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Next up in the Hornmasters series will be the topic of developing the high range. The quotes start in the next article. As a prelude, however, I have a few thoughts as to context and understanding of some of the published approaches to range development out there.
Key concept: Don’t be too literal
One initial point I would make is I know at least of myself that I tend to read words and take them literally. Words should say what they mean, right? But there is danger in reading horn pedagogy texts literally for several reasons.
1. Horn/brass teachers are not always good writers, and they did not always get clear feedback from editors either. This was driven home to me recently as someone I know took a lesson with a teacher who wrote a text related to range development. In short, the main takeaway item from talking about that lesson was that I was trying to follow the instructions in that text much too literally. No wonder I had difficulty making them work!
2. Some books put out a big slate of suggestions. By design, some of them might work for you, but some of them clearly won’t work for everyone. Certainly also you could not make all of the suggestions work if applied at the same time in a literal way; even though every suggestion was valid and made honestly, at the same time you actually can’t do some of them in combination.
3. With the passage of some time in “the business” I have had the chance to see some authors play after reading their books and can also say with some certainty that they don’t actually make use of all the suggestions in their books. The text presents an idealized approach to the issues at hand.
4. Sometimes what the author says is a visualization at best. Be very aware that physiological reality certainly does not line up with what some books state as fact, and that the attempt to do what the book says could actually cause more problems than they solve.
5. Be aware that there is another tactic lurking out there, the book that is a bit vague. Sometimes it is unintentional, but for others I am inclined to think at this point that it may actually be intentional, as in, you need to go take a lesson with that teacher or someone who worked with them to actually understand what they are talking about. They do not give away all the secrets!
Be a critical thinker
In short, think critically and don’t accept anything as the gospel of range development. You will see some good ideas in many of the publications out there but at the same time a percentage of what you read is just plain wrong, and some ideas are maybe right for some people but not necessarily for you. The only publication actually that I would take very literally is the Third Edition of Horn Playing from the Inside Out by Eli Epstein, described here, which makes use of MRI studies to inform the pedagogy presented.
A secret to the high range: Teeth
And now a secret, not mentioned in horn texts at all: the teeth. Or, more specifically, some of the players with the best high ranges in fact have gap teeth or crooked teeth. It seems like brass folklore but it is actually true, either one seems to allow the air to pocket a bit behind the lip which helps the vibration. For more on the topic overall see this article.
And a quick cautionary tale
To close I have a brief story. One time I was teaching a lesson to a new student who wanted to work on their high range. We worked through some of my favorite exercises (from my now out of print Playing High Horn) and clearly the student could buzz up to higher notes than they could play on the horn. I finally got the idea to try their horn and discovered that it literally had the worst high range of any horn I have ever tried! On my horn the student could play up to high C easily. This is to say sometimes it is not you; it could actually be your horn or mouthpiece holding you back!
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