Archived under: Accuracy, Performance & Playing
Don’t Live in Fear of Your Horn
Following up on the IHS post on attacks/releases, a little more of my reasoning why I would suggest thinking of first notes as attacks.
A lot of horn players are in fact on some deep level afraid of the horn, or more correctly are afraid of missing notes, especially first notes. I want to see horn players be committed to timing and starting the first note with bit of a mental picture of going for it. An attack can still be very gentle; I think/hope that part of the process is understood as well by the general reader who might read the full tip in the IHS site.
Maybe we should just call them first notes? I wish there were a better word in English but the big picture is I want to get horn playing in general to move away from the idea of a release starting a note. It is an idea found in a number of older published resources. It must have sounded like a good concept at the time but I believe thinking of starting notes as releases is a source of many problems.
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