Home > Philip Farkas

SubCategory Archive (tags): ‘Philip Farkas’

See the complete archive.

E-books for Horn

PUBLISHED: February 2, 2012, John Ericson

It has been reported that at Amazon.com E-books now outsell hard copy books. With that thought, there is a changing dynamic to the sales of horn books that the market is also adjusting to. As a representative sample, the below are highlights of what E-books are available now on Amazon.com. These are all Kindle E-books, [...]

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 Setting the Lips and Breath Attacks

PUBLISHED: November 27, 2011, John Ericson

This is a topic that is really central to tonguing but not necessarily well taught or understood. To begin, for all articulations more gentle than the sforzando Farkas notes in The Art of French Horn Playing that the “air seal is broken more or less gently” depending on the exact musical context. But what of [...]

Turning Points

PUBLISHED: November 22, 2011, John Ericson

One turning point we horn players have in common is we all decided at some point to play and keep playing the French horn. One horn player who put some deep thought into this topic was Philip Farkas, found in the closing pages of The Art of Musicianship. As I noted in an earlier article related [...]

Categories: Sub-categories:
Philip Farkas

Hornmasters: Farkas and Reynolds on Sforzando

PUBLISHED: November 17, 2011, John Ericson

For those following this series on tonguing closely, while many fine horn players do play with the tongue at the bottom of the teeth and near the lip opening at most or all times, Farkas was strongly against that type of approach. However, in The Art of French Horn Playing he does allow for the [...]

Categories: Sub-categories:
Articulation, Philip Farkas, Verne Reynolds
John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.