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Horn Secrets: Putting Conventional Wisdom to the Test

PUBLISHED: January 8, 2012, John Ericson

A week from today I will present a session at the 2012 Southwest Horn Conference with the title “Horn Secrets: Putting Conventional Wisdom to the Test.” The following was turned in for the program book: Many elements of a conventional approach to horn playing were put forth by Philip Farkas in his 1956 text The [...]

Hornmasters on Double and Triple Tonguing. Part I: Schuller and Farkas

PUBLISHED: December 14, 2011, John Ericson

While long considered an essential skill for the trumpet player, double and triple tonguing has traditionally been considered optional for horn players. Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique introduces the topic of double and triple tonguing as follows. Some players are gifted with extremely fast-moving and agile tongue muscles. Others are more sluggish in this respect…. [...]

Hornmasters on Staccato, Part I: Farkas and Schuller

PUBLISHED: December 6, 2011, John Ericson

Continuing on the topic of tonguing, we finally turn officially to staccato tonguing. There are speaking broadly two approaches to staccato presented in horn methods. One of those approaches I strongly agree with and the other I can see their point but … well, more on what I think later. First up are two big [...]

Hornmasters on Average Tonguing, part II: Schuller and Yancich

PUBLISHED: October 20, 2011, John Ericson

Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique has a rather different take on the tongue and tonguing than Farkas. He certainly does not agree with the up and down idea of a tongue stroke and offers an alternate approach to tonguing. The tongue during a note, i.e. after the attack, pulls back into a relatively relaxed suspended [...]

Hornmasters: Attacks, a Prelude to Tonguing

PUBLISHED: October 11, 2011, John Ericson

Tonguing would seem on the surface to be a fairly uncontroversial topic. We have touched on this topic in this series of quotations from Classic horn methods but now it is time to turn more directly to the topic. Tonguing is a topic that every teacher has tips to offer. Looking at the big picture [...]

Hornmasters on Legato Tonguing

PUBLISHED: September 20, 2011, John Ericson

As a prelude to his general discussion of tonguing in Chapter 9 of The Art of French Horn Playing, at the end of Chapter 8 Philip Farkas kicks things off with a brief discussion of legato tonguing. Legato tonguing involves making a connection between the notes. In a legato phrase the player … must keep [...]

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