The University of Horn Matters

Advanced, Online Courses on Horn Repertoire & Pedagogy

The University of Horn Matters horn pedagogy and repertoire courses are presented free as an Open Educational Resource (OER) to the horn playing community by Horn Matters. As some weeks will be of more interest than other weeks to individual readers of Horn Matters, the complete course is outlined below.

Click on a link to arrive at the topic area of interest.

Horn Pedagogy Course

• Introducing The University of Horn Matters Horn Pedagogy Course
• Week 1: Choosing the Mouthpiece and Horn
• Week 2: Descant and Triple horns, Mellophones, Care and Maintenance of the Horn, and Left Hand Position
• Week 3: Right Hand Position, Fingerings, and Intonation
• Week 4: Embouchure Overview
• Week 5: Breathing, and a bit on Dystonia
• Week 6: Practice and Warm-Up
• Week 7: Slurs, Legato, and Average Tonguing
• Week 8: Rapid Tonguing, Staccato, Multiple Tonguing
• Week 9: Tone Quality, Chords, and Musical Phrasing
• Week 10: Range Development
• Week 11: Endurance, Use of an Assistant Horn, Dynamic Range, and Mouthpiece Pressure
• Week 12: Accuracy and Transposition
• Week 13: Lip Trills, and Muting and Stopping the Horn
• Week 14: Performance Anxiety and Care of the Lip
• Week 15: A Missing Topic, and Final Review
• BONUS: Four Types of Students, Two Types of Teachers

Horn Repertoire Course

• Introducing The University of Horn Matters Horn Repertoire Course
• Week 1: The Resume, What to Prepare for Professional Auditions, and Your Audience
• Week 2: Orchestral Auditions and Orchestral Life
• Week 3: Introducing the Natural Horn
• Week 4: Review of literature for horn in the Baroque period
• Week 5: The Descant Horn and Approaches to Baroque Literature today
• Week 6: Who Invented Hand-Horn Technique, and the Early Classical Horn
• Week 7: The Classical Natural Horn
• Week 8: Approaches to Classical Literature Today
• Week 9: The Natural Horn in the Romantic Period
• Week 10: The Early Valved Horn
• Week 11: The Valved Horn in the Later 19th Century
• Bonus Week: Stuck in the 19th Century
• Week 12: The Wagner Tuba
• Week 13: The Modern Horn
• Week 14: A Course of Study
• Week 15: Final

Comprehensive, hybrid courses that you can study on your own

These OER courses function as a version of the same courses offered in the horn studio at Arizona State University, initially for the 2012-13 school year and updated every year since, often extensively. They were initially developed by John Ericson after more than fifteen years of teaching similar courses to horn performance majors at the college level. These comprehensive, hybrid courses will open up the topics studied more completely than even the most ideally run live class.

Each week the course typically references readings from as many as 12 articles. These should flow fairly quickly (many can be skimmed quickly) but will give readers a lot to think about as they develop their own view of the bigger picture of horn pedagogy and horn repertoire.

Before you start…

• • • The course rolled out over the 2012-13 academic year, with many updates since.
    • We attempt to keep everything working properly, but be aware that some outside links will go bad over time.
    • The topic areas for the pedagogy course follow in the order found in the Farkas book, with often several articles on the same general topics but with quotes from other publications.
    • And, for those following the course, be sure to treat yourself to some University of Horn Matters gear from our CafePress store!