Answers to Search Terms (II)

Continued from Part I.

More comments on Google search terms that hit on this blog:

• how to play Iron Man (or XXX) on french horn

  The best way to do this would be figure it out – on the horn or at a piano – with a pencil and some staff paper. When I was a kid I was obsessed with the original Star Wars soundtrack, specifically the Princess Leia theme (an extended horn solo). In sitting down and figuring it out I learned a great deal.

  While this method lacks the instant gratification of “I want in NOW,” it is a much better way to learn music notation and to develop some ear training skills.

• free french horn exercises

  As with the comments on “download method book” in Part I, search terms like this are a bit disconcerting.

  While I do offer some PDF exercises for free use, I do so with some limits.

  I worry that some young people in their enthusiasm demand and expect too much for free. They might engage in illegal activity to get what they want, including making and using illegal downloads and pirated copies of music.

  This is otherwise known as stealing.

  I freely offer these downloads bearing in mind there is no substitution for hard work and devotion. There is no shortcut for bypassing private lessons from a qualified teacher and for purchasing standard materials like the Farkas Art of French Horn Playing.

  If everyone stole copyrighted materials, it would lead to them no longer being published.

• Siegfried horn call sheet music

  Over the course of any given week, I get dozens of hits looking for the music to the Siegfried’s horn call by Wagner. However, the visitors rarely get to the page dedicated to the famous horn call.

  I purposely created this page to help the player gain an in-depth knowledge of this excerpt. It is not really enough to work on this call without knowing its context.

• french horn transposition concert pitch

  The transposition from concert pitch to what a horn players reads (Horn in F) is a Perfect 5th upwards. So, concert a C1 is written as a G1 for the horn. The pitches, while written differently, sound the same.

  Another example:

  

  A complete transposition chart for horn players may be found here.