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Don’t Miss! Ideas, concepts, and exercises designed to increase accuracy on an inaccurate instrument by Nicholas Smith is a brand new publication on the development of accuracy. As he notes in the first paragraph of the introduction,
This publication is the product of close to forty years of teaching the horn to students of all ages and abilities. The techniques in this book have worked for me or my students—not that every one of these techniques will work for each and every student! A trait of any good teacher is the ability to phrase concepts and ideas in more than one way and find that combination of words which will allow the student to have that magic moment of comprehension.
Aimed at horn players of all ages, Don’t Miss! is simply chock full of practical tips and exercises divided into chapters on basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques.
One thrust of this book is articulation. One concept I don’t recall seeing addressed in the same way in other sources is a circular concept of articulations, where the inhale, set, and release are considered all to be one continuous motion, illustrated with a wheel rolling. The publication includes in this section a series of great exercises for first note attacks that go far beyond the comparable exercises in the Farkas book.
Other topics addressed in the publication include equipment and many physical and psychological aspects of playing. It cannot be emphasized enough that the main thrust is practical tips based on his personal observations from a career of performing and teaching the horn. It is information of a type that it would take years and years of lessons with a master teacher to pick up.
I don’t want to give away all his secrets in this review but there is a section of an early version of chapter three posted online here. These three tips selected below are notable and all relate generally to the topic of more accurate entrances. Who does not want more accurate entrances?
(3) If after a long rest, you must play a delicate or touchy entrance, put the mouthpiece up to your lips several bars before the entrance and try to approximate the amount of air and mouthpiece pressure you will need without actually playing the note. Give yourself just enough rest to feel fresh for the entrance, and then “set up” for the note as you normally would. By experimenting with this little “trick,” better first note attacks should be achieved. Also, during a long rest, put the mouthpiece up to the lips several times and approximate the needed pressure for that entrance in the distance. Keep blowing warm air into the horn. Don’t allow your horn to get cold and your concentration to lapse. Don’t let down!
(12) For the principal horn concentration is especially crucial and a concert of hard repertoire is not only taxing physically, but can be even more exhausting mentally. Many of the larger orchestras have associate or co-principal positions so that one player will not have to stay in a “concentrated” state for too long. Each person can only remain “focused” for so long and, for the principal horn, knowing the limits of your ability to concentrate is very important. Taking a break from one piece during a concert can allow enough “down time” to allow the player to keep a higher concentration factor later in the concert. Get help before jeopardizing a good performance.
(14) A REMINDER – There is such an art to “picking off” that tough first note in a high passage, particularly if it is soft. Despite the fact that we certainly need enough air to support the attack and the following sustained pitch, we sometimes concentrate too much on the breath. I personally have much more success if I take in a little less air than I would normally need, making sure that I don’t overly stretch the embouchure, and making sure I am completely set with just enough air pressure to “attack” that first note. Again, repetitive practice of first note entrances is important; living with the passage over a period of time.
Smith serves as Professor of horn at Wichita State University and Principal Horn in the Wichita Symphony, and as you might guess has a reputation of being a very accurate player and has had a number of students come out of his studio into the professional world. For disclosure, I am one of them; I studied with him privately for two years as a late undergrad and made substantial progress those years. Other students who studied with him around the same time I did include J. D. Shaw of Boston Brass fame, New York freelancer Chris Komer, and D.C. Marine Band hornist Max Cripe. Still, this book explains and clarifies much of what I recall from my lessons and also shows directions his teaching took him after my studies ended.
At $15.95 for 79 pages this book is absolutely a bargain! Everyone needs a copy.
UPDATE: Search for this book on Amazon, it is now available in Kindle format.
