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

Many broken links? UPDATE: Horn Articles Online is not online any...

It has come to my attention that within Horn Matters all links to materials in my original Horn Articles Online site (online since 1998...

Sabbatical horn update: improved details

Back in the spring of 2021 I was on sabbatical from Arizona State, and, as reported here in Horn Matters, my project involved horn...

Fundamentals 16. Muted horn: tonal control, responses, projection, noiseless manipulation of...

Mutes?!? It is very interesting to me that Douglas Hill included in his list of fundamentals (found in his Collected Thoughts book) a special...

Fundamentals 15. Stopped horn: tonal control, responses, projection, F and B-flat...

Continuing our series on fundamentals (using, as prompts, the list of fundamentals found on pages 92-93 of the Douglas Hill book of Collected Thoughts),...
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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

Nationalism and the traditional French style, I

Lucien Thévet (1914 - 2007) was one of the last practitioners of a unique style of horn playing and recently, some samples of his...

The Most Difficult Piece Ever Written for the Horn

This coming Sunday at 2:30 I will be playing on my faculty recital at ASU the most difficult piece ever written for the...

123’s, just like ABC’s

On just about every valved brass instrument, the combination fingerings of first and third valves or all three valves together are horrifically out-of-tune. Trumpet players...

Re-Writing Bach: The Trio from Brandenburg Concerto No. 1

I have been working on the final Trio section from Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, not for a specific performance but rather as an exercise...

Food for Thought, A Recipe For Success

Imagination + motivation = CREATIVITY. A recipe for success. Get fired up and get those creative juices going!

Now available: The Low Horn Boot Camp, second edition

Continuing the series of updated editions, today the focus is on the updated and expanded second edition of The Low Horn Boot Camp. The...
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