BAND/ORCHESTRA

to High School Horns

G

unther Schuller once

observed, "Everybody seems
to know that the horn is
reputed to be a devilishly difficult
instrument; and even the layman,
upon hearing some out-of-place
'blurp' or 'cracked' note, knows to
look first at the horn section to find
the culprit" (Schuller, Horn Technique, Oxford University Press,
1976). Many high school band and
orchestra directors would agree that
the horn is one of the most difficult
instruments to teach. Horn players
need to have very strong aural skills,
and they have to learn "horn specific" techniques such as muting, stopping, transposition, lip trills, alternate fingerings, hand positions, and
bell position.

ONE OF THE BIG CHALLENGES FOR

horn players is knowing where to
properly place the right hand in the
bell of the instrument. Many elementary players place the palm of
the hand against the inside of the
bell or hold the outside of the bell to
help support the instrument. As they
proceed through middle and high
school, horn players are usually given
many different suggestions for proper placement of the right hand. In an
effort to change from a "palm against
the bell" placement to a proper
placement, many students put too
much of their hand in the bell. This
results in a fuzzy, covered, and out34

Figure 1. Correct hand placement in the

bell of the horn

Note: Viewed from above, the back of the fingers

should be flat against the far side of the bell.

of-tune sound. In The Art of French

Horn Playing (Summy-Birchard
Music, 1956), Philip Farkas recommends three steps to proper righthand placement (see figure 1 for an
illustration of this position):
1. Hold the right hand flat with
the fingers held together so that
absolutely no space occurs between
them. Pay particular attention to
the thumb, which should lie along
the edge of the hand, and in the

same plane as the fingers. Cup the

hand slightly.
2. Now hold the hand in a vertical plane with the little finger nearest
the ground and the thumb uppermost.
3. Insert this slightly cupped hand
in the horn bell so that only the
backs of the fingers and the top of
the thumb touch the metal. The
hand will be against the side of the
bell farthest from the body. (Parkas,
pp. 12-13)

A SIMPLE REMINDER TO STUDENTS

to be conscious of the right hand will
often help improve the sound of the
section. Another issue affecting the
right hand is the clothing of the
player. A heavy sweater or suit jacket
can greatly affect the tone and pitch
of the horn. Tuning with a sweater
sleeve rolled up and playing twenty
minutes later after the sleeve has fallen down may account for intonation
problems in the horn section.
Very often in late romantic music,!
the composer will write "bells up" on j
the score of the horn part. Although
it is fun to play with the bells up in
the air, it is not recommended with a \h school ho
embouchure control that is required
to truly play "bells up" is not often
present in high school players. Even
in many professional orchestras,
horn sections routinely ignore the
"bells up" markings.
T E A C H I N G

U S I Ci

KHE GENERALLY ACCEPTED RULE OF

nb is that double horn fingerings
C used for notes above g (a fifth
; middle C) and below g (a fourth
rmiddle C). Single horn fingeri are used for g and g and die notes
I between. If some of the players are
ying on single horns while others are
)ang on double horns, there will be
onation challenges that are almost
Bpossible to deal with. There are
s when alternate fingerings on the
jbuble horn may be desirable, for
nee, to create a more logical finger
i in a fast passage. See figure 2
t suggested alternate fingerings.
is's book is a good reference for
ate fingerings. For more general
brmation on die horn, see David
bouses Practical Hints on Playing

the Horn [Belwin-Mills, 1983] and

Barry Tuckwell's Horn [Schirmer
Books, 1983].)
It is often difficult for horn players
to decipher the mute markings in the
score. Words found in musical scores
that refer to "with mute" or "muted"
include:
mitDampfer (German)
gedampft (German)
avec sourdine (French)
con sordino (Italian).
When composers ask for a mute,
they intend the use of a conical shaped
nontransposing mute of cardboard,
metal, or wood, with cork strips to regulate the amount of stoppage. The
pitch of a mute can be altered by shortening or lengthening the piece of cylindrical tubing that is inside the mute.

However, most school-owned mutes

(the red and white stone-lined mutes
made by Humes and Berg) do not have
this inside tubing. Students must use
their ears and embouchures to keep
muted notes in tune. Stopping the bell
with the hand while playing with good
intonation is almost always a challenge
for a high school horn section. Markings in the score that refer to hand
stopping include:
gestopft (German)
boucht (French)
chiuso (Italian)
"+" (placed above the note).
Horn players must always transpose
down (not up) a half-step when playing
stopped notes. In addition, they should
continued on page 48

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A Director's Guide to High School Horns

Continued from page 35

iTEGIES

TEACHING?
Me for Mi
ods Cl

Developed by MENC's
Society for Music Teacher Education, the Guide for Music
Methods Classes is intended for
use in training preservice music
teachers. Provides exemplary
strategies to enable teachers of
methods courses to introduce
their students to the competencies and skills called for in the
K-12 National Music Standards.
A vital connection between the
preparation of music teachers
and the practice of music education. Compiled and edited by
Louis O. Hall with Nancy R.
Boone, John Grashel, and
Rosemary C. Watkins. 1997.
ISBN 1-56545-093-0.
#1656. $25.00/$20.00 MENC
members
To order, me
the MENC Resources order farm
on page 56!
48

always play the stopped note on the F

side of the double horn. It is important when stopping the horn to try to
completely cut off the air with the
hand. If the students are having trouble with a stopped horn, the use of a
brass stopped mute is recommended.
Ahhough the brass stopped mute is
more expensive (about $70), the
advantage is that intonation will be
more accurate. When using a brass
stopped mute, the student must still
use a half-step transposition.
VV HEN WRITING A TRANSPOSED
part for horn in bass clef, composers
often notate an octave lower tJian is
actually played. A nontransposed part
in this "old" notation will include bass
clef notes written a fourth below
sounding pitch. Although "new" notation includes transposed parts written
as played and nontransposed parts
written a fifth above sounding pitch,
many modern composers still use old
notation for the horns. A general rule
to follow for high school horn players
is that if the part seems unreasonably
low, it's probably written in old notation and the student should play the
part in the more comfortable range.
There are two kinds of trills used
on the horn. If the written trill calls
for a half-step motion, the trill is done
with the valves. A whole-step trill is to
be performed with die lip. Although
lip trills are difficult to perform well,
the use of the valves on a whole step
trill never results in the desired sound.
Students should be encouraged to
work on the lip trill.
Sometimes problems in the horn
section sound may be caused by poor
embouchure positions of individual
players. A poor embouchure may
cause intonation and range problems
in addition to generally poor tone

quality. However, it is often difficult

in a large group setting to work on
individual embouchures. Also, at the
high school level, most students have
been playing with a particular
embouchure for several years, and it
is hard for them to change.
Farkas suggests that the setting of
the mouthpiece on the lips generally
should result in a proportion of "2/3
upper lip and 1/3 lower lip on the
mouthpiece" (The Art of French Horn
Playing, p. 21). If a student in the
high school program plays with an
embouchure that does not fit this
mold and appears to be having intonation, range, or tone quality problems, the director should encourage
that student to seek professional help
from a horn player to rework the
embouchure.
Much of the traditional band and
orchestra literature includes horn
parts in which the entire section
heads up to high B-flat or high C.
These notes are extremely difficult
for an entire section to play at the
same time. Upper-register notes
require three elements and if any
one is missing, the player will be
unsuccessful. First, the player must
hear the high pitch he or she is trying to play. A, good way to prepare
horn players is to have them sing
their part as much as possible. Individual students should practice
singing alone as well. Second, students must support the upper note
with lots of air. Third, the concentration level must be solid. In general, the conductor needs to work
with the horn players in a positive,
supportive way.
By Colleen Conway, assistant professor of music
education at Rutgers University, New Brunswick,
New Jersey.
TEACHING

MUSIC