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.)
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Most Recent Articles
Mailbag: The Top 3 Horn Concertos
A question came in earlier this year asking generally what are the top 3 horn concertos. With the end of the semester for my...
Ultrasonic Cleaning and your Horn
You know that you need to keep your horn clean. If you are proactive about maintenance you will hardly ever need to have your...
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...
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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
The Ego-Driven Music Teacher: Good or Bad? (II)
Continued from Part I
The ego-driven approach to music instruction reminds me of the used car salesman whose opening sale pitch was that their company...
Follow the Leader
In pop psychology an interesting term comes up - "enabling," as in do not enable an addict by supporting their habit in any way,...
Why Write Articles and Put Them Online?
Weighing heavily on my mind recently has been my motivations for making public, thoughts on the French horn and the classical music business. About...
Passing of Wilke Renwick, hornist and composer
If you have played in a brass quintet at all you have probably seen the name Wilke Renwick. His Dance for brass quintet is...
The spectacle of the horn in Baroque works
This originally was posted as part of a review of Day two of the 2012 International Horn Symposium in Denton, TX. This concert was...
Horns as Stage Props, III (The Blue French Horn)
On the American television romantic comedy How I Met Your Mother, a horn has been a regular prop for many seasons. The infamous 'blue...