Main content
French horn lesson
Learn about the French horn from an expert musician with the U.S. Marine Band. Includes warm-up exercises for long tones, arpeggios, dynamics, articulation, and the natural (valveless) horn.
Want to join the conversation?
- why do you need to stick your hand inside the instrument and what are the different positions to make different sounds without holding down a valves(4 votes)
- You stick your hand in the instrument because it damps the sound down a bit (French Horns are LOUD) and it also acts as a natural tuner, as horns are naturally made to be a bit sharp. To make different notes without changing your fingering you have to adjust your embouchure and change the way you put your hand in your horn.(5 votes)
- how many french horns were created?(5 votes)
- A lot that's all I know(1 vote)
- how much force do u have to use(5 votes)
- how did this person play this by the way my name is ayden(3 votes)
Video transcript
("Horkstow Grange, Lincolnshire
Posy" by Percy Grainger) - In orchestral literature
the French horn player doesn't play all the time. We are used as a color,
one of many colors. I would say the strings
probably have the hardest job, they're always playing. We have a lot of rests. And then we come in and
we might play really loud, or something really soft, but then we rest a little bit again. In the band literature,
we are that middle voice that maybe in the orchestra would be the cellos or the violas. And I find it very important to have a very thorough
and slow warm up each day that covers what I'll call the bases. So the way that I typically will begin is with a slow, descending scale. And I like doing this because sometimes the previous day's rehearsal will have kind of beat your face up a little bit. The muscles in your
face, they're very small, they're very sensitive. So I wanna make sure that
I don't just start playing really loud and really high, which is much more
taxing on those muscles. I wanna start kinda soft and just ease my way
into playing for the day. So that might just sound like this. (French horn music descending) It's just a soft, slow scale downwards. But I'll go up half a step at a time and gradually get higher. (sings descending scales
in ascending patterns) Just a little higher each time. ("When Jesus Wept, New England
Triptych" by William Schuman) After I've started my warm up by playing some soft, slow scales down, I'll typically go and start
playing some arpeggios. The arpeggios go from lower
in the range of the horn to a little bit higher. And I feel like I can
kind of touch each note that I'm able to play
and it just makes me feel a little more secure throughout the day. And that sounds a little like this. (French horn music
ascending and descending) So you can see that's
not the most extreme high that I can play, but it
does go down pretty low. I think it's important
to mention at this time you might be saying, you know, Arpeggios and all these scales, I'm noticing you only have
three valves on the instrument. The reason that this
correlates with my warm up is because the French
horn is a little slippery. You know, we don't just push down a button and then a note comes out,
like the flute or the clarinet. You have to kind of position
your air in a certain spot, but you have to know where
that spot is each time. So that's why it's
important in the warm up to play all these different notes. So if I were to just not
use any of my valves, I can play this range of notes. (French horn music ascending) I like to touch each of those notes. And I'll sometimes do a
little arpeggio like that just, what we call the
natural horn without valves, also in the morning. ("Fanfare Ritmico" by Jennifer Higdon) So, when I do my warm up each morning, I typically start the same way every day. The slow scales down, then some arpeggios. Then, depending on what the
demands of the music are for that day or that week, I
will sort of tailor my warm up. If I have a lot of really
short, staccato notes, I'm gonna make sure that in my warm up I'm practicing that. (French horn short and choppy music) (French horn smooth and connected music) I'm gonna play, so if I
was gonna play legato, I might follow it up
with some legato playing. If I'm gonna play really loud, then I will absolutely
play some long tones where I maybe start soft
and then grow really loud! Or if I'm gonna be playing soft, starting the note and
then gradually dying away. I mean, you want to have,
at any time, the ability to control your instrument
in any way that you need. (French horn music growing louder) (French horn music growing softer) The ideal is when you're going to soft, if you can absolutely
make it fade to nothing with no discernible ending to the note, that's what I really go for every time that I'm using that exercise. ("First Suite in E-Flat for
Military Band" by Gustav Holst)