Archived under: History, Natural horn | Richard Seraphinoff
A Natural Horn with Four Couplers Stacked Up
In certain books on the horn there are photos of a horn built on the same general system as this one. It is made to use crooks and couplers to be placed in every 
possible key, and is an ingenious system actually. This instrument I made using the same system with the help of natural horn maker Richard Seraphinoff when I was a Doctoral student. The system uses three master crooks and four couplers. The crooks are in C alto, B-flat alto, and in G, and the couplers are set up as follows from smallest to largest
- Takes G down a whole step to F
- Takes G plus the first coupler down another whole step to E-flat
- Takes G down to E
- Takes G down to C
With various combinations of these couplers you can get every key you need to get on the natural horn. D horn for example is the G crook plus the second and third couplers. This horn really plays quite well. It was built using a bell and first branch from a Cousenon mellophone from around 1900, and the crook tapers and bore are typical of French natural horn of the period.
So what key are you in when you set the horn up like the photo, with the B-flat crook and all the couplers? You are in no known key and the horn plays terribly. But it looks cool! That is why it is in the photos in the books like this.
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