Category: Horn

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PSA: Clean Your Horn!

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Pennsylvania to play assistant principal for a good friend in the Reading Symphony. These trips are fun both from a work and a personal perspective, since Pennsylvania is not exactly close to Louisville, and any excuse to see a friend (and get paid) is welcome! While I was there,…
Horn Player Problems, Vol. 1

I guess this is payback for all the great Brahms, Mahler, and Strauss horn parts.
Michael Thompson: Elegant Simplicity of Horn Playing

Michael Thompson, a British horn player, is probably best known for his (along with fellow British horn player Richard Watkins) fantastic CD t, but in this Youtube video, he gives some great tips for horn players of all ages: You should definitely watch the whole video, but if you don’t have time (make time!), here…
Ear Training – Work Your Ears!

Ear training, as painful as it was during undergraduate theory, was one of my most useful classes, and is an essential skill for a musician on any instrument. For players of brass instruments (especially horn) it is especially important, since one fingering can play about a dozen notes! Knowing how to play the horn technically is…
Preparing for All-State – Fundamentals

If you’re a high school horn player in Kentucky, by now you’ve probably seen the All-State audition music for this year. Although it’s certainly challenging, make sure you spend at least a third to half of your practice time on developing good fundamentals with basic exercises! There are a couple of good reasons for this:…
Horn Nerd: Case Edition

I’m sure that this takes my horn-nerdiness up to just about maximum, but of all the things on my horn equipment wish-list right now, probably the number one or two thing would be a horn case. It’s not just any horn case, though, it’s a case made by Wiseman of London, and on the…
How Long Should I Practice?

It’s likely one of the most common question asked by both students and their parents – how much time should they be practicing? While I was in high school, I read Phil Farkas’ Art of French Horn Playing, and in it, he advocates for around 3 hours of practice per day. As an undergraduate, I tried…
Horn Playing From the Inside

Sarah Willis, the first female brass player in the Berlin Philharmonic, an incredible low horn player, and the host of several music- and horn-related TV and internet shows, has done an incredible experiment on what goes on inside the mouth while playing horn by playing a specially-made horn inside an MRI machine!
Know your Right (Hand Position)

There are many reasons why I wish I could observe students’ practice habits at home, but one of the biggest reasons is probably one that they think little to nothing about – their right hand position. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen students playing (either in lessons, in rehearsals, or in performances)…
Reviving a mute

I’ve had my Balu mute for over ten years, and for the past 6 months it’s steadily been losing cork. Today I finally took the time to do a little bit of emergency mute repair and recork it. The total time was around an hour – and about 30 minutes of that was just waiting…