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Articles by John Ericson

Indexed in reverse chronological order.

How It’s Made, and the Conn-Selmer Strike

PUBLISHED: August 30, 2011, John Ericson

Ever wonder how a Conn horn is made? A most interesting video was recently posted to YouTube, the Science Channel’s “How It’s Made” French horns episode. A short video well worth watching (hat tip to Horn People), with a lot of information packed in (it is more than taking a block of brass and chipping [...]

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Conn

What is a Compensating Triple?

PUBLISHED: August 25, 2011, John Ericson

Back earlier this year in an article I described my compensating triple as being sort of a super single B-flat horn. But there is a lot more to it than that, and this is a model of horn that deserves a bit more of a look. In my Horn Articles site there is a page [...]

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Descants & Triples

Hornmasters: Yancich and Fox on the Slur, Air, and Vowels

PUBLISHED: August 23, 2011, John Ericson

Continuing our series on the topic of the slur, air, and vowels, Milan Yancich has an interesting angle on the “wah-wah” problem in the form of an exercise in A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing. He calls it “Line in Tone Production.” What he is looking for is the perfect portamento between notes played [...]

Kopprasch 18. Vivace. Cruel Joke?

PUBLISHED: August 19, 2011, John Ericson

Following up on the Golden Clam for the Boldin Kopprasch project, one thing I would think many of you out there have noticed is the markings in the Kopprasch etudes don’t match up well with the tempos we typically go. Kopprasch 18 is a prime example, with the marked tempo of Vivace. The ever useful Wikipedia notes that, [...]

Hornplayer.net Enters a New Era

PUBLISHED: August 18, 2011, John Ericson

As noted on Monday, news broke this weekend that Hornplayer.net has been acquired by the International Horn Society. Robin Moffatt on Monday posted to the Yahoo horn list that In 1996, just after dinosaurs walked the face of the internet, hornplayer.net began life as “The Horn Player’s Resources Pages”. In 1999 I registered the domain [...]

Hornmasters: Farkas and Schuller on the Slur, Air, and Vowels

PUBLISHED: August 16, 2011, John Ericson

We return to the Hornmasters series this time looking at  topics related to the lyric side of playing the horn, beginning with slurs, air, and the use of vowels. This article will be longer than average in this series as it allows us to focus in more depth on the contrasting approaches presented by Philip [...]

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Gunther Schuller, Philip Farkas

The Kopprasch Op. 5 Etudes and a New Free “Low Horn” Version as a PDF!

PUBLISHED: August 14, 2011, John Ericson

Way back in 1997 The Horn Call published an article that I wrote on the history of the Kopprasch etudes, a version of which may be found online here. Also back a couple years ago I posted an article in Horn Matters that focused on the original 1832/33 version of the Kopprasch etudes, and that [...]

John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.