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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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...
Fundamentals 8. Tone quality: centered resonance, consistency in all registers, varieties...
Tone quality is a very important fundamental! If you have a good tone, you are likely doing a lot of things correctly. Strive for...
Revisiting the Moosewoods
I’ve made some equipment changes recently. As I noted in this article, I recently found a particular passage I was recording to be VERY...
Fundamentals 7. Slurring: various intervals, various dynamics, register changes
Slurring can be a problem, even a major problem. The question you should be asking is this -- is the problem you, or is...
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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
On Prescreening Auditions
One recent trend in schools of music is that of requiring prescreening auditions. In my own teaching this year the exact requirement is “In...
Introducing the Redesigned Conn 6D
Back in March (here) I posted about the new and improved Conn 8D for the 21st century. I have still yet to try one,...
Technique builder: Take the Clarke 120 Challenge
Back last year I posted a technique packet PDF, and among the exercises it contains a version of the Clarke second study, a Classic...
Horn Pedagogy Week 14: Performance Anxiety and Care of the Lip
We have arrived at the final week of readings! This week the main topic is performance anxiety, and the total number of readings are...
Transforming wood into brass; the alchemy of Rob Jones
Recently I had some some email exchanges with Rob Jones, an award-winning artisan who sculpts in wood. In our exchange he offered some specific...
My Crooked Rotary Valve Horn
As I think back on it many summers I have had a “project” of some sort. This summer I plan to play quite a...
