Teaching horn as second instrument

[johntarr]

Hello all,

I’m faced with the possibility of needing to teach beginning horn next year and wonder if and how that might effect my trombone chops. Do any of you teach horn and or trumpet in addition to trombone, and if so, how do you maintain your trombone embouchure?

Many thanks for any advice or shared experience,

John

[jthomas105]

Retired band director. I only played horn at the beginning to help show them how to hold it and show them how the mouthpiece looks on the face. The great thing about playing trombone and teaching horn is that their "C" below the staff is our 4th line "F", so I could stand behind them while playing trombone and help them find pitches just fine as well as getting a big sound in the ear. The most important thing is for them to hear the same pitch and that can be done while playing your trombone. I was really glad that I had read horn parts on trombone for many years when I went to an Easter gig year and the church choir director handed me a horn part and apologized because he had not had time to finale it to trombone. I said no problem and read it down.

There are two approaches I took when teaching horn if they were in a mixed brass class and both worked.

1. Start with a trumpet book so that the written 2nd line "G" had them playing in 5th's with the trumpets and trombones so they would learn from the very beginning that they were on different pitches from the other brass players most of the time. This was where playing my trombone right behind them was so beneficial to helping them learn to hear and match the pitch.

2. Finale everything so that they started on the "C" I mentioned above so that they played in unison with the other brass players and were on the same pitch as the trombones.

For both of these once they get where they can read from that "C" to an "A" or "Bb" in the staff you can switch to a horn book or horn parts.

[Tooloud]

Hi!

Maybe I am able to help with this.

I've studied basstrombone in my young days at the university, but did not choose a career as a professional musician. But thirty years of Basstrombone in very many various settings and experience as a teacher might help.

Some years ago I one day decided to grab a school's horn. Why? Back in my youth there were no cheap chinese instruments for beginners. And those available european french horn were - as they are today - terribly expensive. So I could not get the instrument I had wanted, but trombone was close in sound an available at reasonable cost.

Now I play my own horn for some years, practising six days a week minimum two hours a day. Randomly called for playing trombone (what ruins my french horn embouchure for several days)

My experience: The embouchure of the french horn is different, subtly, but very different.

A decent trombonist or even trumpetplayer can get "a kind of noise" out of it, of course.
But: to make the horn sound like a horn should is quite a subtle thing. If a trombonist blows into a horn it sounds like a trombone, if a trumpetplayer, like a trumpet.

And don't forget: There is the right hand in the bell! It is necessarily used for correcting intonation an shaping the sound.

What is the point:

If you want to "teach" an instrument you cannot play, it may be ok for tooting around loud in a school band / marchingband nobody listens to.

But to teach in a way the student can rely on in years to come you need the fundamentals, for he has to get it right from the beginning or he will get nowhere and probably / hopefully quit soon.
Do you have a sound concept for french horn different from the trombone?
Do you have any clue what is going on inside the bell?
Do you understand the different kinds of horns? Bb, F, Es, Double?

You know that the french horn is said to be the most difficult brass instrument to play?

If you tick the boxes, go for it.

If not: Be kind and send the kid to somebody who can.

Except.... you need the money an do not want to sell a kidney...

[Tooloud]

On what jthomas105 said:

Teching an instrument from a book not written for this instrument is, sorry to say, rubbish!
This causes more damage in the future than it is worth. If you are the bandirector, you only will have a very, very bad hornsection in the band using this kind of "method". And your band will not be very pleasant to listen to...

It is your choice in the end - but...

Now I begin to understand, why there are so many awful videos on youtube from american highschool-bands...

[Wilktone]

Are you going to teach horn students 1 on 1, in group classes of other horn players, in a group class with other brass, in a full band also with woodwinds and percussion?

I taught all the brass lessons for a while at a previous college teaching job, including horn students. I had access to a horn, which I practiced at the time in order to keep up somewhat, but I found it usually more helpful to play trombone and transpose. You're not going to be giving your horn students examples of a great horn sound anyway without spending some time practicing the instrument and you might argue that for a beginner it is more important for them to get some of the tangible instructions that you can give on trombone anyway.

Some players do quite well doubling on brass, others will have some trouble. I managed to do OK playing some tuba, trumpet, and horn in addition to trombone while teaching all the brass, but since my students were college students most of them could already outplay me on those secondary instruments. In general, I found it easier to start on a smaller mouthpiece and then go bigger while practicing so when practicing or preparing to teach a high brass lesson I would be sure to warm up on the high brass instrument before getting a lot of low brass practice. Some folks might find the opposite.

You can learn a lot about trombone playing by practicing other brass instruments. As long as you're keeping your technique consistent between instruments (e.g., not playing with completely different embouchure types for different instruments) you will probably be fine. Something you might find helpful is to think of the mouthpiece placements of the different instruments to be concentric circles on the lips. In other words, instead of always placing the top part of the mouthpiece rim on the exact same spot on the lips for horn as you have on trombone, the horn mouthpiece placement keeps the same ratio of upper to lower lip inside the cup.

Dave

[Tooloud]

Something you might find helpful is to think of the mouthpiece placements of the different instruments to be concentric circles on the lips. In other words, instead of always placing the top part of the mouthpiece rim on the exact same spot on the lips for horn as you have on trombone, the horn mouthpiece placement keeps the same ratio of upper to lower lip inside the cup.

Dave

I am not quite sure if I get you right, but I - as most hornplayers do - have the most part of the upper lip inside the mouthpiece. On horn, you really do not use he lower lip except for very low tones students cannot reach.

Playing with a central embouchure as you do on trombone gets you a very nasty sound on the horn.

At least in my experience as the horn fanatic I have become....

[Wilktone]

Hi, Tooloud.

What you describe as a "horn" embouchure works just as well on any brass - provided that the musician has the anatomy that makes it work that way. In fact, most brass players in general have more upper lip inside the mouthpiece. Very few players have mouthpiece placements where the ratio of upper and lower lip is 50/50, that particular placement can cause problems for some player as one or another lip should predominate inside the mouthpiece.

Basically, what I'm advocating for is keeping the same ratio of upper to lower lip inside the mouthpiece for doubles. So if your placement on trombone is 70/30, then it makes sense to do the same on horn. But because the horn mouthpiece is smaller, you can't put the upper part of the rim on the same spot for both and keep the same ratio of upper to lower lip. I think of this as imaginary "concentric circles" of the rim on the lips.

Does that make my suggestion clearer?

Thanks,

Dave

[Redthunder]

On what jthomas105 said:

Teching an instrument from a book not written for this instrument is, sorry to say, rubbish!
This causes more damage in the future than it is worth. If you are the bandirector, you only will have a very, very bad hornsection in the band using this kind of "method". And your band will not be very pleasant to listen to...

It is your choice in the end - but...

Now I begin to understand, why there are so many awful videos on youtube from american highschool-bands...

This is an awfully harsh comment. If you’ve never seen the inner workings of American public education, you’d best avoid making sweeping criticisms of the people tasked with often monumental challenges in maintaining band programs in an age where in many areas of the United States, music education, and in particular instrumental music education is not valued let alone appropriately funded. Where can I hear your high school band?

And just FYI

Jthomases comment was aimed at addressing a situation where they were responsible for teaching a large group of beginner mixed instruments and it absolutely makes sense. Often beginner horn books are written with a completely different sequencing and are much more complicated compared to the equivalent books on other instruments. It can be enormously difficult to teach multiple instruments at the same time to young children because you need to constantly address two sets of instruction at once. The whole point of Jthomases comment was to help them aurally understand the concept of pitch (whether the same or different from what might be playing around them on other instruments) while doing so in a way that isn’t a totally separate context from the other brass players in the lesson, which is enormously beneficial and a clever way of adapting to a less than completely ideal teaching situation.

[Basbasun]

About playing horn as second (or third or fourth) instrument. After reading the discousion above I packed up my horn that has been untoched for many years, just to refresh my muscle memory. For me playing with 50/50 embouchure just does not work.

I was teaching future brassteachers at the shool Stockholms Pedagogiska Institut for 25 years.
The students had to at some time play all brassintruments for knowledge.
I played for some time all brasses my self.
I could not get a acceptable horn sound with a 50/50 embouchure, neither could any of the students I remember.
The student was trumpet players, tuba players, trombone players and of course horn players.
I could play some with the 50/50 embouchure, sounding like a bad valve trombone, for me it was much mor easy to play more upper lip, from what I remember was that the same for the students.

I really don´t understand the benifit of teaching from a trumpet book.

Svenne Larsson

[Tooloud]

@redthunder

I did not want to blame anyone as a person. If the circumstances you are in are that bad, one certainly has to accommodate.
But from the point of view of teaching aspiring future musicians I stand with what I stated above. I know some poorly educated brassplayers, who cannot even really tell the note they are to play, because all they were taught were "fingerings". This only gets you so far... But not to the point of making music, just noise...

Anyway: If making any kind of sound serves to other purposes than just music, maybe for getting kis off the street or teach them social skills, every working method is justified, of course!

[Gary]

I don't see a problem and I don't think you need to make any subtle embouchure changes just because it "hypothetically" might work. I play/ed Trumpet, French Horn, Eb Alto Horn and Trombone. I learned each horn independently of the others.

[Basbasun]

I don't see a problem and I don't think you need to make any subtle embouchure changes just because it "hypothetically" might work. I play/ed Trumpet, French Horn, Eb Alto Horn and Trombone. I learned each horn independently of the others.

Yes.
I noticed that the French horn was the doubling that was more difficult the other doublings for the students at SMI. There is more than the embouchure itself, but the big range on the small rim gave more problems than the trumpet, trombone, tuba doubling.
Almost all students played with more upperlip both on their first (and second) and the horn, just a few played with more upper lip, on all instrument. Just because it worked best that way.

How to keep the embouchure on the trombone? Practice both horns.

[kbryson]

I used to teach both Trombone and French Horn lessons, and it was fine for my embouchure. It took a lot of investment up front. I bought an instrument I could actually enjoy playing on (good horns are not cheap!), and took 6 months of private lessons from a noted horn teacher in my area. As others have said, try to keep up on both. I used to keep all my horn students scheduled to the same day, that way I could focus all my horn warmups and technique practicing on that day and sound good in the lessons!

I'm not sure what level you plan on teaching, but research some beginner method books you'd like to use, or write some of your own beginner horn exercises. I found that the typical band books (Accent on Achievement, or standard of excellence, etc. ) are not written very well for beginning hornists.

[Wilktone]

Almost all students played with more upperlip both on their first (and second) and the horn, just a few played with more upper lip, on all instrument. Just because it worked best that way.

Because it worked best that way or because the method books they were working off of have a "horn embouchure" with a certain mouthpiece placement and a "trombone embouchure" with a different mouthpiece placement? An awful lot of the brass pedagogy books (in English, at least) have this misconception that there is something inherently different about the embouchure form between different brass players. I believe that there are differences between players, but good long-term technical development is best served by playing with the same embouchure type and form for all brass instruments, if you're going to double.

[Gary]

"I noticed that the French horn was the doubling that was more difficult the other doublings for the students at SMI."

Basbun, I don't discount your experience at all, but from my perspective it didn't matter. I just played the Horn and the Trombone as two different instruments and mouthpiece placement just happened, naturally. I'm not trying to get into somebody's head that I don't even know, but is it possible that they paid too much attention to micro-analyzing embouchures (not unheard of from college academics, LOL), instead of just letting thing happen naturally?

In any case, the biggest challenge I found was, because acoustically the notes are so much closer to each other, was hearing the pitches. You can't just wish for a pitch and blow. You have to really hear it accurately in your mind.

I played Trumpet in H.S., played Horn my first year in college, then trumpet the next three years. I then played Horn my first two years in the service and Trumpet, my next two years. In no case did I notice a problem with embouchure placement.

[Basbasun]

Yes Gary, I do agree.
The students was not instructed to where to put the mouthpiece, the placement was because it did worked best like that. There are are some horn players (fantastic players) who use more lower lip in the mouthpiece.
No I don´t se the placement as the big proplem, nor the promblem to keep the trombone embouchure.
There are othere problems to the horn like how to use the hand, the range on a small mpc etc. If you play the Bb horn the note are not more close to each other then on the trombnone, many hornists prefer to play as much as possible on the F horn for the sound, then the note are closer together. If anything the high range is more easy on the horn compare to the trombone.

[Tooloud]

Yes, it is easier to play high notes.

BUT: It is the region of around the 15th partial and the partials there are so damn close together, getting even higher, what is not needed for 99.9% of literature, 100% for non-professionals, the partials are even less than a semitone apart. As Gary pointed out, horn playing is far more about hearing and singing than just blowing into a brasstube.
For the normal required range of the french horn just listen to the begin of "Ein Heldenleben" by Richard Strauß. that's what most hornplayers use for testing the embouchure before anybody comes to listen (At least I do...)

[Basbasun]

Do you play that on the F horn or the Bb horn? Most pro trombone players can play that to. But that recording sounds very good. But now we have travel realy long way from the question from the OP. Is this what is called pissing contest?

[Tooloud]

That is a question of a nearly religious dimension... F oder Bb...

In fact, I started as a true believer in the ancient art of F-Horn. But - the times, they are-a-changeing... Nowadays my horn stands in Bb, pressing the trigger puts it in F.
Lyrical music still sounds better on the F-side of the horn, of course.

Off-topic over! Sorry!!