Recommended texts (available at Robert King Music, unless otherwise indicated):
- The Art of French Horn Playing, by Philip Farkas
- The Art of Brass Playing, by Philip Farkas
- The Art of Musicianship, by Philip Farkas
- Mastering the Horn’s Low Register by Randy C. Gardner. Available at International Opus.
- Collected Thoughts on Teaching, Learning, Creativity and Horn Performance by Douglas Hill.- Great all-around horn text by my horn professor in college.
- Horn Technique, by Gunther Schuller
- Horn, by Barry Tuckwell. Also available from Thompson Edition.
Check out Orchestral Audition Repertoire for Horn at Thompson Edition. For about $100 you can have a collection of over 1000 pages of original horn parts that every horn player should have. It’d cost hundreds of dollars to assemble this collection yourself.
For a good all-purpose excerpt book, most music students have the Horn Player’s Audition Handbook by Arthur LaBar. It does have some errors in it, so you want to make sure you look at the errata list that Mr. LaBar published in The Horn Call, volume XIX(2): page 108.
Freeware Downloads:
- Petrucci Music Library- Free Horn etude books, solos, etc., available as free.pdf’s. You will also find horn orchestral parts and scores from the standard orchestral repertoire that are in the public domain.
- Staff Paper- From musictheory.net
- Tuning Fork and Tuner- I’ve tried the tuning fork, and it provides a decent drone for intonation practice if your tuner doesn’t have that function. The tuner looks interesting, but I don’t have a microphone hooked up to my PC so I can’t tell if it works.
- Music ear trainers and utilities- Also from musictheory.net. Terrific download to help serious hornists with the ear training they will all eventually need!
Equipment Recommendations:
Alexander transposing (stop) mute- it’s a little pricier than your average stop mute, but it’s worth it! It’s tuneable, has 2 interchangeable bells, you can play super loud with it, and did I mention that you can tune it? Available at Osmun Brass.
TrumCor non-transposing mutes- Good all-around professional quality mutes, in every variety you could ask for. More widely available than the Lewis, Aulos or Rittich mutes. (I prefer the Alexander transposing brass mute over the TrumCor because of the bigger bell.)
If you want a good Geyer-wrap horn but don’t want to pay an arm and a leg (and wait 3 years or more) for a custom-made instrument, I would recommend a customized Yamaha 667 or 667V, or a Conn 10D or 11D. If you do a little searching, you may find a good stock instrument that can be improved through a custom leadpipe, lacquer stripping, etc., by a fine repairperson. You may end up with an instrument that will rival any custom-made instrument.
Better yet, rather than purchasing a new horn, or waiting 3 or more years for a custom made instrument, buy a used one. They’re cheaper, just as good, and if you keep your eyes open at sites like hornplayer.net and eBay, you WILL eventually find what you are looking for. I decided that I wanted to play a Rauch again, so I kept my eyes open, and within a few months found one for sale by a man on the Elmhurst horn mailing list.
Do-It-Yourself Bargains:
- I use a braided fishing line made by Gudebrod (#507 Catfish line, 45 lb. strength) for stringing my valves. I bought 100 yards of it for $7 in 1992, and I have enough for 2 lifetimes! I’ve heard you can get a suitable fishing line at Ron’s Tackle for a reasonable price- an 80 lb. test strength should be fine. You can find a suitable fishing line for valves at a good sporting goods store, with a little imagination. Like Farkas said in The Art of French Horn Playing, make sure it’s braided and not too strong or it’ll wear a groove where it’s tied.
- I use Hoover vacuum cleaner belts, cut up, for neoprene valve bumpers, and they can be found in practically any good grocery store.
- If you want to make your own valve oils, here is the Lawson Brass Instruments recommended valve oil formula. I use Kenmore sewing machine oil in place of No. 5 Machine Oil, and Ultrapure lamp oil in place of Kerosene.
