Horn Matters is the leading online resource on the French horn, co-founded by John Ericson and Bruce Hembd. The mission of Horn Matters is: to encourage, inspire, inform, and challenge horn players, and; to promote the best musical instrument ever, the French horn. (More.)
- - Please visit: International Horn Competition of America - -Most Recent Articles
Many broken links? UPDATE: Horn Articles Online is not online any...
It has come to my attention that within Horn Matters all links to materials in my original Horn Articles Online site (online since 1998...
Sabbatical horn update: improved details
Back in the spring of 2021 I was on sabbatical from Arizona State, and, as reported here in Horn Matters, my project involved horn...
Fundamentals 16. Muted horn: tonal control, responses, projection, noiseless manipulation of...
Mutes?!? It is very interesting to me that Douglas Hill included in his list of fundamentals (found in his Collected Thoughts book) a special...
Fundamentals 15. Stopped horn: tonal control, responses, projection, F and B-flat...
Continuing our series on fundamentals (using, as prompts, the list of fundamentals found on pages 92-93 of the Douglas Hill book of Collected Thoughts),...
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Horn Etudes by Female Composers
Many Horn Matters readers will be familiar with the Works with Horn by Female Composers website by Dr. Lin Foulk. If not, this is...
Julius Watkins, jazz French horn pioneer
Talking with colleagues recently, a topic that came up was how some great players of the recent past are unjustly neglected today. In terms...
Overview of Trusted Brands in French Horns
A survey titled "What Brand Names Do You Trust?" collected the opinions of 392 participants. The results are in and while it may take...
Choosing a French Horn Mouthpiece (I): The Basic Parts
Part I: The Rim and Preliminary Thoughts
Part II: Cup, Throat and Bore
Part III: Weight, Plating and Shopping Tips
For the past decade...
French Horn Transposition Chart
A complete reference.
Transposition Chart (PDF) (updated 2012)
Over the past few months, I have been posting various transposition tricks, including how to transpose:
A and...
Farkas on Stagefright (and more)
In the world of horn there have been few that made as much impact as Philip Farkas (1914-1992). The Art of French Horn Playing...
Random Articles
Horn Repertoire Week 15: Final!
Congratulations! You have made it to the end of an epic year.
As I wrote when this was first posted in 2013, it was a...
A Flaw in Yamaha 667 Creation?
A common problem with the Yamaha 667.
A brass repair colleague remarked to me recently that he makes a lot of repairs on a particular...
Hornmasters on Average Tonguing, Part V: Reynolds and Hill
To conclude our series on tonguing in general we turn to two more recent American horn teachers.
Tonguing is part of an uninterrupted and automatic...
Mailbag: Tuning Various Models of Double Horns
This very good question just recently came in, from a music educator:
I am seeking any resources on French horn tuning, including diagrams with slides...
Forging the Sword; The End of ‘Siegfried’ Act I
Even with the Long Call aside, playing principal horn in Wagner's horn-tastic opera Siegfried is nothing short of a Herculean task. To help...
Horn Pedagogy Week 5: Breathing, and a bit on Dystonia
Breathing is a very important topic! In looking at this topic in terms of horn publications -- and this approach is probably not the...
