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Tucked away in a corner of Horn Articles Online for many years was an article on Understanding Stopped and Muted Horn and Right-Hand Position. It went online over ten years ago and was intended as a supplemental material for a brass methods (techniques) class, but was removed from the site a couple summers ago as part of working toward a book project. I have missed this article often enough since then in my teaching (it is a great item for a methods class notebook) that it was re-posted and updated this week.
As I say in the article, stopped horn should not be a mystery to any advanced hornist. The article begins,
Stopping the French horn is a mystery to many. Otherwise fine horn players are often quite confused as to exactly how to perform music notated to be performed with the bell stopped by the hand, with reactions similar to the following: “When you close the hand in the bell the pitch goes down–but you are telling me that the we need to finger the note a half step lower when you play stopped?”
If the quote above does not make sense to you, or if you have been searching for a practical understanding of this topic, be sure to check the full version out along with the other teaching materials in The Kopprasch Zone.
As an aside, years ago when this article was first posted I had an E-mail from a reader saying that what I said was all wrong, and then a follow up a few hours later saying OK, now I understand.
I would also note that a version of this article was published in the March, 2002 issue of the Texas Bandmasters Association Journal, so it was never totally offline. They have a PDF of their version still on their website. It is interesting to compare the two versions but the current version in Horn Articles Online, updated 2010, is the one to read, the old version really looks like a draft version by comparison.
For more on this topic also please see this article on recent innovations in stop mutes, an article on finding custom stopped fingerings for out of tune notes, and this article on the stopping valve.
Article updated significantly after initial posting 10/14/10
