Hi Nick, It is really up to the conductor to fix this problem. I have had situations when I had to anticipate a bit to give the conductor what he wanted. Other times, I played along with what I heard and all was well. What I DO know is that you cannot completely trust the recording. Microphone placement is extremely crucial, and there are plenty of amateur engineers out there who do not know how to analyze a room and set up properly. A quarter of a beat is pretty extreme, and if the conductor was not complaining, and you felt like you were playing exactly with everyone else, there might be more to the problem than meets the ear.
Ciao. O. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nicholas Hartman Hartman Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 9:00 PM To: horn@music.memphis.edu Subject: [Hornlist] Anticipating the Beat Dear list, This past summer, I had the opportunity to play in a full size concert hall with a full symphony orchestra. I listened to our recording of the performance, and I noticed that the horns were consistently about a quarter of a beat behind. I find this strange because there was a wide range of talents playing in this orchestra, and we were ALL behind the beat. I'm sure this has to do with the hall, and it would seem that the most obvious way to correct it would be to play a quarter of a beat ahead. I have to question if this is correct, because there were eight horn players there, and none of us thought to play ahead of the beat. Also, I have never had a teacher tell me to play ahead of the beat. Is this common practice among orchestral horn players, or is there some trick I'm missing? Would the use of special equipment (like a sound shield) help this problem, or would that be on the list of blasphemous taboos of horn playing? Thanks very much. Nick Hartman __________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/ _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/pandolfi%40deerfield.edu _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
