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During and immediately following my sabbatical semester from ASU I completed four major horn rebuilding projects, documented in this series of articles on Horn Matters. All of them are nominally single F horns following 19th century designs, and as such all of them can be set up (if desired) in other keys.
Over the summer my practice has been centered around making comparisons between the horns, exploring their individual qualities, and as the summer ends it is a good point for me to review and compare.
What did I expect?
I’m not sure what I expected to find when I went into this project. My Doctoral dissertation was deeply related to valved horns in 19th century Germany, and to be able to experience these horn designs deeply has been very interesting from both an historically informed performance angle and a horn design angle.
I was hoping at least that they would show me something about the music of the 19th century, and also that they would provide some interesting practice in the Sabbatical/pandemic year. Which they certainly did.
The obvious first thing I found was how each horn was unique, with different strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know why but I expected them to be more consistent, but then again, each one has a different design. The following sections provide some specifics.
Large bore? Small bore?
Nominally all four horns are about the same bore size and bell size. But of the four one “feels” bigger, more on that in a bit.
Tuning
Most of the horns are noticeably flat (if you look for it!) on the harmonic that is E on the bottom line and the E on the top space. This ends up speaking to the authenticity of the designs, this is common on period horns and not really a negative. Everything else is pretty solid and even that flat harmonic you don’t notice that much.
Tone
Here I think is where I’m finding my winners, after finally playing them a bit in a better acoustic than my home. The Gumpert model horn and the Schmidt inspired horn (with the Mirafone bell) are the best sounding horns, with the Schmidt feeling slightly freer blowing (“bigger”) than the Gumpert. The Geyer is nearly as good, and I think only held back by the valves not being as tight as the other horns. Finally, the Yamaha conversion, as of now, it has a dull tone and I can’t really tell you why — but I’ll be working on it more, as it plays well really, just sounds dull in comparison.
And a video conclusion
I could go on and on, but I did produce a video which reviews the builds and you can hear how they sound in a variety of brief selections.
Future plans
As of now I’m not switching to any of these, I’m focusing on modern horn again, but I do find them to add interest to my warmup and practice.
In the bigger picture I have quite a number of ideas to explore! I’m hoping to devote at least part of a day every week (after it cools off again) to working on horn projects of various types. But for now, on to horn teaching and playing as the primary focus.
Return to beginning of Sabbatical Series
