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.)
- - Please visit: International Horn Competition of America - -Most Recent Articles
My Mellophonium Mood
This 2008 article, very slightly updated here, originally appeared in the Horn Articles Online website
One thing I became very interested in during the summer...
Fundamentals 17. Transpositions
Lightning quiz: What is the most popular page in the entire Horn Matters website? That article is by Bruce Hembd on the topic of...
Broken links? UPDATE: Horn Articles Online is not online
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...
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Horn Etudes by Women Composers
Many Horn Matters readers will be familiar with the Works with Horn by Women 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
The Bass Horn in Action
A true oddity.
Last year, a picture and description of Roger Bobo playing the Bass Horn was posted here. It is a one-of-a-kind monstrosity that...
Clevenger on How Many Auditions, and How Many it Took Me
The horn world has been abuzz for the past few weeks with the retirement of Dale Clevenger from the Chicago Symphony, who served as...
From the Mailbag: Right Brain, Left Brain, and Connecting with Students
Several years ago a question came in. It was one that I found interesting to ponder at the time and still find interesting to...
Ask Dave: How Do I Fix the Cork on my Water...
Tyler asks:
Hey Dave! The cork on my water key is leaking and needs to be replaced. I'm not seeing anywhere to buy a pre-shaped cork...
Horn Pedagogy Week 5: Breathing, and a bit on Dystonia
Breathing is a very important topic! In looking at this topic in terms of horn publications -- and this approach is probably not the...
4 Tips on Orchestration and Horns
In "Composers who Can't Write for the Horn" John Ericson made some very good points for composers to pay attention to.
At a number of...
