Music Sound

Horn
en: (french) horn, it: corno, es: trompa, corno, fr: cor, de: horn
Classification Wind Brass Aerophone Playing range in F: sounds one fifth lower Related instruments Wagner tuba, Kornett, Flügelhorn

The horn is a brass instrument that consists of tubing wrapped into a coiled form. The instrument was first developed in France in about 1650 from the cor de chasse or hunting horn, and has been known as the French horn since it was refined and improved in England in 1750, although musicians, and particularly players of the instrument, generally refer to it simply as the horn. In fact, in the 1960s the International Horn Society declared that the official name of this instrument is now the "Horn".

The horn is a conically shaped instrument much like the cornet and Saxhorns. It has a tapered bore, steadily increasing in diameter along its length, unlike the trumpet and trombone, which are considered cylindrical. Unlike most other valved brass instruments, which use piston valves, the horn uses rotary valves. Piston valves are actually of French origin. The earlier horns used pistons, but then changed to rotary valves, which are of German origin, to save space, but the name of the instrument was nonetheless retained. Compared to the other brass instruments commonly found in the orchestra, the typical range of the horn is set an octave higher in its harmonic series, facilitated by its small, deep mouthpiece, and the fact that a typical horn contains twenty-six feet of tubing (the longest of any instrument) gives it its characteristic "mellow" tone. The typical playing range of a horn goes from the written F at the bottom of the staff in bass clef to the C above the staff in treble clef.

The horn is notoriously difficult to play, and as such is usually played by a musical elite. Since the typical range of the horn is an octave higher in its harmonic series, the "open" notes, or notes that can be played without pressing any valves, are closer together than they are on some other brass instruments. This results in the horn being a harder instrument to learn and requires a well trained ear to play it. The narrow mouthpipe and backward-facing bell also make it musically inefficient, but attempts to cure these problems have always resulted in a loss of its unique sound.

History

"How to shout and blow Horns."--Facsimile of a miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (15th century)

Early horns were much simpler than those in current use. These early horns were simply brass tubing wound a few times and flared into a larger opening at the end (called the bell of the horn). They evolved from the early hunting horns and, as such, were meant to be played while riding on a horse. The hornist would grip the horn on the piping near the mouthpiece and rest the body of the horn across his arm so that only one hand was needed to play and the other could be free to guide his steed. The only way to change the pitch was to use the natural harmonics of that particular length of tubing by changing the speed at which the lips vibrated against the mouthpiece; but by using a long tube and playing high in the harmonic series, considerable melodic variety was possible. The best-know example from this era is the Quoniam from JS Bach's Mass in B minor.

Later, horns caught the interest of composers, and were used to invoke an outdoors feeling and the idea of the chase. Even in the time of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, however, the horn player (now a part of the early orchestra) still had a much simpler version of the horn; he carried with him a set of crooks, which were curved pieces of tube of different length which could be used to change the length of the horn by removing part of the tubing and inserting a different length piece. The player now held the horn with both hands, holding the tubing near the mouthpiece with one, and putting the other into the bell, which was either rested upon the right knee of the player or the entire horn was lifted into the air. Now the pitch played could be changed in several ways. First the player could change the harmonic series which the instrument as a whole had by removing and inserting different sized crooks into the instrument, changing the length of the horn itself. Less globally, given a particular crook, the vibration of the lips could be varied in speed, thus moving to a different pitch on the given harmonic series. Finally, now that the player had his hand in the bell, the hand basically became an extension on the length of the horn, and by closing and opening the space available for air to leave the bell, he could bend the pitch to interpolate between the elements of a harmonic series. This interpolation finally made the horn a true melodic instrument, not simply limited to a harmonic series, and some of the great composers started to write concerti for this new instrument. The Mozart Horn Concerti, for example, were written for this type of horn, called the natural horn in the modern literature.

Around 1815, the horn took on a new form, as valves were introduced, which allowed the player to switch between crooks without the effort of manually removing one from the horn and inserting a new one. At this same time, the standard horn came to be the horn on the F harmonic series, and there were then three valves added to it. Using these three valves, the player could play all the notes reachable in the horn's range.

Types of horns

The valves of a Kruspe-style double horn

Despite this improvement, the single F horn had a rather irksome flaw. As the player played higher and higher notes, the distinctions a player had to make with his or her embouchure from note to note became increasingly precise. An early solution was simply to use a horn of higher pitch -- usually B-flat. The relative merits of F versus B-flat were a hotbed of debate between horn players of the late nineteenth century, until the German horn maker Kruspe produced a prototype of the "double horn" in 1897.

The double horn combines two instruments into a single frame: the original horn in F, and a second, higher horn keyed in B-flat. By using a fourth valve operated by the thumb, the horn player can quickly switch from the deep, warm tones of the F horn to the higher, brighter tones of the B-flat horn. The two sets of tones are commonly called "sides" of the horn. It should be noted that the first design of double horn did not have a separate set of slides pitched in F. Rather the main key of the horn was Bb (after the preferences of German horn players) and it could be played in F by directing air through the Bb slides and an F extension plus another set of tiny slides. This "compensated" for the longer length of the F slides, producing a horn now called the "compensating double". It was (and is) widely used by European horn players because of its light weight and ease of playing, especially in the high register.

In the words of Reginald Morley-Pegge, the invention of the double horn "revolutionized horn playing technique almost as much as did the invention of the valve." [Morley-Pegge, "Orchestral," 195]

The two most common styles ("wraps") of double horns are named Kruspe and Geyer (also known as Knopf), after the first instrument makers to develop and standardize them. The Kruspe wrap locates the Bb change valve above the first valve, near the thumb. The Geyer wrap has the change valve behind the third valve, near the pinky finger. In effect, the air flows in a completely different direction on the other model. Both models have their own strengths and weaknesses, and are a matter of personal choice among horn players.

There is now a triple horn (with an additional F key for the high range) slowly becoming more popular, although it remains somewhat of an extra luxury item as it is both expensive and very heavy.

External links

• The International Horn Society
• British Horn Society
• hornplayer.net
• http://www.brass-forum.co.uk UK brass discussion forum
• Professor John Q. Ericson's Horn Links
• Some online horn articles
• Ron Boerger's "Horn Players' FAQ"
• An online collection of horn orchestral excerpts
• How the valved horn emerged from the early Industrial Revolution
• HornRoller.com, News from the Hornosphere
• Brassmusic.Ru — Russian brass community
• French-horn.be, Belgian horn community
• Acoustics of Brass Instruments from Music Acoustics at the University of New South Wales.
• French Horn Resource Page