fundamentals are incorporated. But the goal is to warmup, not develop skills.

I think where working on fundamentals as a goal loses me personally is I would rather treat practice as more the experience of being in training, as that relates more to the path to giving a recital, taking an audition, performing any concert really.

One possible method for practice – The rule of thirds

I have seen it suggested to divide your practice evenly between study of fundamentals, etudes, and repertoire. Morning practice might be only a fundamentals session, afternoon etudes, evening rep. This could be very effective, as it frames the fundamentals as something that leads toward playing real music better. But a gentle reminder, be sure your etude practice is not all Kopprasch!

A big topic every horn player needs to consider

This is a huge topic and one every horn player could do well to consider or reconsider. Myself, I’m approaching fundamentals differently in my current practice and I’m considering presenting the topic of fundamentals differently to my students next year. Do consider adding a few more structured and specific fundamentals exercises to your routine.

This is an installment of a series on accuracy, drawn from notes developed for a book on the same topic. The series starts here.

Accuracy Encyclopedia: F is for First Note Accuracy

John Ericson
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Continuing with this series on the letter F and accuracy on the horn, the second elephant in the room is first note accuracy.

I don’t want with this statement to give readers a complex, but, unfortunately, perhaps the most critical type of accuracy is first note accuracy. This type of note can potentially be missed for quite a variety of reasons, but very often it has to do with the mechanics of your attack.

A warmup routine for first note accuracy

At this point it is worth digressing to a story. Close to 20 years ago now we had a new president at ASU and he wanted to bring in experts, school wide. In music a decision was made to have Gunther Schuller in. So, while he had not played horn since 1962 (!!), he gave I believe three horn master classes as part of his residency.

I have long found his book Horn Technique an interesting book, very unlike the Farkas book in a good way, very worth checking out to this day. The Farkas book, of course, has a long, “captain warmup” type warmup routine. Schuller, on the other hand, on page 35, presented exactly and only this routine:

When he was here I asked him was this really his warmup? And his answer was yes it was! When he was playing Principal Horn in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra that was exactly the routine. I forget if he said 20 or 30 minutes of this exercise, but just this exercise. The text of his book (quoted here) would indicate or at least imply that he did a shorter version before later services of the day and a longer one before the first.

Stepping back then, you can actually see the genius of this routine. If you were playing Principal Horn at the Met, what do you not want to do? Miss first notes! The Schuller exercise/routine reinforces an exact set of motions used to consistently start notes, in one motion.

Another thing I always mention to students in our pedagogy class is to actually try the routine as presented. Because it is so different than how basically anyone warms up and it really does work, you will feel warmed up at the end. Thus, it is an excellent routine to work on first note accuracy.

Just say “no” to hesitation attacks, and a tale of two trumpet auditions

Here is something I seem to have not written about very directly in Horn Matters, a huge playing issue that I would call a hesitation attack. Schuller was very concerned with this topic, and on page 25 of Horn Technique gives this illustration, which also exactly illustrates the way to approach his warmup exercise.

Which brings me to a story. I used to hear ASU trumpet auditions with our prior trumpet professor (we do them separately now). One very memorable day not one but two MM trumpet auditions, back to back, the applicants both had a serious hesitation attack issue. What it looks and sounds like is that instead of breathing, setting, and playing in one continuous motion the process gets stuck at a point where, seemingly, the players are intentionally bottling up air behind their tongue.

How anyone thinks this is a good way to play a brass instrument I just don’t understand. It is not. What you need to do is breathe, set, and play in one continuous motion with no hint of a hitch of any type.

A related point — attack the note, do not think of it as a release (more here). This is the right mindset. To “release” a note is to invite hesitation attack issues.

The brass guru Carmine Caruso was also not a fan of this type of attack, thinking specifically of the rules presented at the beginning of his text, for the “six notes” exercise — more on Caruso studies generally may be found here. Another author that addressed the topic was Christopher Leuba in The Rules of the Game. He calls it a stutter or a stall; a few of his thoughts on the topic may be found here.

First note accuracy is fundamental

We play first notes all the time! They need to be consistent, something that you may also find is helped by careful work on the fundamentals of horn playing, our next topic.

This is an installment of a series on accuracy, drawn from notes developed for a book on the same topic. The series starts here.

Continue in the Accuracy series

Accuracy Encyclopedia: F is for F Horn

John Ericson
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There are so many topics that fall under the letter F that this is the first of four articles relating to “F” topics, with multiple elephants in the room to consider. A first elephant in the room being the F horn as a practice tool.

The case for F horn practice

The basic argument is that the F horn enforces a “more correct” approach to tonguing and embouchure setup in every aspect, and this will enhance your accuracy with standard fingerings later.

What about beginners?

Certainly, the F horn is more demanding and less forgiving. This is one of the reasons I don’t actually recommend the single F horn for the beginners of today, as it can leave them more likely to quit playing horn at all. I feel like a voice in the wilderness on this topic at times, but in my opinion it is long past time to stop using the F horn for beginners.

What about more advanced players?

But let’s assume you are a more advanced player wishing to be more accurate. Certainly, you will have to tongue more carefully on the F horn and also adjust the lips more precisely.

For many players and teachers, this means using the F side of your double horn in your warmup and practice. This maintains much of the feel of your regular horn, with it just being more challenging than normal.

Interlude: How about using an actual single F horn for this practice?

You would not want to use the typical beginner horn for your F horn practice. Low dollar, heavy, unresponsive horns are not fun to play on.

However, for those with access to a higher quality single F horn, perhaps from sometime before WWII and in good shape, a really fine single F can be a revelation and even a joy to play on. They are lighter and more responsive than you would ever expect. During the pandemic, as a project, I started doing the majority of my warmup on a single F. That interest has continued, and in my hobby of horn building I’m most interested right now in further exploring vintage single F horn designs.

The case against F horn practice

A contrary opinion would be that playing on the F horn is different in feel in a negative way, and you are better off playing with the normal fingering to further and more closely fine tune and feel accurate with those fingerings. Keep things exactly the same all the time for the most consistent feel that you fine tune more and more with time.

This is a version of the (very valid) argument against buzzing on a mouthpiece for accuracy. While buzzing mirrors horn playing technique, the exact way you buzz on a mouthpiece alone is different than the way you blow on a horn when making a good sound. While not as different, there is a difference you will notice with intentional all F horn fingerings instead of your normal fingerings. Things will feel different, and it may only leave you feeling less secure.

Your mileage will vary

Both approaches have value. As a project, if intentionally using the F horn is not part of your practice routine, you should consider adding it. It does train your chops in an important way that can at least theoretically help accuracy significantly. You may not want to use the F horn much beyond the warmup, but, again, it can be highly beneficial and is worth trying at least when warming up or working on fundamentals, a topic for later in this series.

When this series returns, we have more to explore in the letter F.

Continue in the Accuracy Encyclopedia 

This is an installment of a series on accuracy, drawn from notes developed for a book on the same topic. The series starts here.

Mailbag: The Top 3 Horn Concertos

John Ericson
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A question came in earlier this year asking generally what are the top 3 horn concertos. With the end of the semester for my rep class right on us, it is a good time to finally answer.

Unfortunately, the question is too open to really answer. Top 3 for undergrad auditions? Graduate auditions? Senior recitals? That I might relax and listen to? Most popular with the public?

My personal list

I’m afraid that my personal list is very skewed. Concertos that I might play or listen to for enjoyment are mostly by Haydn or Rosetti, in part because I don’t teach them that often. They are rarely performed in auditions and on recitals – and, unfortunately, are not particularly popular among horn players.

Some top three lists

But for sure there are some popular concertos out there.

For undergrad auditions I’d say these, but with the note that I don’t hear the Franz Strauss very often – but I still think it a good choice, and it might help you stand out from the more typical audition.

Mozart 3 (or 1 or 2)
Franz Strauss Op. 8
Strauss 1

Grad auditions have to my mind three rather good choices:

Gliere
Mozart 4
Strauss 2

All would be perceived to be harder than the undergrad list, and all can show off a lot to the horn teacher. Strauss 2 being the best choice overall, if the technique is under your fingers. Mozart 4, if you bring it for a grad audition, be sure to have a cadenza!

Professional auditions also have a narrow list of concertos to consider.

Mozart 2 or 4
Strauss 1

Strauss 1 may or may not be allowed. Between Mozart 2 and 4, I like both of them equally well for auditions.

Finally, we get to the topic of concertos that are popular generally, and basically all of the concertos mentioned above fall into that list.

The future?

There have been a number of concertos written in recent years. Some, certainly, must be quite good pieces. It will be interesting to watch and see which ones can break through and be performed often by say the middle of this century.

Ultrasonic Cleaning and your Horn [UPDATED]

John Ericson
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You know that you need to keep your horn clean. If you are proactive about maintenance you will hardly ever need to have your horn cleaned professionally. But sometimes it needs a deeper cleaning.

A piece of good advice from my first band director

My first band director was named Conrad Steinel. His advice was that if you clean the leadpipe out with a snake and blow water through the horn you will get most of what is in it out.

That advice remains really true. Whenever you have a good block of time – certainly at least every 3 months or so on a horn you play daily – snake out the leadpipe, blow water in the horn, and lube the valves and slides. If you do that reasonably regularly (oiling the valves every week!) you will have very little need of a professional cleaning.

What if your valves are sticking or dragging?

This is a sign that there is likely green corrosion on the rotor or on the casing of the valve. No amount of valve oil will solve this problem. This corrosion needs to be removed.

Warning: Don’t make your valves super clean either

Some readers are handy enough to disassemble a rotary valve. You can clean the rotor yourself fairly easily. A gentle cleaning is fine, and actually you can often make valves work significantly better by just wiping them off well and putting them back in with fresh oil. But if you are tempted to polish them up shiny and bright with brass polish, please don’t!

There is a stable surface to be found in the non-shiny brass patina that naturally forms. Don’t be tempted to polish your valve beyond that point. Sometimes I see someone post a photo on social media of their valve that they cleaned to be really shiny, and I cringe. There are thousandths of an inch tolerances in your valve, you don’t want to take off any more material than necessary. That is one of the general reasons for the popularity of ultrasonic cleaning.

Why ultrasonic?

A primary reason to use ultrasonic rather than chem cleaning is that chem cleaning actively takes off metal, and ultrasonic just bombards the horn with sound waves in a cleaning solution. Done right it can’t damage your horn.

What I have found is that my ultrasonic cleaner as set up presently won’t remove all the heavy green corrosion, but it does seem to loosen it up somewhat, so that I can scrape a light coating it off with mostly wooden scrapers (lightly touching the surface with a brass scraper if necessary). Don’t ever use a steel tool on the surface of a valve or the casing (or at least use extreme caution!), it will do damage, as will any abrasive (no sand paper on a valve ever!).

UPDATE: But note, I think many shops say they are doing an ultrasonic cleaning, but that does not mean that they don’t also use chemicals to remove stubborn green scale. Please see the longer update at the end of this article.

Ultrasonic cleaning and the average local shop that cleans a lot of school band instruments, where working with a higher end French horn is a complete novelty

The first two of my horns to run through my own ultrasonic cleaner were my big Paxman 25 and my Patterson Geyer. Each one had slightly sad stories related to being cleaned in a shop that mostly cleans band instruments, which unfolded clearly as I worked on them.

The worst issue on the Paxman was that the lower bearing of the second valve rotor had deep grooves in it. I have no idea why they are there, but I certainly did not do that to the valve. Another almost as bad issue was the spring for the thumb valve, clearly, they had trouble putting it on the instrument, and one side is bent oddly and not functioning as strongly as it did before. It is on one less turn than Paxman intended. This horn is slightly more compact and fit in the cleaner better than the Patterson.

On the Patterson, first I’ll mention how I love this design for working on, a Geyer is not cramped at all with extra tubes and such. The big issue was that the valves are marked clearly that they are built in opposite order. 1 is the thumb valve, and the valves marked as 2-3-4 are the 3-2-1 valves. As you look down at the horn, the valves are marked 4-3-2-1. However, the horn came back to me with the second and third valve rotors and bearings on the wrong valves! My guess is the tech could not comprehend that the first valve was not number 1. And the horn got played for quite a while like that, looking down at the horn the valves were marked 4-2-3-1. They are correct now.

Oh, and while I’m talking about local repair shop people in general, many don’t know how to reassemble a rotary valve properly, leaving the top inner bearing not seated on fully. And the valve works fine even if not assembled properly. This is very bad, and a reason to think about only going to individuals familiar with higher end instruments and rotary valves — or becoming more familiar with the process yourself. At least to the extent that you know the work was done right, or that you do as much as you are comfortable with on your own. Because, as I said earlier, you probably only need to ultrasonic clean a horn when the valves are showing signs of corrosion impacting the valve action.

My 15-liter ultrasonic

I figured out the Patterson valve order issue a while ago, and that was part of what inspired me to buy my own “small” ultrasonic unit. It is a lot bigger than one you would use for jewelry, and I knew through a contact that it would be big enough to submerge the valve section of a horn – but small enough for my shop space.

Without going to a all-out blow by blow on how to ultrasonic clean a horn, the basic thing (which you could pick up from watching Instagram videos posted by some shops) is that you completely disassemble the valves and mechanism before cleaning. If you are not comfortable with that step, all the other steps don’t really matter, and if you are, you can probably come up with how to actually do the cleaning in a cleaner of this size. I will add, though, that the solution I am using presently is a type of Zep cleaner, diluted 50/50 in water. It works better than the Simple Green I used in a prior, small ultrasonic.

Results

The results are the two horns done so far play GREAT afterwards. The best they have felt in years. So now it is …

On to more horns!

I own too many horns probably, but I now have a great project, I’m planning to clean a horn every weekend. Next up will be my triple, I wonder what tales it will tell?

UPDATE

A video

The below was recently posted by Houghton Horns, well worth a watch. A yearly cleaning by a competent shop would be a great plan.

Several interesting things are notable to me. One is they do a combination of ultrasonic and chem cleaning, the rotors are chem cleaned. Another is that they have a “power brush,” a brush in a power drill, to clean down the slide tubes. That might be handy for attacking and preventing the green scale. But be careful, you could damage your valves with the steel wire inside the brush.

More thoughts on green scale

Working on a Yamaha 662 project horn I encountered a lot of green scale. In the photo, I’ve begun work on manually scraping all that off that I could reach with three different tools. Ultrasonic alone only does so much. If I had a way to chem clean this area that should have been able to take it off or loosen the green scale a great deal.

When the 662 came to me, supposedly it had recently been professionally cleaned. And some things were real clean, but they did not do anything about the green scale down in the body of the horn. The photo is of the point when I had most of the scale removed from the third valve ports, and you can see the scale in the 1st and 2nd ports.

This cleaning easily took me 4 hours with multiple times in the ultrasonic. There is a learning process, and this was a good horn to work on more. But it was a bunch of work that would have been avoided if prior owners had cleaned the horn more often, and a level of cleaning that a well equipped shop (one that is familiar with working on higher end horns) should be able to do.

For a final cleaning story see, “Play clean!” 

Geyer Update: Engravings, Serial Numbers, and More

John Ericson
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I could also have titled this article “Things I got wrong” in the Geyer Dreaming series (which starts here), or the related article published in the February 2024 issue of The Horn Call.

An Email from Jonathan Ring

First, I want to thank Jonathan Ring for his very helpful note, which has quite a few details related to engravings, serial numbers and more.

Geyer and the Schmidt family

One key detail I had wondered and I thought I had seen somewhere, but could not subsequently find, was on the question of who exactly Carl Geyer had apprenticed to in Germany. According to Ring,

… Geyer apprenticed with L.A. Schmidt in Köln, Germany. L.A. Schmidt was C.F. Schmidt’s brother and had taken over the business from their father, F.A. Schmidt. This established the connection between Geyer and the Schmidt family which later became the source for many of the parts used by Geyer in the making of his horns.

Things Ericson got wrong

The main thing I got wrong in the article had to do with the serial numbers, with a closely related topic of engravings being one I did not address at all.

A serial number system, but not always followed

During the pandemic Ring worked on a project of cataloging Geyer engravings and serial numbers, crowdsourcing info through the Horn People group. The initial post may be found there on April 10, 2019, and the results are quantified further in PDF document posted on July 3, 2020.

The short answer is while the system as described (by Thomas Bacon) in my article (and also in the original series here) was used on at least some horns, for many — perhaps a majority? — the serial numbers are just numbers, perhaps of significance to the buyer, but it is not entirely clear.

In any case, this is the biggest mistake in the article, and I have encouraged Ring to further catalog his findings for possible publication in The Horn Call, I believe many would be interested in this topic.

Variations in engraving (and bracing) also point to dating of instruments

I should have also stated in the article a not necessarily obvious but important topic, that Geyer did not do his own engraving. All the engraving was done (by hand!) by a third party, certainly several different individuals over all those years of horn making. The differences in the engraving over the many years is a more reliable method of dating a horn generally than the serial number.

Specifically, Geyer 223, featured in the article, based on the engraving and bracing style, Ring believes it dates to the late 1930s or early 1940s. Which would also explain the unusual layout, he would have had more difficulty obtaining parts in that timeframe and had to make use of whatever high-quality valve section he could obtain.

Within the comments of the 2019 Horn People post I would also highlight this important one from the late Lowell Greer, “Most of the engraving was outsources (sic) to a man on Wabash St, but I’ve seen some blind stamped horns and ones with a soldered pre-engraved labels, as well.”

1,400 horns?

While I’m writing, I’ll add this item. Geyer estimated that he made around 1,400 horns over his career. Assuming a working period from about age 20 to 90, that is exactly 20 horns a year. On one hand, that sounds like a very plausible pace for a steady worker, but, on the other hand, Geyer also stated that it took him 3-4 weeks to build a horn. That would indicate no more than about 16 horns a year and a somewhat lower total overall output. Perhaps he included horns from his early apprentice years as well? Whatever the number, he accomplished a great deal as a horn builder!

Adding though, in any scenario, I would bet the total output of double horns was probably less than 1,000, as for sure in any total number of horn produced would include numerous single F and single Bb horns.

Much more to learn

I would close by again noting that there is much more that could be learned about Geyer and his horns, and for sure there are sources alive today that still have firsthand knowledge of Geyer and his shop. Perhaps some enterprising DMA student could think about this as a topic before it is too late?

Revisiting the Art of French Horn on LP Records

John Ericson
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The past year the vast majority of my actual classical music listening has been to LP records. With the recent passing of Hermann Baumann I got out his LP recordings, and then started systematically listening to all of my French horn solo LP records. It has been a wonderful journey.

LP? Records?

I am glad that people do still collect and listen to LP records. My daughter in fact recently purchased a turntable and I set her up with some of my excess records. The general idea is that LP records give you more of an intentional, deep listening experience than other more portable formats.

Plus, many of the older recordings, they have so much heart, there is a quality that has been lost with all the modern technology and ease of editing the product. Something about the actual difficulty of making the recordings impacts the final product in a special way.

My collection

It is not a huge collection by any means – about 60 horn solo recordings – but it is an interesting and eclectic one for sure. Some of the records I bought new and are old friends to my ears, others came from other sources more recently (especially so a group from the late Tom Greer) and were completely new to me.

Most of the records I have listened to both sides, often several times, in recent listening. Others, the Mozart recordings especially, I might just do one side and get the gist of it (there are only so much Mozart I want to hear, and I have at least a dozen different Mozart concertos albums on LP), but the more engaging ones I will listen to all four concertos.

Some thoughts

My starting point was the Baumann recordings. They are all just excellent, and not all of this music is available in other formats today. My favorite recording still is the first one I purchased, seen above, which is certainly what got me interested in historic instrument performance.

This may be a function of I don’t teach them a lot, but I really enjoyed listening to all the Haydn and Rosetti. Several artists recorded them on LP and certainly were trying to generate more interest in these wonderful works – interest that I hope others now might still pick up on. I have a lot of this music, but one surprise was finding a Rosetti that I don’t own the music for. His music is so deserving of being performed more often – do check out Rosetti.

Some of my LPs are pretty common and some must be rare. I’d like to close by mentioning a rare recording that must date to the late 1940s with both (!) of the Danzi sonatas, performed by Viennese hornist Franz Koch and Lola Granetman, piano. The Op. 28 sonata I recorded and has been recorded a few times, but the Op. 44 is a rarity. It is an old LP and the audio quality is not great, but I really appreciate the effort it had to have taken and the heart of the players.

Do give some of the old LPs a chance, there is some fine, even inspirational, playing to be found.

Brief Review: The Horn. The Book You Need

John Ericson
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To open this brief review, I’ll start with a money quote:

The Horn by Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti is the most significant book on horn history published in the last 50 years. Highly recommended! John Ericson, Horn Matters

A new book on horn history?

The Horn was published in late 2023 as part of the Yale Musical Instrument series. This really is the most significant publication on horn history since Reginald Morley-Pegge, The French Horn, 2nd ed. (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1973). It has been 50 years! Here is another money quote:

If you are interested at all in horn history you need this book, and it is a must for every collegiate music library. John Ericson, Horn Matters

It is very easy to obtain as well, I purchased my copy from Amazon.

Personal aside: I’m interested in horn history

By the time I was a Doctoral student I was very interested in horn history, and I took a deep dive into all the available resources when I was writing my dissertation (which had the weighty title The Development of Valved Horn Technique in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: A Survey of Performers and Works Before 1850 With Respect to the use of Crooks, Right-Hand Technique, Transposition, and Valves) and subsequent articles that were published in The Horn Call and the Historic Brass Society Journal.

As part of that personal deep dive I soon realized that a percentage of what various resources contained was based on repeating what other sources had previously said — facts that could and should be revisited.

For a specific example, something I was very excited about in my early publications was I had shown clearly that Auf dem Strom (1828) was not the first work for the valved horn by a major composer (which is what Morley-Pegge had said). Actually, Schubert had previously called for the valved horn in an 1827 work for four horns and men’s chorus, Nachtgesang im Walde. Plus, Auf dem Strom is very playable on natural horn, valves were not necessary in the way they were on the 1827 work. I outlined this all in an article published in The Horn Call Annual 8 (1996) — a version of that is online, [UPDATE] split between the articles below:

I was very glad to see that Meucci and Rocchetti are of the same thinking as I am on the topic of Schubert — and really pretty much every other topic related to areas that I had studied very closely. I don’t know every history topic as well, but it gives me a great feeling for the quality of the overall book, which truly has a lot of ground to cover.

I was also excited to see that I was quoted, cited (in the footnotes, bibliography, and online supplement), and thanked in the acknowledgements. This is a wonderful outcome to see from years of working on topics related to the history of the valved horn in the 19th century.

Setting the record straight

Another important element of this book is that the authors are not afraid at all to set the record straight in relation to misstatements and misunderstandings in older publications. This is so important, as there really are many more sources and resources to consider than existed 50 years ago, and many topics in older publications sorely needed to be revisited in light of recent research.

John meets Renato

One other small aside, I met one of the authors some 25 years ago at an Historic Brass Society event in Paris (I presented on Gumpert), and we even shared a meal there. He was already at work on the book then, which says a lot about how long it takes to write the really serious deep dive book on horn history. I recall that he mentioned he was focusing on citing resources in refereed journals (such as the Historic Brass Society Journal), and he has followed through on that, you won’t see as many references to The Horn Call as the reader in the United States might expect. While this probably limited the number of citations to my own publications, I think this still was a good move, the book is very scholarly but, at the same time, it reads easily and has plenty of footnotes (the best part! I love footnotes).

A minor criticism

In the book you will periodically see text that points you toward supplemental online materials. There is great information to be found in those materials, but it is information that was clearly deemed beyond what they had space to include in the print version.

My understanding is that if you use the Kindle version you will find live links to those materials, but if you are reading in print you need to go to this page:

https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300118933/the-horn/

Scroll down and find the “Appendices & Notes” tab, and that will open up a 238 page, book format online supplement (that is best viewed full screen on a computer). While presently this works great (you could even go read the supplement right now from that link, without buying the book), I worry about the reader that wants to find these same materials thirty years from now. Will they still be online and accessible on whatever type(s) of devices people are using then? Hopefully the publishers will find a way to maintain these important supplemental materials for the future reader.

I’ll be back

To close, this semester I’m teaching my horn repertoire course at Arizona State, and I’ll be reading The Horn very closely as we work our way forward. Early summer I’ll hope to post a supplement to this review, after reflecting on all the materials further.

The update (June 2025)

The one other thing I found personally to be a very unfortunate choice was the use of the term “falsetto” in relation to pitch bending on the natural horn. The authors explain their thinking in the foreword as follows: “The word ‘falsetto’ is also used in this book instead of ‘factitious’ tones (or notes) because it had been used by Praetorius and because it seems to lend itself to a wider meaning than ‘lipped down notes.’”

Unfortunately, factitious tones is in fact the standard term, used in many horn sources, and their term falsetto conjures an immediate meaning and definition in relation to the male singing voice that makes no sense in relation to horn playing. Thus, the section starting on page 84, “The ‘Falsetto,’” is only understandable if the reader understands that the authors don’t mean horn players somehow used a literal falsetto technique.

Of course, the term “factitious tones” is not going to be a very familiar one to new readers on horn history either (even if it is in standard use). But it is to be wished that the authors might have instead used a more descriptive term such as “embouchure tempering” (which is sometimes seen) instead of using a term that, while familiar in English, does not at all convey their intended meaning.

I have more to say in an upcoming review in the Galpin Society Journal. But to close for now, in spite of the above unfortunate choice, I still highly recommend this publication, it is very much worth purchasing.

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