Practicing the Horn
by Richard Seraphinoff
This is an overview of the skills that you should have on the horn to function as a professional horn player, and what to practice and how to practice it to acquire them. If you have had lessons with me for a while, you won’t find anything here that you don’t already know, but it’s good to have it all on paper in an organized way to help you get your approach to learning the horn organized and efficient in your mind.
Our Voice
Making the horn do what you want it to do is a pretty simple business. But it takes a lot of time and repetition, just as much time and repetition as it did for you to learn to speak eloquently with your voice. As a small child, you didn’t know it, but you were paying close attention to everything that you heard around you, and by diligent practice, which you also weren’t aware of at the time, you learned to mimic all of the words and grammar of English, as well as the expressive elements, accent, and nuances, so that in a few years, you could express any thought perfectly. The horn works in the same way, except as adults we have to consciously pay attention to what we are hearing from other people’s horns and from our own, so that you can always have an ideal horn sound, phrasing, and expressive nuances in your imagination, which is the model after which your actual horn playing will form itself with time.
Tone production
Our horn sound is our voice that we use to express our musical thoughts. A pure, pleasant, effortless speaking voice is more believable and pulls the listener into the story more than a raspy or unreliable voice, and the same is true of horn sound. The goal is to produce a pure, solid, and projecting tone that sounds easy, even when depicting music that is supposed to sound hard. We must also feel comfortable and easy covering a full range of dynamics. The impression that our sound on the horn gives to our listeners has as much to do with how notes start and end as it does with the middle of the notes. What happens in the first tiny fraction of a second gives the impression of being in command of the story you’re telling or not. Immediacy of full pure sound on every attack is the key to telling the story in a convincing way. The ends of notes can happen in many different ways, - tapered gently, abrupt, or slurred to another note, but always with your best pure sound right to the end. To be convincing we have to fill up each individual interval as well as the entire phrase. This is almost entirely a question of the fuel that goes into the phrase, - the air. For this purpose, and to speak clearly and understandably on our instrument, we practice Concone vocal studies and other lyrical music.
A couple of our routine exercises address tone production specifically, (#1 and #8) and are almost like playing long tones. These can be great for practicing tone production, and you can make up your own or use books like the Joseph Singer routine, but it should be just as effective to practice being musical and expressive at the same time by playing sustained lyrical music. Play a Concone etude or similar lyrical piece every day for a few minutes, whether you are polishing it up for a lesson, or sight reading it, or transposing it, or playing it in a lower octave, all of which need to be done.
Things to listen for in your Concone etudes and other lyrical melodies.
Our Main etude book of this sort is “Giuseppi Concone – The Complete Solfeggi” – Transcribed by John Korak (Looks like a trumpet book)
1. Are you making your most pure and full sound throughout?
2. Would the sound you are making project into the acoustic of a concert hall or through the texture of an orchestra?
3. Are you filling every slur with solid, dense, fast moving air that will keep your voice going smoothly and seamlessly through intervals and phrases?
4. Are you playing in tune with yourself and at the proper pitch level? Check with a tuner now and then.
5. Are notes centered so that they don’t sound like you are sitting uncomfortably high or low on them?
Now that the logistical things are out of the way, some questions about what you want to say with your beautiful voice.
6. Is the meter understandable? Are you playing correct rhythms in a steady sensible pulse, and does the emphasis on strong beats help to express the meter?
7. Do phrases flow effortlessly?
8. Are you using flow, a full range of dynamics, and strong and weak beats to give the music direction?
9. Does the piece as a whole have direction that gives it an overall form and story line?
10. Most important question of all – Does it sound pleasing to the ear?
Remember - There are no equal notes in well played melodies.
You have to ask all these question when you play anything, and keep your awareness up, until you have succeeded in all of these areas so long that they are no longer things that you can do when paying attention, but rather the default sound of your voice and expression. They become who you are as an expressive musician.
Technical Skills – getting around easily and cleanly on the horn
There are many aspects of technique in horn playing. Clean articulation, agility of scale-wise passages in various ranges, negotiation of intervals, the ornaments of music, clean staccatos, agile and decisive fingers on the keys, etc.
Technical practice starts with exercises, like our scale pattern sheet. Just as an example, here are some thoughts on things to notice when you are playing each element of our technical routine every day. Add to these by finding what you need to work on and make up your own patterns. My scale pattern that you have are my own exercises that I made up for myself to address things that I needed to do every day. You will find your own patterns by noticing what is most challenging for you in the music that you play.
Scale Pattern Routine
Spend just a few minutes each day on things like this. It is your daily meditation on the beauty of your voice and expression, and also your key fluency exercises, which give you the equipment you need to be a good reader. I can’t overemphasize the importance of always understanding the tonality of what you are playing, and that comes from practicing scales, arpeggios, and patterns. They can be done in a couple of ways to cover all the keys - either in pairs of keys each day:
Monday C and B natural
Tuesday Bb and Db
Wednesday A and D
Thursday Ab and Eb
Friday G and E
Saturday F# and F
Take Sunday off
Or roll the dice for each of the 8 exercises twice each day.
Here are some questions to keep your awareness up while playing them.
1. Slow Scale
a. Is the sound full, pure, and projecting?
b. Is the attack clean and immediate? (Is the air at full note pressure right away?)
c. Are the notes shaped on their ends so that they connect in a musical way?
d. Is the scale in tune with itself, as well as with a tuner?
2. Staccato Scale – one breath
a. Are the notes of the key fluent and easy?
b. Is the staccato cleanly articulated and clear?
c. Is the sound good quality in the small window of opportunity in the short note?
d. Does the staccato sound the same (clean and precise, with a good horn sound)
bottom to top and back?
3. Slurred triplets with leading tones – one breath
a. Is the slur continuous and vocal in nature?
b. Is the sound between the notes as good as the sound on the notes?
c. Are there any gaps in the air stream that will make gaps in the sound?
4. Triads – 1, 2, 7, 1 – one breath
a. Are the notes smooth, fluent, and agile?
b. Can it go faster?
c. is the sound good at the bottom of the staff?
5. Scale Pattern
a. Is the scale continuous and fluid enough to sound good in a Mozart concerto?
b. are fingers and tongue lining up?
c. Is the emphases on the strong beats?
d. Is there dynamic direction to the line?
6. Repeated note scale pattern
a. Are the repeated notes light and flowing?
b. Is the sound of the short notes good?
c. Do you hear individual notes or a line?
7. Arpeggio on a single fingering (move fingers only for the bottom third scale degree), one breath, staccato and slurred
a. Is articulation clean throughout the range?
b. Are the notes in tune as you pass through the range?
c. Is the line seamless? Are there any noticeable breaks?
8. Octave and 5ths slurs, single fingering – one breath
a. Did you take a huge breath?
b. Are the slurs beautiful and vocal?
c. Is the sound consistently good through the range?
d. Are the octaves and 5th in tune with each other?
e. Did you start soft and crescendo to a good solid orchestra fortissimo and back
again?
The second part of technical practice is technical etudes – Maxime-Alphonse, Kopprasch, Gallay, all the way to Verne Reynolds, and others.
Here are the questions that you ask as you play these.
a. Is the articulation clear, clean, and understandable?
b. Is the sound in articulated passages pure and high quality?
c. are rhythms correct and is the pulse steady?
d. Do technical passages sound effortless?
e. Are you making good directional musical lines?
f. Most etudes can be transposed at least into E and E flat, - maybe C basso too.
Remember, slower and precise is better than too fast and frantic, or unreliable.
Sight Reading is an essential skill that needs some practice every day.
Make it a game in which you have ten minutes to do your best performance of a short etude from Maxime-Alphonse Book 1 or equivalent – read once without stopping, then practice 10 minutes, then perform. Then transpose.
Low Horn
Playing in the low range is a skill on the horn that requires a little knowledge and a lot of practice. Make sure that the mouthpiece is not floating freely, but rather attached to something, most often the lower lip against the lower teeth to gain stability, good sound, and clean attacks.
There are many things to choose from, but start with these:
Hermann Neuling low horn etudes in two volumes. They include the sort of patterns that one finds in 20th century low horn orchestra part, plus a lot of stopped horn.
Martin Hackelman low horn etudes. They are more lyrical in nature and go lower, concentrating on sound and flow. All in bass clef.
Bordogni – Rochuet Trombone etudes. Also very tuneful, and all in bass clef.
Bach Cello Suites – either in F from the Wendell Hoss version or at sounding pitch from the original. Great for flexibility in the low range, musicality, and breathing.
Questions for your low horn etudes:
a. Is the low sound full and projecting?
b. Are attacks good and articulations clear in the low range?
c. Good intonation?
d. Easy changes between ranges?
e. Ease of moving through melodic passages?
d. Full range of dynamics?
Orchestra Excerpts – two or three a week
The hornexcerpts.org list is the best to start with. Play these specific audition excerpts first, then go to the complete parts that you’ll find in the Thompson book, CD Rom set, or www.imslp.org. Listen to some recordings and watch your part, and listen again watching a full score to know who you are playing with, dynamics, tempos, tempo changes, character of the music, and other nuances. Play not only the audition excerpts, but also every note of the part so you know all the other technical and musical challenges of the piece.
Check these, and our weekly class excerpts, off of your checklist. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you will know, and be able to play, a lot of orchestra excerpts.
Solo Repertoire
We learn solo pieces in school for recitals, juries, exams, and auditions. We also learn a lot of solo repertoire just simply to know it, even if you aren’t going to perform it. You will probably end up teaching your own students many solo pieces that you never have performed yourself.
Our repertoire is vast, but start with the following:
Solo Concertos
A baroque concerto, like Telemann, Graun or Förster
Mozart concertos
A Rosetti concerto or two
Richard Strauss concertos
Franz Strauss concerto
Saint-Saëns Concertpiece
Gliere Concerto
Hindemith Concerto
Lars Erik Larson Concertino
Tomasi Concerto
Gordon Jacob Concerto
The list goes on, but you’ll be a pretty well rounded horn player if you are familiar with these, and can play all the Mozart concertos, and Strauss #1 on short notice.
Horn and piano
Beethoven Sonata
Schumann Adagio and Allegro
Josef Rheinberger Sonata
Franz Strauss Nocturne and other pieces
Saint-Saëns Romances Op. 36 and 67
Dukas Villanelle
Bozza En Foret
Hindemith Horn Sonata and Alto Horn Sonata
Madsen Sonata
The total list of horn and piano pieces is even longer than the concerto list. Learn some standard ones, and then explore, There is a lot of very interesting music out there!
Unaccompanied Solos
These are great pieces to perform, and to practice for musical shape and theatrical presentation. Unaccompanied pieces give us a feeling of freedom, because we have full responsibility, and full control of everything that happens musically.
Here are a few standard repertoire pieces
Persichetti - Parable
Krol - Laudatio
Arnold - Fantasy
Berge - Hornlokke
Ketting - Intrada
Amram – Blues and Variations for Monk
Gallay – Preludes and Caprices
And many others, both standards of the literature, and new ones that are being written all the time.
Other stuff that shouldn’t be ignored in your practice
1. Stopped horn - played with good intonation and a solidly sealed hand position.
2. Trills – make up both metered and unmetered lip trill exercises.
3. Transposition – do a little bit of transposing in some context every day. One good
method is to get together with a friend and play a very simple duet in every imaginable and unimaginable horn transposition.
4. Reading atonal and contemporary music, including asymmetrical meters and rhythms.
5. Practice by yourself and also with someone else. Playing things back and forth with someone else, and playing duets is very important. Feedback and interaction are how we learn best.
6. Chamber music is also very important for our musical development. The horn is the only instrument that can play in brass and woodwind quintets and other combinations, and play together in chamber music with strings, as well as mixed groups with piano. You learn just as much about ensemble skills in a chamber group as you do in an orchestra section. Both are essential to your development.
7. Chamber music and horn section playing are also the best ways to learn to play in tune. A tuner gets you part of the way there, but the final art of playing in tune comes from playing with other people.
8. Don’t forget to practice in front of a mirror, either when doing exercises or real music. It’s important to watch your posture, the balance of your body and how much energy you appear to be expending to play.
How much to practice
That depends on what you are practicing and what else you will be playing on a particular day. If you have a two and a half hour band rehearsal, it might not be wise to play for three more hours in the day. The best advice is to play as much as you can and still be able to fully recover and be fresh the next day. Your face will tell you if you are playing too much, and you should pay attention to the signals it gives you. Rest is always the antidote to overplaying. Even better advice comes from the Dauprat Method Book of 1824- “Practice little and often.” By which he meant that several well-spaced shorter practice sessions throughout the day will be more effective in building skill and endurance, and less likely to hurt you, than playing two hours at a time.
Does all of that sound like a lot? It is, but it works the same way as all of the other skills and knowledge that you’ve accumulated in life - including walking, talking, playing games, conversing, interacting with people in a hundred different ways, and being the unique individual expression of humanity that you are, so be patient and develop your skills slowly and steadily. The horn is one of the many ways that you express all that you are.
Daily Scale Pattern Routine
To be played in all Keys – start in C as written and then expand in both directions by half steps. If played in all keys and possible octaves, this fairly simple looking page will take you up to high c and beyond, and down to the very bottom of the range, get you to play on all lengths of horns, fast and slow, loud and soft, slurred and articulated, and make you fluent in all keys. Add the relative minor in all of its forms to exercise #2.