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

Fundamentals 11. Accuracy: initial attacks at all dynamics, consistency hearing entrance...

The proverbial elephant in the room in horn playing is accuracy. In the prompt from Douglas Hill (this series is based on a list...

Review: Two Gig Bags

Among my activities I like to work on horns, continuing the type of projects I was doing during my sabbatical (more here). I enjoy...

Fundamentals 10. Dynamics: response, control, intonation at all extremes in all...

Elsewhere in this site I have shared (probably several times) a story involving my Master’s degree studies with Verne Reynolds. He had a thing...

Fundamentals 9. Ranges: extremes, clear controlled sounds (high, middle, mid-low, low)

Ranges are fundamental. This prompt from the Douglas Hill book is pretty broad, but focuses on two elements; extreme ranges and good control 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

Muted or Open (or Stopped?) in Symphonie Fantastique?

Following up on the topic of stopped horn in Brahms, there is a related issue in the famous "March to the Scaffold" movement of...

Lessons in Vienna, part VII: The Long Call

This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977. Then he asked if I had ever...

Oddities: The Bass Horn

The first in a series of oddball horns This monstrosity - resembling a French horn on steroids - is a Bass Horn, built for the...

Getting Rattled

Don't rattle my cage Sir Simon Rattle quoted in a recent interview: Actually you never eyeball a horn player. That’s one of the real rules....

On the topic of “Flow Studies”

I recall a point in my Doctoral studies, I was taking a pedagogy class led by a trumpet player, and he used the term...

On the topic of phrasing

As we come back from over a year of spotty, Covid era practice, one thing I have observed is a lack of dynamics and...
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