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.)

Most Recent Articles

Geyer Update: Engravings, Serial Numbers, and More

I could also have titled this article “Things I got wrong” in the Geyer Dreaming series (which starts here), or the related article published...

Revisiting the Art of French Horn on LP Records

The past year the vast majority of my actual classical music listening has been to LP records. With the recent passing of Hermann Baumann...

Brief Review: The Horn. The Book You Need

To open this brief review, I’ll start with a money quote: The Horn by Renato Meucci and Gabriele Rocchetti is the most significant book on...

Accuracy Encyclopedia: Well Duh!?! and More

Continuing our look at accuracy and the letters D and E, our first topic is the descant horn, which can certainly help accuracy in...
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Featured Articles

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

Playing on Piston Valves, a King Mellophone, and the IYM

As I have been preparing for my session at the IHS symposium that involves performing on a vintage piston valve horn, I have been...

Fun With Scales; The Building Blocks of All Western Music

The Art of Practice, Part III. Not much is known about the ancient philosopher, mathematician and cult leader Pythagoras but we do have him...

Review: Etudes for Horn by Paul Basler

Back almost a year ago I was describing my teaching materials and the final article of that series was devoted to noting what materials...

The “Tut Tut” Style of Tonguing in Horn Articulation

Clean articulations using tongue-stopping. With my very first baby steps on the French horn, my big brother gave me the Dennis Brain Mozart concertos album...

‘Radical’ Embouchure Experiments, IV – Using a Visualizer

The many slow-motion films and photo stills of brass player embouchures that have appeared online in the past few years illustrate for us the...

7 Keys to Winning a Concerto Competition for Mixed Instruments

Concerto competitions for a variety of instruments are common and have special problems to overcome. I just judged one here at Arizona State. To...
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