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From our colleagues in Spain and Portugal we have two new horn-related items for consideration: one is a warm-up routine and the other, a pocket reference guide.
I highly recommend both and as you will see, the proof is in the pudding.
Warming Up for French Horn
Óscar Sala is the principal horn of the Orchestra of Granada. Here is a video clip of Mr. Sala performing the opening to Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Ein Heldenleben.
He also teaches at the Música Antigua en el Conservatorio Superior de Música del País Vasco (MUSIKENE).
In the introduction to his eBook, Warming Up for French Horn, Mr. Sala states his goal upfront and clearly:
Thank you for choosing my compilation of horn technique exercises. I have been collecting them ever since I began studying this marvelous instrument.
By following the explanation in this book, you will learn how to organize a warm-up of fifteen minutes or less, using the warm-up table provided.
The book is written in three languages – Spanish, English and Chinese – and it covers a lot of ground.
Numerous examples of scale passages, arpeggios, lip slurs and long tones are illustrated in multiple keys and multiple modes. Along the way photographs here-and-there illustrate important concepts of embouchure, hand position and posture.
Oh…did I mention that it is free? Check it out for yourself!
Óscar Sala Minguet: Warming Up for French Horn
Notes
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Horn’s Pocket Guide
Ricardo Matosinhos teaches ARTAVE/CCM and at Academia de Música de Costa Cabral in Portugal. He has written several teaching materials for horn, published by AvA Musical Editions and Phoenix Music Publications. In 2004, he created the www.trompista.com, a Portuguese horn-related website.
In his very compact Horn’s Pocket Guide, practical tips, charts and graphs, and other useful reference material are plentiful. As a graphic designer in the day-time, I can appreciate the time and effort that most likely went into making it look so clean and simple-to-comprehend.
In the final pages of the booklet for example, an picto-graphic guide with large images and number-by-number steps clearly illustrates the complicated process of valve re-stringing.
Myself, I picked up the little tip on how to make the string lace into the tiny stop arm hole much easier by using a match to singe the end of the string. It is not very fun to needle a thread with a frayed end and this trick helps to make that process a little easier.
The price of Mr. Matosinhos Pocket Guide is very affordable – just $7.50.
I bought mine from Ken Pope’s web site and it arrived at my house in about three days. Beyond this I do not need to say much more; Mr. Matosinhos has produced this excellent video that accurately gives you all the details.
For English subtitles, be sure to hit the Closed Caption (CC) button that is at bottom right.
Notes
- http://www.ricardomatosinhos.com/
- I first heard of Mr. Matosinhos through his tremendously clever video, imitating a bassoonist. If you have not seen this video before, I recommend that you drop everything and watch it now.
