On finding that link it occurred to me to check online to see what there was for a tone generator. The one I found and have tried is the Online Tuning Fork which will generate any pitch on a piano keyboard and has a few options as to how you can use it.

I have found it easily possible to use both in combination but you will need to adjust the volume of the tone generator down a bit to not obscure the metronome.

There are undoubtedly other options out there and I should mention that the Metronome Online site offers a phone app. This I have no idea how well it works and I believe again there are options out there from other firms.

Richards is Co-Principal horn with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège and performs with the Ictus Ensemble Brussels as well as the Liège Horn Quartet. For clarity I will put my part of our conversation in italics.

JE: For me 1983 was the summer between my junior and senior years of college and was my first chance to really experience a higher level of orchestral playing. I remember two sections we played in together pretty specifically, one concert with the Chamber Orchestra that had Leonore 3 on it–you third/me fourth, and also a repertoire reading session of Till (full wind/brass section) with you on third and me on maybe first? Let’s talk about the Leonore first. I have always been an equipment person and I remember you came to Aspen playing a descant horn and using a Neill Sanders mouthpiece and left playing a Reynolds double and a more typical mouthpiece. My memory says you played Leonore on the descant.

BR: Aspen 1983 fell between my sophomore and junior years in college. After having participated in a Master Class with David Wakefield, he and my teacher Johnny Pherigo proposed going to Aspen. I think that I came with both horns to Aspen. I was so proud to have them both. I had been using the descant horn, a Paxman 40L, for about a year and it was a lot of fun, but because I had been through two teacher changes in the previous two years I wasn’t being smart about using it. I insisted on using it for everything. I went to Aspen with no particular goal except to expose myself to as much great music making as possible. I ended up changing mouthpieces and within a year I had almost stopped using the descant horn. In my first lesson with David Wakefield he proposed changing mouthpieces. I was concerned that the change would ruin my summer, but I was wrong. I went from a Neill Sanders 17D to a Schilke 30 mouthpiece and still play something similar today. For the Leonore 3 concert I remember a couple of things: First, that I was terrified. Second, the joy of playing in such an ensemble, and third is the memory of a piece of advice, that David Wakefield gave me, that I use on a daily basis as a professional horn player. Now, the exact wording of this may not be accurate, but the underlying meaning is the same:

“Before your first solo entrance look the conductor in the eye. This will give him confidence that you know what you are doing and are ready for your entrance. Do your best to make that first solo entrance as good as you can make it because that will make the conductor feel confident in you, and as a consequence this may make him leave you alone for the rest of the week. Conductors are always nervous about the horn section, so by making him feel confident from the first note you are going to make your life a lot easier.”

Now this quote came from a New York free-lancer of impeccable pedigree, and he was right. I have taken his advice to heart so well that sometimes my first rehearsal is better than the concert, but that is another issue.

JE: I can easily imagine him saying that and feel sure he must have said something similar to me, words to live by. I also recall that on one of the Leonore rehearsals it was really cold on stage! I could not get up to pitch. Moving on to Till I also remember that descant. At some point after it we were talking with Wakefield and he said they assigned you third on that to see what you would do with it on descant with the low A in the third solo and you mentioned that you played that on the high F side. Till must have also been early in the summer.

BR: I had been practicing Till, and other excerpts, on my descant horn since my parents bought me the horn. I hadn’t spent too much time playing the third horn licks, but I knew that it worked. Now without discussing the sound of those notes on the high-F side, which left a lot to be desired, I have to say that there is some logic to it and obvious benefits for the rest of the piece. A lot less effort is required to pop out low C’s and A’s on a high-F horn. They speak easily, yet crudely, and are secure or at least it seemed that way to me at the time. Now, having said that, I would never play Till on a descant horn again. A triple horn maybe, but not a descant. (Descant meaning B-flat/High-F)

JE: Later in the summer it seems to me your mom shipped out to you your Reynolds horn. I remember it was a big change for you.

BR: Now John, I think your memory is much better than mine, but as I said before I think I came to Aspen with both horns. But that isn’t really important. What is important is that I learned what it means to have more than one horn very early in my education. Even today those experiences impact my decisions. I have been preparing an all Ravel concert that I have early this season. I intend to use my Paxman triple horn for the “Concerto en Sol”, but the overture is the Pavane. Normally I would use my Rauch for the Pavane, but the thought of changing horns between two such delicate pieces made me decide to use the Paxman for the Pavane as well and change horns after the intermission for the Mother Goose Suite and the Left-Hand Concerto.

JE: For sure for me I would also make the changes between horns depending on works being performed, that is part of being a smart professional. Moving back to the summer of 1983, my personal big highlight/memory of the summer was playing assistant first horn to Wakefield on the Mendelssohn Fingal’s Cave Overture in the Chamber Orchestra. The group sounded great and when I was on first I had to take the ball and play first! I still love that work and look back on that performance as a musical highlight of my life. At least part of it was I could see how far I had come in a year of hard work on my embouchure but also I had a clear vision of what the next level was. In relation to that, as much as possible I had every advanced student at Brevard play assistant for at least one concert as that concert had been such a strong memory for me. What was your musical highlight?

BR: Oddly, the biggest highlight didn’t involve my horn, or any horn for that matter. I went to hear the Cleveland String Quartet and Emanuel Ax perform a chamber concert. They finished the concert with Schumann’s Piano Quintet. I was mesmerized. I fell in love with that piece and it remains, to this day, my favorite chamber music piece. The second highlight was hearing the Festival Orchestra play Wagner’s “Seigfried’s Rhine Journey” and John Cerminaro play the off-stage solo. (the short call) It was the first time that I had heard playing at that level, and in an iconic solo. In regards to playing assistant, I love it. I always have and I don’t know why. You kind of feel like a hired gun, and it is fun to try and match every detail of the first horn’s playing. It’s like playing second but without all the stress.

JE: I also remember meeting your mom at the end of the summer—she brought out a shirt to give one of your friends and you gave it to me. I wore it for years. Something like “Where in Kalamazoo is Kalamazoo?” Do you remember that?

BR: Yes, my mom flew to Aspen to hear a couple of concerts. After the Festival she drove back to Michigan with me. The t-shirt she brought with her was “Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo!” The joke being that many people only know the Sinatra song “I’ve got a gal in Kalamazoo” and don’t realize that it is a real town. Since, I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan she thought that the t-shirt would be a nice gift. It is great that you kept it so long.

JE: Any other memories or highlights to share?

BR: Midori and Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg performances on violin. Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” staged as a Western. Aspen was the start of a series of events which changed my life and led me to the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra in Belgium. My roommate at Aspen was a student from Florida State University and because of that connection, amongst other reasons, I went to graduate school at Florida State. I didn’t finish my degree there, but my journey towards Belgium had been launched. Another memory, which is totally unrelated to music, is that I remember vividly playing soccer in Aspen. I also remember how difficult it was to adapt to the altitude the first few days. Playing soccer helped. I would still like to go to Aspen with my wife one summer. Great scenery and great music it would be a perfect second honeymoon.

JE: Bruce Hembd and I both love your current site and your previous blog. Could you speak about your sites past and present?

BR: Blogs can be a delicate balancing act, and artistic blogs even more so. When I started my first blog it was as an exercise in self-analysis. I had been going through the toughest time of my professional life and needed an outlet. Since I didn’t feel that I could talk about these problems with people that were close to me and since I couldn’t do that kind of thing in french, I started writing. I love to write, but at first I wasn’t very discriminating about what I put in my blog. In some cases I poured out my soul into what I wrote. This bothered a lot of people. Let me explain by saying that working in an orchestra is a very close knit, family oriented affair. People don’t appreciate hanging out the dirty laundry in public even if it isn’t theirs. I hadn’t learned that and so I took down the blog. After a month or two, during which I continued to write (like a diary), I decided to start again and have blog which had more restraint. After all this, I don’t regret my first blog. It was an excellent source of therapy for me, and hence a learning experience I will not forget. I don’t pour my soul into the new blog, but sometimes it seeps in.

JE: Thank you for taking the time to share these memories and again we at Horn Matters recommend Living the Dream as regular reading.

BR: John, it has been fantastic to be invited to participate in this interview. I am still amazed that after all this time we were able to reconnect. The horn world is smaller and smaller thanks to the internet, and thanks to you and Bruce Hembd and your amazing work on HornMatters.com.

Photo credit here–The Maroon Bells.

Here are some statistics from that date to today:

• About 106,000 unique visitors
• About 35,000 are returning visitors
• Over 400,000 page views
• Average time on site = 4 minutes, 40 seconds
• Average pages read = 4.69
• 34% of visitors are new

Whew, those are some big numbers for a little site about the French horn!

Meeting of the wives

A few days ago John invited my wife and I over for dinner and we got talking about about our first year. Without a doubt, we discovered, both of our wives were involved in our decision to combine forces.

Both said – yes, of course, this is a GREAT idea! … and poof … here we are, one year later. Or at least that is how it feels.

John and I have a history that goes back to Eastman [check out the photo in this article to see how we looked back then]. It continued much later through our roles with IHS Online. With this background it seemed to be written in the stars that our collaboration here would go so smoothly.

Favorites

If I were to pick some of my personal favorites from the past year I would start with the series on the Siegfried calls. That series was fun to write.

I also loved doing the Star Trek comic. I probably spent way too much time on it, like I do with all the Photoshop things I goof around with but it is a fun hobby.

I do want to express a huge thanks to all our fans and followers. Your readership is what keeps us chugging along.

John here to conclude this joint, celebratory article. This is how we looked last weekend! We do not see each other often in real life and it was great to meet and reflect on the year.

That first few weeks of Horn Matters a year ago were extremely busy, I think especially so for Bruce as he had to define and tweak a new format in a new platform and the site was huge! But at the same time it was great to start something new and see the overall level of the content in the site improve and take shape.

Over weeks we realized that while we had some dedicated fans right away it took a little while to get the word out. The two “horn lists” frown on links to websites and worst of all the site did not show up in Google worth a darn. This was especially disappointing as both of our prior sites that were combined to make Horn Matters had pretty high page rank and came up very well in search engines.

This led to this article from me not long after. There seem to still be a lot of people out there that have not found Horn Matters yet but now, a year later, the site shows up well in Google, and another source of readers we had not even initially had in our plans brings in actually the biggest chunk of our daily traffic: Facebook. We are both glad to be able to impact the horn community and are glad as well that we know there are new readers finding the site every day.

If I were to pick a couple of my personal favorite articles from the last year the Orchestra 101 series is one I would recommend to readers  [the first article is here] and also my coverage from IHS Brisbane which starts here. I have always wished that there were coverage like this from an IHS event and while it took some time to write up it was enjoyable to be able to put it out there.

Besides thanking our wives as well–they really were the ones who said “do it” to us in terms of starting Horn Matters–I would also like to thank another person who will be a little surprised to be thanked: Jeff Snedeker. While Bruce and I had known each other for years and had been online for a number of years, it was Jeff as IHS publications editor that actually first brought us together to work online on the IHS website (Bruce had started it; I was brought in to assist as editor/manager). It was in that time that we developed a comfortable working relationship that really is the foundation of Horn Matters. In many ways we are quite different I am sure but when it comes to horn we are both really enjoying the opportunity to be creative and to move beyond blogs into the format of an online magazine on the horn.

Speaking of the format, I should mention that we have had some limited advertising this first year. A hearty word of thanks to our advertisers! We believe many more people see our advertisements than see those in any horn journal and we hope to see our advertising slots full in the near future.

And as to the future, we have lots of ideas and would love to also branch out into joint activities at workshops and such. Stay tuned.

To conclude we both send a huge thank you again to all our readers, it has been an exciting year for us.

…my first assignment is to get in contact with other leading horn teachers at various universities.

In doing this, I am to find out what type of curriculum you have for YOUR horn students. Do you have a syllabus for lessons or horn choir or studio class? Do you have a certain set of method/etude books that you teach from? Do you have certain solos/pieces that are required?

Syllabus

Yes, I certainly have a syllabus! I think any horn teacher at any university should have a syllabus not only because our schools require us to have one (!) but also to clearly set grading policies. Frankly if a professor does not have a syllabus it should concern you as they are in fact putting you as a student at risk of not meeting hidden expectations and unspoken requirements. You need to know specifically for example how the semester grade is calculated. My syllabus for horn covers lessons and studio class, with horn ensemble being treated as an extension of studio class. Other classes I am responsible for have their own syllabi as well.

On the side topic of horn ensemble that is a part of the original question, I have in my teaching treated it as a fall semester part of studio class for some years along the model of the way horn choir was run at Eastman when I was a MM student. Especially at the beginning of the semester it is a great way to get the studio sounding more homogenous, to match pitch and articulations and such. My favorite music to do that with is music for double quartet; my first project this year is the Cantos V (music of Schubert) of Verne Reynolds using the newly published version from Prairie Dawg Press which we will perform for Brass Area in a month.

Method/Etude Books

This I answered not long ago in Horn Matters so I will for this direct those interested to read this article and the one that follows. My generic list of books I like to use may be found here as well. What any individual actually uses in lessons will vary somewhat based on what books they already own and what areas they need to work on.

Solos/Required Pieces

For these I am fairly open. Really, on horn, there is a lot of music we could play. I tend to do the most work on pieces that work well as jury pieces for obvious reasons. I could name them but what is a good jury piece will depend on the way juries are run at a school. For me the ideal works are in the 5-7 minute range.

The closest thing I have to required pieces are the works at the top section of my list of solos. The full list is here but this section is the group of “Essential solo and chamber music literature that all students of the horn should know, study, and own recordings of.”

• Beethoven: Sonata, Op. 17
• Brahms: Trio, Op. 40 for Horn, Violin, and Piano
• Britten: Serenade, Op. 31 for Tenor, Horn, and Strings
• Dukas: Villanelle
• Haydn, J.: Concerto No. 1 in D; Concerto No. 2 in D
• Hindemith: Sonata for Horn
• Mozart: Concerto No. 1 in D, K. 412; Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417; Concerto No. 3 in E-flat, K 447; Concerto No. 4 in E-flat, K. 495; Concert Rondo; Quintet for horn and strings, K. 407
• Schumann: Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70; Konzertstuck for four horns and orchestra
• Strauss, R.: Concerto No. 1, Op. 11; Concerto No. 2
• Telemann: Concerto in D

In an ideal world I would love to see a DMA student to have worked at some point on everything in this short list. And more.

Still More to Study

There is more, of course, to study in a horn curriculum, the most important element being orchestral excerpts. All college level horn students should have at least an excerpt book and I try to launch into excerpts as a part of the flow of studies as soon as we can. My suggested excerpt materials are here and for an undergrad serious about horn performance they should learn all the major excerpts from the works on the left hand side of this PDF list before they graduate.

So there we have it. In terms of a curriculum certainly there is no one way to teach lessons to advanced horn students but hopefully that is of help to readers to gauge what they are working on by comparison. I believe I am not out of the mainstream on all of this as it largely it mirrors the way I was taught by my teachers but tweaked to efficiently work on what needs covered.

This story is about artist Roy Lichtenstein, who is probably best-known for his works resembling enlarged comic book panels.

Typically, these panels capture a random, dramatic moment – a time capsule within a larger story that we do not completely understand. This setting can activate the imagination and take on many undertones.

Playing the French horn can have its dramatic moments, as this two-panel Horn Matters tribute to Lichtenstein illustrates.

Silence … of the clams

Horn student injured in crosswalk
School is back in session and we should all be a little more careful when driving in school zones. Poor Trevor was hit by a van – it broke his jaw and his horn, but it sounds like he will recover.

• Too soon?
  Is it too soon to be thinking about Christmas ornaments? This is just one of the many nice horn-related items on this site. This website – Etsy – by the way is like eBay, but for hand-crafted items.

• Beautiful French embouchures
  Both dry and moist.

• Researching embouchure?
  Here is a nice PDF bibliography of embouchure resources.

• In utero advertising
  Here is an interesting print ad from the Czech Philharmonic targeting pregnant mothers. Too bad they printed the horn backwards.

• Cognitive dissonance
  Proper Discord takes aim at classical music doom-sayer Norman Lebrecht and his windbag partner-in-crime, Greg Sandow.

• Ouch … and help!
  An interesting discussion at the Trumpet Herald on dealing with a cut on the inside of your lip.

• French horns in pop music
  Another band (in addition to French Horn Rebellion) that has a horn player in the mix. This one is called Gramercy Riffs. They are based in Toronto and the horn player is Mara Pellerin.

Random videos

How to to open a shrink-wrapped CD case. I really, really dislike CD jewel cases.

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This one wowed a lot of people on the Horn Matters Facebook page. This is the Budapest Festival Horn Quartet playing an arrangement of a Hungarian Rhapsody.

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Here they are again in Kerry Turner’s Fanfare for Barcs.

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Ion Balu demonstrating his unique stopping mute. Some have pointed out that this looks like something right out of a Dr. Suess book.

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Soren Hermansson demonstrating an excerpt from a new composition.

I had three natural horns available to me to try to use this year. As I noted in my most recent mouthpiece article, there is nothing like a concert coming up to put rubber to the road and help you make some decisions. The three horns were a custom, large natural horn which is convertible to an early valved horn (seen in this article), a McCracken owned by ASU, and this horn. I made it as a project during my Doctoral studies with the help of natural horn maker Richard Seraphinoff.

I have more on the natural horn in general here. In terms of this concert the bottom line is this instrument has the best high G of the three choices I had and if you are planning to play the Beethoven Sonata that is a note you really need to feel pretty comfortable about.

This photo is one taken some years ago when it was first constructed. The horn is based on an early 20th century French mellophone bell (!) but with crooks made to match a crook and coupler system as seen in this article. Instead of that crook/coupler system however I will be using the E crook that I made for the early valved horn which will be featured in the next part of this series on this recital. E crook? It puts that horn in E but this horn in F due to the different size of the corpus of each instrument.

As mentioned on this horn I will play the Beethoven Sonata and also the Saint-Seans Romance. The rest of the recital is on valved horns; more on those in the next part of this series.

For those in the area, I should note I am giving this recital twice. The second performance is at Arizona State in Katzin Concert Hall on Sunday, October 3, and a version of this recital will also be presented on a series at the Musical Instrument Museum on September 29. For more on that recital check out this link.

I firmly believe the embouchure functions much better when wet. This is definitely true in my own playing and has proved true for many pupils who formerly had kept their lips dry while playing. Their first reaction to playing with wet lips was one almost of panic. They felt the mouthpiece was about to slide off the lips. This feeling soon left them, however, and their improved flexibility and clearer tone has made most of them staunch advocates of this method.

Farkas recognized at the outset as well that your perception of how wet or how slippery the rim feels is related to the material the rim is made of and expounded upon the benefits of playing with a very moist embouchure.

I prefer a gold-plated mouthpiece because it gives me just the right amount of lubrication when wet. This slippery mouthpiece achieves three things that the dry mouthpiece, sticking to the lips as it does, cannot achieve. First, it seeks the “low” spot in the embouchure, which is its natural “seat”…. Second, it allows minute adjustments of the embouchure which, of course, are necessary when progressing from one register to another…. Third, the wetted lips enable, or better yet, insist on the embouchure muscles doing their work in a correct manner…. The muscles can no longer brace themselves against the rim, using it more or less as a crutch, as they can when dry. They are forced to be self-sufficient and to do their work of contracting and relaxing completely unaided by pressure. This develops to the fullest their potential strength. This development of muscular strength is naturally a gradual process, and in this fact lies the clue to the inability of most students to use or appreciate this method of keeping the lips very moist while playing. In learning to use it one must be patient for several weeks, while the embouchure is building its strength in new directions, and refuse to succumb to the temptation of using excessive pressure.

Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique was

…also an advocate of the moist embouchure. Although at a beginner’s stage this makes the high register harder to obtain, eventually, as the muscles strengthen and a niche for the rim is found on the lower lip, this feeling of insecurity disappears. It will then be found that a moist embouchure gives the player greatly increased flexibility, especially in slurring.

Farkas in The Art of Brass Playing discusses the topic of moist versus dry lips at some length. He offers this observation, and while noting clearly his preference for wet lips notes briefly the advocate’s case for dry lips.

It is the decision each player must, consciously or unconsciously, make for himself as to whether he should keep his lips moist or dry while playing—for his own best results…. However, after many years of observation, I have concluded that a large majority of brass players—I would estimate about seventy-five percent—prefer to keep their lips moist while playing. This is my own preference and I would find it most disconcerting to try to start playing on dry lips. Nevertheless, the minority group would undoubtedly feel just as uncomfortable if required to change to wet lips.

The arguments presented by the dry-lip advocates are usually these. The mouthpiece “stays put” on the lips without any tendency to slip around; in other words, the mouthpiece sticks to the lips. Furthermore, this stickiness enables the player to brace the lips against the mouthpiece and thus aid the production of high notes. …the considerable ability of some of the dry-lip advocates lends weight to these reasons.

Farkas notes also that the lips will “start to dry and stick to the mouthpiece during a long continued musical passage.” This is not a concern.

…when it is borne in mind that the moisture on the lips has served its purpose once the lips have been accurately positioned and the passage begun. The sensation of progressive drying can be quite disconcerting and yet cause no musical trouble. …drying lips are not detrimental once the mouthpiece is correctly placed and playing begun.

Fred Fox also addresses the topic of lip moisture in Essentials of Brass Playing. He felt that there was an underlying issue that impacts accuracy.

At times I have been asked if it is better to play with wet or dry lips. I have seen many players do extremely well in either situation. I have been unable to find an outstanding advantage to either method over the other.

However, there is one factor that is of prime importance. The contact point between the mouthpiece and the upper lip should remain identical—as if welded together—at all times. This reduces the incidence of cracked notes because the contact point remain consistent supplies the player with a firmer base or anchor. The dry lips players have no problem in this respect because the mouthpiece cannot slip around; with wet lip players, the saliva lubrication could cause slippage, and should be watched carefully.

In A Creative Approach to the French Horn a moist lip and a gold-plated rim were the ideal combination for Harry Berv for a variety of reasons.

The horn player seeking perfection cannot afford to dismiss as “minor” any aspect of his physical contact with the instrument. I very highly recommend playing on a moist lip. In so doing, the embouchure muscles and tensions will react more sensitively to the feel of the mouthpiece. The lips will move with greater freedom and will cope with the range of the horn more securely.

Most horn players do not have perfect pitch, but can actually feel the notes on their lip before they play them. The moistening of the lips helps facilitate the sensitive muscle tensions to a great degree. The moistening of course is done by just licking the lips slightly when they feel dry. They should always feel moist.

… I highly recommend a gold-plated rim, which, together with the moist lip, helps the coordination of the embouchure muscle tension and provides a great feeling of smoothness and cleanliness on the lips, so that together they work like a well-oiled machine….

Moistening the lips eliminates the danger of the mouthpiece being “frozen” to the lips. Remember that changes in muscle tension and movement in the embouchure are slight, and the muscles must respond with instant reflex action. Should the mouthpiece be frozen to the lips, these movements would be greatly hampered; this could invite disaster at almost any point in the player’s performance.

…Even if the mouthpiece tends to be slippery on the lips at first, the necessary compensation can be learned by practice.

Learn to get used to the moist lip and gold-plated rim. You will find that you will use less mouthpiece pressure—which will be a great addition to your comfort, security, and sensitivity.

To conclude our quotes for today, Douglas Hill also recommends moist lips in Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance.

You should always lick your lips and moisten the rim of the mouthpiece before playing…. A slippery feeling is good. Without lubrication, moving parts will freeze up, but you should want a warm and fluid sound at all times.

Myself, I switched to wet lips after reading the Farkas book in high school. It was a tough few days to transition to it but I have never looked back. But I have seen and heard fine horn players who use dry lips, and this will always be a topic of discussion among horn players.

First, I am very excited by the quality of the incoming Freshman horns at ASU this year, I really look forward to working with them over the coming years. One thing I find myself thinking about a lot this week is what they had studied in high school. Some really varied experiences among them which I react to internally on a range from “yes, this was great stuff they worked on in high school” to “what did they do in those lessons in high school?”

Without going into too many specifics on them (what we cover in college will be geared to build up the areas that need built up), I would rather talk about what I studied and what I would suggest be studied in preparation for college. In late high school I began serious horn lessons with Melbern Nixon, and he had me work on basically three things (plus a little solo work and good warm-up ideas):

• Pottag: Preparatory Melodies to Solo Work
• Kopprasch book 1
• Excerpts

[See this post for more detail on what materials I studied from.]

There needs to be some balance in the study, and these books or similar books are excellent for building technique. The only thing I would add to the mix would be Pares Scales which I studied as an early undergrad; something like this is excellent for sorting out and developing finger technique.

In terms of horn performance I was sort of a late starter (I started out as a music business major, in fact) but I do recognize that I had good foundations laid in my playing technique in high school. Teachers, be sure to lay those foundations and students be aware that you need to do more than band and orchestra music and stuff for solo and ensemble contest in your lessons in high school.

The thought I would add at the end of this post would be that just like for a dentist checking your teeth they can see easily your oral hygiene habits, for an experienced horn teacher they can easily tell a lot about your practice habits from how you sound. Teaching horn for as long as I have most players I hear I know what things I would want to address in a first lesson with that student and I can guess pretty much what they must have worked on in prior studies. But, at the same time, I am able to recognize strengths and it is great to work with individuals one on one to solve problems and to be a part of their musical growth process.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I am giving a recital in about a month where I play on several different period and modern horns. Ideally I want to minimize some of the differences between instruments with as consistent an interface as possible.

Initially I thought that interface would be several Laskey 75 series mouthpieces. These are good, solid mouthpieces but as I started gearing up I found myself back to the topic of a post about a year ago, the mouthpiece wheel of doom but with also some more recent thought to the topic of how my lip fits around the rim, something you can see in the photo in this post.

Again, it is one of those mysteries but for some reason the way the Conn 5BN rim fits on my lips it opens something up for me. I used the gold mouthpiece on the right for most of the time I played full summers of Principal Horn at the Brevard Music Center and also on both of my solo CDs. I like how the Laskey mouthpieces feel and play generally but in the end when I need my 33 1/3 LP chops going and my best accuracy there is something about the way the old Conn feels/plays on my chops that it has to be the choice for the recital.

I have two different silver, custom copies of the 5BN by Osmun, one with a standard shank and one with a European shank which I will use on some of the horns. As I say about this mouthpiece choice in the “wheel of doom” post,

A Conn 5BN?!? I know that sounds a bit hard to believe and rather random in fact, but some of these are quite good. I have three of them actually, one being not nearly as good and two of them quite close with one having an edge over the other. It is on the right in the photo, with the original Conn gold plating. I am told that these were actually produced by outside jobbers, not by Conn itself. This is why these (and other classic brands) vary so much, it always really depends on who actually made the mouthpiece and where, especially these older mouthpieces that were not machine made on computer lathes.

So there it is. I plan at this point to use a Moosewood copy of a period mouthpiece for part of the performance and on that I will use a 5BN rim. It is good to get this element settled again, it makes the practicing much more enjoyable.

In short modern horns and natural horns are different in significant ways other than lacking valves, and to get a realistic view of the scale of the differences you need a fairly authentic natural horn and mouthpiece. I would point to four factors to consider.

First, mouthpieces in the period were normally made of sheet metal formed over a mandrel and were quite deep. Modern mouthpieces by comparison are turned from a brass blank on a lathe and are shallow. If you hold the two types in your hand it is really easy to see and feel the differences and with the ear they are easy to hear. For more on the topic see this excellent article by Richard Seraphinoff, which is also the source of this photo. But in short the tone is different (softer/less edge) and the pitch is more flexible.

Second, we have the topic of overall bore in the central, cylindrical part of the horn. On a modern double horn this will measure .468 inch or more. On a period natural horn the bore is closer to .440 inch. This smaller bore has an impact on tonal color and overall volume.

Third, we come to the bell throat. French instruments of the period featured a relatively small bell throat, German had a relatively large bell throat, and all modern horns are bigger still. Smaller bells are easier to manage in terms of hand horn technique. This illustration is from the Gallay method and is of an instrument of the French school.

Fourth, the hand horn is made in such a way as to be somewhat looser in the harmonics. While useful for trills this is especially helpful when bending pitches for intonation purposes; there is room to bend pitches to conform to where the ear knows they have to be.

In conclusion, horn and mouthpiece complement each other as a total package. A truly “authentic sound” probably cannot be achieved with an authentic horn and an inauthentic mouthpiece and if you are using a modern mouthpiece on a period horn this is something to be aware of to try to find a compromise mouthpiece that plays as you feel you need but gets close to the authentic sound you would aspire to. More on the natural horn may be found here.

I will be making a few compromises on the recital but hopefully getting close to the goal of authenticity; I will have more on that in upcoming posts over the next few weeks.

His new recording is enjoying brisk sales and will be receiving a review in the November/December Fanfare magazine. Here is a sneak peek:

Griffin handles the special difficulties of the low range with the assurance of, well, a good fourth-horn player, but he also soars (or sky-rockets, as the case may be) into the instrument’s stratosphere with the ease of a Dennis Brain. He maintains a lovely, pure sound evenly throughout a range of over three octaves; his middle range in particular has a haunting beauty (the instrument is a Lewis, with an Alexander flare bell).

He also demonstrates the agility of a flute or a clarinet and never gives the impression anything is in the least difficult for him. But most importantly, among prominent horn players today, Griffin is one of the most innately musical I know. This quality elevates the disc to the realm of interest for all music lovers, not just horn players.

If you missed the David Griffin interview from July 14th, it is here.

• Nice ride
  A fun picture of a man riding on a horn.

• Hot cross buns
  A staple food for almost every beginning music student.

• Sibelius is the best
  The article on internet sensation Marc Papeghin was quoted recently in a Sibelius web site.

• Another nice photo
  This time taken outside in front of some outdoor art.

• A new look
  Julia Rose has updated her site with a new look.

Random videos

William Cabellero talks about the John Williams concerto.

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A reduced version of the John Williams concerto, performed by David Bohls.

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The group OK GO has a new video featuring a marching band. Look for the camouflaged mellophones. This group is probably more well know for their fun video done in one shot with treadmills.

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Horn player Sarah Willis has been moonlighting as an interviewer for the Digital Concert Hall.

More are here.

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Parlez-vouz French horn? A Washington Improv Theater asks.

The article that was in the site in the past had to do with telling my story of two major embouchure changes that I did during my studies. As noted yesterday, I started on trumpet so my initial setup was not really a horn embouchure setup; it was in fact about 2/3 lower lip. Early in the article I noted,

There are solid reasons why practically 100% of professional horn players play with more upper lip in the mouthpiece and the majority of professionals play with 2/3 or more upper lip in the mouthpiece. While nobody really wants to change their embouchure, for some horn players there will be nagging questions relating to tone, range, or endurance that may eventually have to be addressed with embouchure work.

Most commonly what I see students struggle with that would indicate that an embouchure change should be investigated is a very weak low register. To make it in horn performance the low register must be quite strong, and the low register is very sensitive to mouthpiece placement issues. There are things to try first and I always take a while to get to know a student and to see how far we can go without a major change. I do know how hard it can be. For example, in text recently added to the original article I note that

It is especially important to try the larger inner diameter mouthpiece as an option while you explore the low range, as it may open up the vibrating surfaces of your lips in such a way as to totally solve the problem. But if the problems are at their foundation the result of a too low basic mouthpiece placement the fact is that it may not be possible to solve the problem in any manner other than to actually change the embouchure.

Returning to my story, as I wrote in the original article a

Too-low placement of the mouthpiece was my own central embouchure problem that I had to fix as an undergraduate. I really did not want to change my embouchure; in fact, I was a bit stubborn and quite determined to make it work, and it actually did work fairly well over most of the range of the horn.

But early in college I could hardly play at all below low C; I was hardly conservatory material at that time. It is a large topic to consider carefully. I went into my changes with a clear idea of what walls were in front of me if I did not make some changes, and that the changes would be keys to reaching my goals on the horn. In a way I wish I had made the changes sooner, I would have progressed more quickly, but then again I was not ready to make the changes earlier so who knows.

Changing the embouchure will always be a difficult and very personal topic. The main things I would close with are 1) the goal should never be to make your embouchure look like a photo or a description in a book–what you need to adjust to get the results desired will be variable and related to your lips and prior setup, 2) changes should be made with clear goals in mind, and 3) remember that depending on the amount of actual change it may take you six or more months to be comfortable with the new placement. It is not something to go into lightly.

My brother was sorting some music that was in storage in Kansas and sent this to me along with my original blue, gold, and purple books which are the volumes that follow the red book. I remember this book very well (note my terrible handwriting on the cover), and remember playing duets out of it and the books that followed with my dad that first year. I had no music lessons of any type before sixth grade other than singing at school and church.

A side-topic I would throw out there is a topic I have observed in my teaching. Among my students over the years about half started on horn and about half started on something else. Of those, about half started on trumpet and the other half started on a woodwind. It would be interesting to see a Doctoral student do a project where they looked at what instrument professional horn players started on and when. My guess is the stats would be similar to what I just outlined, but it would be interesting to know firm data on the topic. Because how you started and on what instrument certainly has an impact on your embouchure and the potential need for an embouchure change. In my case I certainly had some major work to do, which I will elaborate on further tomorrow.