Well, you should agree with other sections on which zigzag of the conductors beat all should release their sound. If you play after the beat (as trombones do too often !), you will be late. Everybody has to come with the beat, which means, all have to link in with the conductors beat, feel it & play with it.
Acoustically: if there is too much space between the horns & a wall behind, reflecting their sound, it might take longer for the sound to reach the mic indeed. Trying a different seating (as recommended by others) would help as well as certain sound reflectors (sound shields) well behind the horns, say some one meter or 1.5. This is a field for experiments. But how would you manage precise playing, if you had to anticipate every note ? Impossible. And if, how far apart from the other instruments would the horns be playing, as most horns tend to be a bit early anyway. ============================================================ ==================================================== -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nicholas Hartman Hartman Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 2:00 AM 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/hans%40pizka. de _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
