[Hornlist] Pick-up notes
Herb Foster asked me to respond on this after there was a seeming disagreement between passionate pedagogues:) I've thought about this a lot trying to see whether we might be saying seemingly opposite things, but actually be in complete agreement. Someone else in this discussion cited the F-f' octave leap in Strauss 1 as an example; with two undergrads playing it for their juries, it provided a laborabory:) When I play that leap, I BEGIN the lower note without emphasis, but then I deepen the note, i.e. move more air volume, but open up my mouth-space and throat, so as not to make a crescendo, then I raise the back of the tongue, shrinking the mouthspace, speeding up the air and achieving the leap without "landing" on the upper note. So yes, in effect I end up playing the lower note "stronger" than the upper note. And here's the bottom line for me: playing the horn (and I think musical instruments in general) is about doing the right thing HORIZONTALLY. The agogic (strong beat) accent that I was identifying as being essential to a singing approach is a HORIZONTAL "accent", not a vertical one. Vertical thinking (other than for playing "together") is the enemy of vocal-style. In this context, I'd like to point out that my belief is that the greatest quality of Western art music is melody. When we go to music school we start being taught about "chords" and "Roman numerals" and are taught to realize figured bass. We look at other world musics and identify them as not having harmonic language and so think that this is the defining characteristic of Western music. If you really look at the way "chords" developed it has been the coincidental result of simultaneous melodies. For example we can see that the augmented 6th chord arose from chromatic voice-leading. Our musical heritage up until very recently has been based on melody, and from plain-chant to Mozart to Mahler there is much to support this argument. Not that other elements of music are not significant, compelling, interesting, whatever, but in the end, it's the tune we end up whistling:) Respectfully submitted, Doug Lundeen ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] Pick-up notes
It seems to me that most melodies can have words added to them. I'm sure many of us do this when trying to teach our students how we want them to phrase or to illustrate the emotional content. A singer has to have a very clear picture of the entire phrase before he starts, especially the emphasis points to which the breath leads. If the libretto has been set effectively, the stressed syllables will fall on the strong beats, and the words with the most emotive content will have the longest duration and be sung with a "mezza di voce" i.e. slight swell (emphasis on slight, NOT twah-twah), to make sure that the air continues to move forward rather than become static. Pick-up notes aren't thrown away, but neither are they goals in a phrase, the strong beats and sustained notes are the goals, and appogiaturae are especially important points of stress to which the air must lead and "blossoom" through. Frequently, students make the highest note of the phrase the "goal" or are "confrontational" about the first note regardless of its relative weight in the overall phrase, thus leading to interpretations that frequently put the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-bel, which only serves to inhibit technical execution. ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] Hand in Telemann?
Refer to Tom Hebert's DMA dissertation about the Court Orchestra in Dresden. Around 1718 works by Heinichen, Pisendel, et al. start employing notes outside the harmonic series beyond the F-natural and A natural. I don't know any players who can "lip" e-flats and a-flats in the staff into tune. I think we have to infer that at least in Dresden, an early form of hand-stopping was in use by this date. This would make sense, as far as Hampel being someone, then, who was expanding on a technique that was already being used in Dresden in the previous generation. The fact that Bach was living in the Saxon political and cultural region and had his music performed in Dresden, would lead one to the conclusion that this hand technique was known throughout Saxony and Thuringia. Telemann was the first choice for Bach's Leipzig position, surely he would have known about this practice. Handel is probably another issue. One of the horn histories, I believe Morely-Pegge discusses a reference to the remarkable feature that a horn soloist gave a concert in the early 1750's and played in different keys on the same instrument. This may very well indicate that the crooked horn was a novelty in England at that date, meaning that the horns in use before then were fixed-pitch hunting horns. Note that Handel's parts differ harmonically from Bach's. Handel never writes the d and a (above the staff) as a sustained harmonic interval, but Bach does this all the time. This one feature out of many, leads me to believe that we should use the hand in Bach and play bell's up for Handel. I'd love to get a chance to just let the Handel parts fly with the out-of-tune partials adding "piquancy" rather than using the nodal venting, which is of course, completely un-historic. ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] Horn in Ut
Just for the historical record. "Ut" for "C" comes from the original medieval notational system devised by Guido de Arezzo. He noted that each phrase of the hymn, Ut queant laxis began on a successive step higher (for six steps). This hymn became the basis for his hexachord solfege system, which is the predecessor of our modern solfege scale. He named each pitch of the hexachord for the beginning syllable of the the line of text: (Grout page 59 and following) Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris Mira gestorum Famuli tuorum Solve polluti Labii reatum, Sancte Joannes (Grout page 59 and following) I don't know when the "ut" got changed to "do." Probably "do" is easier to sing? DL ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] soft playing
Agreed, we can suffer paralysis by analysis, and the bodily coordinations necessary for achieving a reliable technique on the instrument must become unconcious, but perhaps there are intellectual understandings that can be helpful. Also, we all learn differently. I remember as a young player (with my C-1 mouthpiece:) ) I LOVED to play loudly and hated when we would play Mozart and had to play even high-G piano. In fact, I remember we thought that composers who wrote soft and high for the horn just didn't get what was great about the instrument:) It was always easier to play softer higher on my C-12, but I couldn't get as fat a sound and it would "edge" sooner. Perhaps examining why smaller equipment would make soft playing easier provides a clue. The most important thing to remember is that what one is doing on a brass instrument is causing a standing wave to arise in the instrument. As I understand it the standing wave is both radiating out of the instrument's bell and also reflecting back toward the player. It is the relative strength of this reflected wave that accounts for the sensation of "resistance." The lips, rather than making a sound or "buzzing" are actually opening and closing like louvers at the frequency of the pitch being produced. (There were strobe photo films taken of Montreal Symphony players on clear lucite mouthpieces a number of years ago that proved this.) The most efficient playing occurs when the air speed, volume and pressure, lip contraction and reflected wave are in equillibrium for the desired pitch and volume. If one chooses very deep or large-bore mouthpiece equipment, or a very large bell throat, or both, one reduces the strength of the reflected wave, the reflected wave acting to some degree as support for the lips. This means that the lip contraction has to do more of the work to resist the tendency of the lips to "prolapse" into the mouthpiece. I remember my soft playing used to be a "stifled" forte. I came to realize that soft playing requires a smaller lip opening and less air volume and pressure. Nowadays I try to think of releasing the mouthpiece pressure when going from forte to piano to facilitate the contraction of the lip opening, which in piano (and in the upper range) is much smaller than the diameter of the mouthpiece rim. Taking into account that everything is a compromise, if one doesn't have the strongest chops in the world, or the practice time needed to maintain an extremely robust embouchure, choosing equipment that favors a stronger reflected wave can make the lower dynamics easier. There will be a sacrifice of fatness and "darkness" especially in the local environment (i.e. what you hear right out of the bell). That said, there are many leading players who use smaller mouthpiece equipment and horns who are capable of playing amazing orchestral fortissimi, but their setups don't blow "freely" and there can be a fair amount of "noise" in the sound if you listen to what's coming out of the bell. However this "noise" does not carry into the hall, the listener hears a virile sound with a tremendous amount of "core." Respectfully submitted, Douglas Lundeen Assoc. Prof. of Horn Rutgers University www.brassrootstrio.com ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] Giardinelli Mouthpieces
I grew up in the NYC Metro playing a large-bell silver horn starting on a C-12 and moving to a C-1 later on and emulating the Chambers/Bloom aesthetic with some success:) At CCM years later, working on a DMA for which I had to prepare 4 recitals, it occurred to me that I needed different equipment for solo/chamber and bought an Alex Single-B that Kendall Betts had on consignment with Walter Lawson. It became immediately obvious that the Alex needed a different mouthiece. I used a Schilke 30B for about 10 years until the narrowness of the diameter began to feel restrictive. I am told that as we get older, we need to go to larger diameters and this has held true for me. I think that Schilke 30B had a 16.9mm inner diameter. I first moved to an Orval from Stork with a slightly narrow 17.5, then tried some other 17.5 Tilz models (Angerer, McWilliam), 17.5 Paxman (4B, 4C with both standard and narrow rims) 17.5 Klier (various cups in the M and K series) and finally the Halstead-Chidell line. I've given a lot of these mouthpieces extensive trials of at least a few months to several years (wary of the "honeymoon" and backlash effects of changing equipment.) I'm currently using the Halstead Chidell AN (a large 17.5) rim and switching between the 20,21A,22A and 23A cups depending on which of my horns I'm using (ranging from an Alex 107s compensating descant to a 303G full triple) and whether I'm playing solo/recital or large orchestra. I think it makes sense to use a mouthpiece system that has a variety of rims that interchange with a variety of cups. Empirically, it has seemed to me that the rim has to fit the player and the cup has to fit the horn. Doug Lundeen Brass Roots Trio Assoc. Prof. of Horn Rugers University ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
[Hornlist] Graudate Study
Graduate Horn Opportunities for 2008-09 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (close to NYC and Philadelphia) 1 or 2 MM - Awards up to full tuition plus $4K 1 or 2 DMA or Artist Diploma - Tuition plus minimum $6K Instruction in orchestra, chamber, solo and original instrument. Studio will provide Baroque and Classical natural horns by Lowell Greer and Richard Seraphinoff. Good freelance playing opportunities. Contact: Douglas Lundeen, Prof. of Horn - [EMAIL PROTECTED] rutgers.edu ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
