Archived under: Pet Peeves | Composers, Descants & Triples
Extreme High Horn Smack Down
A couple weeks ago now I had an E-mail from a composer. It was their second E-mail on the same basic topic. They wanted to write in their latest symphony horn parts in a higher range than a conventional horn or hornist can actually play, through the use of some sort of “piccolo horn.”
What I said to them and will say online to composers researching this topic is don’t write above high C written for horn in F. What you run into is a reality that many if not most fine horn players can play up to high C relatively easily (it is still difficult!) but above high C they run into a technical wall. Maybe they can squeak out a note or three higher in some good circumstance (such as the practice room) but it is not a reliable range for performance. A smaller horn or mouthpiece won’t help much—our chops just are not set up to produce sounds that high. It is not like woodwinds, where if you hand a smaller Saxophone to a player they will play higher notes right away.
If you really want a horn-like sound in a range higher than horn players can play there is an easy solution. Write the part for Flugelhorn. Every good trumpet player owns one or has access to a friend with one and it is much easier for a trumpet player to play that range. Their chops are set up for it. But please don’t write above high C unless you are very sure you have a player in mind that can do it.
Related to this article
- Background on Playing High Horn
Over the summer of 2007 I worked very hard toward the completion of four book projects and launching a new publishing venture, Horn Notes Edition. The project that started this process for me, Playing High Horn: A Handbook for High Register Playing, Descant Horns, and Triple... - Quote of the Week–Hill on High Range
High range development is a topic that comes up with every horn student, and every horn teacher has his or her ideas as to the most effective ways to improve the high range. These comments are from Douglas Hill, Professor of horn at the University of... - All in the High F Family
One thing perhaps not obvious from my recent mellophone posts is I am actually very familiar with the high F tube length, as I have for the past three years been working on large project related to high horn playing, descant, and triple horns, which has... - Composers who Can’t Write for the Horn
As horn players we see a lot of horn parts written by composers who don’t really know how to write for the horn. First, the point of this post: if you are a composer and you are not sure about your horn writing, talk to a... - High School Horn Numbers
My son starts high school next week. As a preparation for this they had an event for incoming freshmen at his school yesterday. It looks like a great school but this visit again makes me reflect on the size of high school band programs and horn... - Enough High School Hornists?
First, if you are a high school age hornist and you are reading this, you have made a good choice! The horn is a great instrument with a lot of great music to play. I still remember quite a bit about the music I played in... - Quote of the Week–Fox on High Range
I find this a very interesting description of how the muscles work, especially compared to the typical Farkas-oriented approach. 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...
A Memory from High School
Random Friday: Beta Testing, Mouthpieces and I am the Wife of Mao Tse-tung
Support New Horn Recordings
Playing the B-Minor Mass on YouTube
