Newhornist’s Blog

Learning the horn again!

Summer 2011

Like everyone else, I’m wondering what happened to the summer. Usually I remember what I didn’t manage to get done that I had hoped to – bicycling, exercise, piano, school review, etc., etc. – but I realized the other day that I did do a lot of horn stuff and that’s a really good thing. In addition to attending the BSO Academy that I posted about last June, I played in a trio at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, took numerous lessons, sometimes more than once a week, practiced at least 2 hours a day and attended Jeff Nelsen’s Fearless Camp again a few weeks ago. I also bought a 1969 N series Conn 8D a few weeks before the BSO Academy.

So to start, why did I buy a Conn horn or any horn for that matter? Back when I started going to school last September, I was getting a bit beat up about my bright sound and I began what has turned into a year long effort to warm up and darken my sound. A lot of this effort is working on air, support, vowel sounds, and opening up my throat. Some of it is trying other horns and mouthpieces, one of which was the Conn. It solved my bright sound problem and amidst my ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ get another horn agita, my teacher’s comment, “Just get the big assed American horn” sealed the deal.

I’ve posted about air numerous times, frequently saying that I think I’ve figured it out. Well I think each time I put together another piece of the puzzle but I’m still learning. Another comment from my teacher, “Just blow for heavens sake”, helped. The Conn, however, has helped me tremendously as did lessons from two of the pros at the BSO. The Conn just needs more air and support and it’s teaching me to use air correctly all the time. Taking lessons from different people helps because they’ll say something just slightly differently than my teacher and all of a sudden something clicks. When I got back from the BSO Academy I realized that I had made a solid leap in the right direction using air and my sound on my Otto horn has improved significantly.

I’d be very content with my Conn and my Otto except that the mild tendonitis that I’ve had in my left shoulder has turned into screaming, stabbing horrible pain to the point that holding either horn is extremely painful. Sometime last year I bought a hornstick to try to help with my shoulder but it is quite clumsy to use and it looks dorky besides. If it worked well I’d deal with looking dorky. I’ve tried playing on the leg but that really doesn’t relieve that much weight off my left shoulder. Then in early July I was playing duets with a good friend of mine and I tried his Schmid and it was like manna from heaven. Not only in weight but in sound as well. So I placed an order for a Schmid from Houghton Horns.

I don’t have the Schmid yet and when I was at Fearless Camp Jeff Nelson got in an Otto 201 that is lighter than my Otto 180K and of course, lighter than the Conn. I sound pretty good on it too but I wasn’t sure it was ‘the horn’ so I got a loaner Schmid from Houghton Horns and I’ve been testing both of them for the past week and a half. The Schmid is still lighter by 150 grams and the balance of weight favors my shoulder. The Otto feels lighter nearer the bell. Sound wise, they are similar when I play them and depending on which mouthpiece I use I can get either one of them to sound great. I’ve finally made a decision to go with the Schmid because of the weight. With both horns sounding great, weight is why I’m getting another horn. Now I have to decide if I want to wait for the lacquered Schmid I ordered or just get the unlacquered one I have on loan.

Back to air – my big challenge now is to remember to keep the air going all the time. I understand what I need to do finally. I have notes written all over my music about keeping up air support, blowing thru notes and taking big breaths. Now it needs to become a habit.

I’ve been thinking about why I don’t post that often anymore and some of it is because I’m really busy but it’s also because my horn playing doesn’t change rapidly any more. Changes come over months of work. In the beginning, change happened everyday. Joy, frustration, extreme frustration, endurance, no endurance, stiffness, air, no air, on and on. Now I just practice. I don’t think of days or hours in terms of good or bad. I do lots of work and I get slow acceptable progress. Yay. I’ll post when interesting horn things happen.

September 3, 2011 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Orchestra weirdness

At the end of my rant about band yesterday I said I would explain why I didn’t sign up for orchestra this semester. I had two reasons – one was scheduling. I had less down time waiting for band to start in the late afternoon (tues + thurs) than waiting for orchestra to start (mon – wed). I’m done with class on Wednesday at 11 and orchestra starts at 4 and it didn’t make sense to go home so that was a lot of time to kill. However I would have dealt with the scheduling issue except for reason #2.

Reason #2: I was the only wind player that took orchestra for credit so I sat at every rehearsal playing my part along with the tympanist and the strings. This was very disconcerting. Horns are loud and every note I missed was heard clearly by everyone. Of course this kept me on my A game but I still felt very uncomfortable. It was also hard to keep counting correctly for thirty or forty measures rest without any help from the woodwind and brass cues in my part. And with all the instrumentation it’s easier to listen and just know where to come in.

About three weeks before our concert (Beethoven 2nd) our conductor started getting some winds to show up so one day we’d have a flute and another day a clarinet and once we even had two trumpets and an oboe. We finally had a full orchestra for the dress rehearsal. So I got to hear all the parts and how they fit together once before the concert.  I spent hours and hours listening to the CD and trying to play along with the CD. It’s just not like the real thing. I took orchestra to get the full experience of playing with an orchestra including all the rehearsals.

So this semester I opted for symphonic band and wind ensemble. Oops. In addition to the seating issues I mentioned yesterday, I’ve played all the music already, except for one easy piece, in the two community bands I’m in. For one of the pieces I played 1st and 4th so I know the piece inside out and upside down. For the others I played 4th and I’m still playing 4th. No learning experience this semester.

This morning I asked the orchestra conductor what they were playing this semester because both the 2nd horn and I were talking about switching to orchestra. The conductor said they were just using strings this semester because no winds signed up. I have no idea what’s going to happen next semester but I suspect that if I sign up for orchestra it will be the same as last semester. So I’m still on a quest to find an orchestra to play in.

February 23, 2011 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Train wreck

Well it’s happened. I completely blew an opening seven bar solo at a quartet performance at the beginning of June. My first note was extremely sharp, though I didn’t realize that at the time, and I felt like I started on the wrong note and every note after that sounded off to me. With that running in my head, I just couldn’t recover; in fact, I had no idea how to recover, and the whole solo was a fiasco.

I knew how to play the solo and I had just played it forty minutes earlier in a practice room without any problems including hitting the first note in tune. I know I do have problems with intonation but not usually to the extreme of this first note. So I’ve been asking myself what happened that made this first note so bad and one of the reasons goes back to the last rehearsal. I played horribly at the last rehearsal. Everything was off. Intonation, tonguing, fingering, rhythm, you name it, I blew it.

The only excuse I have for this is that we changed the seating because I asked (and boy do I regret that request) not to sit on the outside during the performance. This put me next to someone on my left. During the rehearsal I couldn’t hear what I was playing and that completely messed me up. I only figured this out on my way home or I would have asked to move back to my usual spot. I realized that I have never played with another horn directly on my left. In one of the bands I’m in I sit where the 1st horn would typically sit and I have a sax next to me. In the other band I sit on the end of the horn section but I am slightly curved toward the clarinets so the 3rd horn’s bell is not that close to me. With such a bad rehearsal as the last rehearsal before the recital, my confidence that I could play anything was shot. I was mentally in a really bad place. I didn’t have a positive experience to remember and rely on, just a horrible one.

Another reason is that I was nervous. There’s not much I can do about that except play more in public. Today I had a performance with a small brass ensemble and I had a four bar solo which was fine however it was in the middle of the piece. This leads to yet another reason why I messed up the solo. I have figured out that I have first-note-itis. I played 1st horn in the college orchestra back in the early seventies and the 1st chairs were invited to play with the local pro orchestra. We were doing Tchaik 5 and I had to play the famous solo. I chipped the first note. The fact that I remember this and almost nothing else about college orchestra I think is significant. What I realized is that I only think about that first note even though the rest of the solo was fine. And I always think of that note. So even almost 40 years later I worry excessively about first notes. Now I have to figure out how to get it out of my head.

Summer 2010 –>

June 20, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , | 5 Comments

Recap – Part 2

Endurance:

I lasted about 20 minutes when I first picked up the horn. Then I spent months lasting only about 45 minutes until I got a tip to play for 20 minutes then rest for 20 minutes, play for 20, rest for 20 and play for 20 to push to an hour of practice daily. I did this for many months ultimately doing this on / off strategy for two practice sessions in the morning and again in the afternoon. On the days when I had band rehearsals or a lesson I could only warm up in the morning if I wanted any chops later in the day. Now I practice two hours daily, morning and afternoon, but without the 20 minute breaks. I also practice for a full hour in the morning before rehearsals or lessons. I occasionally put in three hours in a day though I do pay for that with poor endurance and/or sound quality about two days later.

I’m heading to the Barry Tuckwell Institute (BTI) again this June and we will be playing for 3 to 4 hours everyday. Last year I really, really struggled getting through all the playing and by the last day my chops were totally shot. So my plan is to try to build up to 3 hours a day, with breaks, so that I can do better at BTI.

Consistency:

For a long time I would have some good days followed by numerous bad days. I consider a ‘good’ day to be a day when I miss fewer notes and play with a decent sound quality. Really bad days are when I just can’t play anything right. I’ve learned that these really bad days occur when I don’t concentrate and use air properly. About six months ago I got to the point where I had about the same number of good days and bad days and they seemed to come in cycles. Three or four good days followed by three or four bad days.  Over time the bad days are getting less bad. When I changed my mouthpiece to the Moosewood AW11 I started having numerous good days and only an occasional bad day. I’ve just started using a Moosewood C8 (no rim change) and so far I’m not having any problems. Practicing is much more rewarding when the good days are so frequent.

Laziness:

For about six months I was very diligent about taking notes during both my practice sessions and my lessons. Then I stopped taking notes altogether. I even went through the effort of designing a practice log. I only used that for a week or two. I think the reason I stopped taking notes was that I was always writing the same things which got boring. I didn’t really have a good way of capturing small increments of progress. I was also recording myself occasionally and I stopped doing that as well.

I also get lazy and don’t really woodshed the problems. I know how to practice but playing something from start to finish is more fun. I don’t spend a lot of time with scales even though I know it’s really important. I think a lot of this comes from not having a specific goal of finishing something by a certain date. Recently I got into a quartet with a recital on June 4th and I’m also doing Brahms Trio on May 23rd. I have been much more diligent about how I practice now that I have a goal. This also makes me wonder why assignments from my teachers don’t have the same effect.

Brahms Horn Trio –>

May 4, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Blogging consistency

I’ve been crazy busy for the past two months and I’ve let my blogging fall behind. Between two community bands with concerts coming up now, a chamber music group and a quartet plus lessons, two hours of practice each day and the rest of life it’s been chaotic to say the least. Fortunately things are calming down and I’ll get back to posting at least weekly.

Recap – Part 1 –>

May 2, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , | Leave a Comment

Rehearsal Etiquette

A debate has started on the Yahoo Horn Group about rehearsal etiquette and in particular if ‘fun’ at rehearsals is appropriate and that having fun gives amateur ensembles a bad name. A question was also asked why just playing the music wasn’t enough. I weighed in pretty heavily on the fun side of the fence for amateur ensembles (a key distinction) and I thought I would also comment here. My comments are expanded a bit from what I wrote on the horn group website and I’ve added a few questions at the end.

My first question is amongst whom do amateur ensembles have a bad name? It’s certainly not the audiences – who we play for – in the community I live in. Our concerts for both bands I’m in are standing room only in decent sized auditoriums. We typically get standing ovations at the end of our concerts.

In the band I’m in where levity and laughter is allowed and enjoyed people come to rehearsals early allowing plenty of time to warm up. They bring their music home and practice. Hardly anyone misses rehearsals. Yes, while we are pulling out music in between pieces that we are rehearsing we have a few laughs. Sometimes even in the middle of a piece if something really funny happens. We are amateurs so there are times, as an example, when different sections start at the wrong rehearsal number and the outcome is really funny. There are even times when two different sections start on a different piece of music. Why not laugh?

In the band I’m in with the ‘serious’ conductor people are talking with their feet. This serious conductor took over the band in the middle of last year. Before that the band had a more relaxed conductor and rehearsals were packed just like the other band. Since January we’re lucky if half the band shows up and those that do show up are typically late. Remember that this is about amateur groups where members are volunteers and don’t have to attend rehearsals. It’s gotten so bad that the conductor put the winter concert off by a month and started a heavy recruitment campaign. I suspect that for our concert in March we will still have a full audience because their expectations will be from last year.  I have the feeling that the May concert won’t be so well attended.

In the ‘fun’ band the music isn’t less good because we have fun, it’s actually better because people really want to be there and they care enough to work at making it good.

I’ve only been playing again for two years so I still love going to band regardless of the level of tension at the one bands’ rehearsals. I’ll play in anything I can find. However there are people in both bands that have been going for fifteen, twenty or even thirty years. Clearly they don’t want to waste their time if they are not enjoying the experience and just the music isn’t enough for them.

I subbed in an orchestra (and got paid) in December and the atmosphere, as expected, was completely professional. We played Brahms Requiem and the music was glorious and yes, the music was more than enough to make me happy. I would play with this orchestra if I could all the time and love every minute of it, no levity necessary. I know enough to behave in an appropriate manner for the situation I’m in and I would hope that other amateurs would also behave appropriately. I don’t think that generally amateurs behave badly and professionals behave properly or that people need to be in a more serious environment in order to behave properly. There are bad apples on both sides.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong position here though I personally prefer a more relaxed atmosphere. In the end amateurs can make choices about what they want to do and those that prefer a more serious environment can opt out of whatever they don’t like and vice versa. Of course this really isn’t true for those making a living in an orchestra. Lot’s of times you are stuck whether you like it or not.

Which side of the fence do you fall on? Is there any levity in a professional orchestra? If there is does the music suffer for it? If there isn’t do the musicians suffer because of it?

Rehearsal Etiquette Update –>

February 28, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

JoyKeys and a lesson

My most recent lesson: There are numerous adjectives that come to mind – horrendous, horrific, terrible, embarrassing, productive. You might wonder how ‘productive’ got into this list. I take lessons from Scott Bacon (Siegfried’s Call) monthly and this one was torture. I had a really bad practice session the day before my lesson and this seems to be cyclical with me. I have a string of bad days followed by a string of good days and then back to bad days, and so forth.

I started my lesson telling Scott that I didn’t think I had improved much, if at all, from my last lesson. Good thing I said that. We started off with some warm-ups and I could tell that my chops weren’t responding well. Very stiff. My high range was non-existant, my tone was awful, my intonation was awful and I was clamming notes all over the place. We kept going anyway. Kopprasch #3. We worked on the different articulations, rhythm, dynamics, continuity and kept to the middle range. Then we moved on to Singer #7 – quarter note arpeggios. Again we skipped the high notes and concentrated on continuity from note to note and steadiness of tempo. It really didn’t matter that the quality of my tone was bad. It would have been nicer if I sounded good but I still learned a lot.

I’m working on the adagio movement of the Schumann Adagio and Allegro so that was next. We went measure by measure working on phrasing and rhythm. There wasn’t a prayer in hell that I was going to get the high C so we took it down an octave. For this piece I really wished that I sounded better but I still got a few “that was very nice” comments from Scott. After two hours and ten minutes I was spent so we stopped. When we started the lesson I didn’t think I was going to get much out of it but in the end it really was productive. As Scott was walking me to my car he said that even though I sounded bad I played much more musically. I spend so much time focusing on getting the notes that I usually don’t play very musically. I think both my teachers find getting me to play musically is like pulling teeth. This time I already knew that getting the right notes was a crap shoot so I was able to focus on musicality. From Scott’s I drove three hours straight to my 2 hour band rehearsal. Irony of ironies, I played great. No range problems, no tone problems and very few clams.

JoyKeys: While I was up at Scott’s for my lesson I had him install two JoyKeys to replace my water keys. The JoyKey is designed by Andrew Joy, a hornist working primarily in Europe. It’s a replacement for the traditional water key. Instead of using a water key there’s a metal mesh plug in the JoyKey that releases the water continuously but maintains an air seal.

I decided to get them when I was up at my previous lesson with Scott and he didn’t have to dump water once during my entire 2 hour lesson. I had them installed, replacing my water keys, before I started this lesson and I didn’t have to dump any water during my lesson or during my band rehearsal even though the horn sat in the back of my car for three hours on a very cold day. Occasionally I have to blow into the horn to get rid of some residual water. So what’s the downside? Ahem. My pants get wet. Actually more damp that wet but still visible on jeans if you know where to look. I wouldn’t wear khaki pants. That could get embarrassing. I’m planning on getting a nice chamois to put on my lap but until I get one a towel does the job. So far I’m happy that I had them installed.

Rehearsal Etiquette –>

February 27, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Having to…

The other day I was really busy day and I found myself at 4PM finally heading home from the grocery store. On the way home I said to myself, “I have to practice” and that got me thinking. Why do I ‘have’ to practice? When did it change from I want to practice to I have to practice? (This also reminded me of how much I hate the phrase – “You have to understand.” People say it constantly, especially when they are making excuses about something. I really don’t ‘have’ to understand anything.) Anyway, back to practicing. I play the horn for fun. Yes, I want to get better, lots better, but in the end it’s enjoyment that drives me.

Of course my feelings about having to practice seem to be directly related to how well I am playing. Last weekend through Monday  I really wasn’t playing very well. It’s frustrating though I’m so used to it that it doesn’t phase me nearly as much as it used to. Tuesday I didn’t play at all and didn’t go to band because I had a horrible headache. Wednesday I didn’t practice just because I really didn’t want to which is is a first for me. Hence the ‘I have to practice’ conversation I had in my head followed by the decision not to bother. I’ve missed practice days but not because I just didn’t feel like playing. Then Thursday was absolutely stellar, both for the morning hour and again for the afternoon hour. Ditto for yesterday. It’s such a joy when I play a lot better than I expect to.

I wish I could unlock the secret to what makes some days so good. It could be because of the two days of rest but I’ve done that followed by an absolutely awful day. I did do a more abbreviated warm-up and I switched to one that my teacher gave me that she used back in high school. So maybe on Thursday I was fresher by the time I got to working on ‘real’ music. Not that warm-ups aren’t music but I’ve gotten into the bad habit of doing them by rote and not really thinking about making music out of the warm-up. Maybe the good days are days when I just concentrate better. Thursday I practiced standing up the whole time but Friday I sat after I finished my warm-ups. It would be nice to figure it out.

This morning my enthusiasm was back. I woke up at 5AM – fortunately not typical – and looked at my horn sitting out on a chair and wished that I could start practicing. Unfortunately people were sleeping. Gee, why do they do that? Don’t they know that they should get up so I can practice? I can’t wait until 8Am. Well, maybe 9 if I want to be nice.

Concentration –>

February 6, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Breakthrough?

It’s been an interesting two weeks since I last posted. For the most part I’ve been frustrated since playing day to day it’s hard to notice any progress. However, band started for the new year again after a month long Christmas break and that was an eye opening experience.

Tuesday night marked my one year anniversary playing with the 1st community band I joined.  One year ago I was very apprehensive about joining a band. I didn’t really think I was ready but fortunately my horn teacher gave me a bit of a push. I remember feeling very out of place and very nervous. I was introduced to the 1st hornist and he and I were the only hornists there at the start of the rehearsal. Thank heavens the 2nd and 3rd horns showed up. I really didn’t want to have the 1st horn hear me play.

This was the first time I played with a group since college in 1972. The band director handed me the music for 4th horn and off we went into the wild blue yonder. Cut time at quite a tempo. I didn’t have a prayer of playing any notes, let alone know where we were in the music. Fortunately we played some slower stuff and I fared better at that. I liked playing with the band enough that I kept going and over time I got better.

Fast forward to last Tuesday. The music was easy! Yes, easy. The band director handed out all new music and I had absolutely no problem sight reading through it. This was a huge boost to my lagging morale about my horn playing. I’m genuinely better. Wow.

Moving on to my lesson last Thursday. I’ve been struggling through Kopprasch #3 and Singer #4 for what seems like forever. Always with the same problem areas. I can’t play from the third space C up to the F and back down to the C cleanly – I kind of bump up into the notes – no matter how much I practice it. I have the same problem with these notes in other pieces. Of course these are not the only notes I have trouble with but at the moment these are the ones that are driving me crazy.

At my lesson my horn teacher asked me to try to open up my embouchure a bit because my sound was more closed than it’s been in the past. Lots of times she says to play out more. That’s one of my bigger problems. But at this lesson playing out more wasn’t really helping my sound open up. We checked my right hand position and that was okay. Once I opened up my embouchure my teacher said that my sound got a lot better. But the bigger change was that I didn’t miss my trouble notes. I had also been playing those same notes flat for the past couple of weeks. That improved as well. At the end of that lesson I felt recharged.

I’ve been trying to keep my embouchure more open over the past couple of days. I have found that some things have changed for the worse. I’ve lost my high Bb and C which had been easy for me. The more troubling change is that my middle register has gotten fuzzy. It’s hard to describe but the notes don’t have a pure tone. I don’t miss nearly as many notes as I had been but I’m sacrificing the quality of the note.

Yesterday I tried to go back to my usual embouchure but think about opening it up rather than actually doing it. This brought back my high range and cleaned up the middle register a bit. Some of the note chipping came back from C to F but not as bad as it was. What I can’t really tell is whether my sound closed up. That’s hard for me to hear especially in the room that I’ve been practicing in for the past three weeks. Wouldn’t it be funny if my whole recent sound problem is the acoustics in the room I’m using. Overall I think this change is a slight improvement that still needs to be tweaked.

Practice room acoustics –>

January 10, 2010 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Downs and ups

The past couple of weeks have been tumultuous to say the least. Finding time to practice was difficult but I did manage to put in around 40 minutes daily except for one day when I didn’t play at all. Just one day. Well you’d think I hadn’t picked up the horn in months by the way I played for several days after that one day of rest.

I think I’ve discovered a trend. If I back off my usual two hours of practice per day, or heaven forbid, skip a day, I play poorly for several days after. Then I get a bit better than I was before my lapse in practicing. When I read my practice notes from way back I noticed that every time I missed a day or more of practice I suffered for it. What’s hard to understand is how some of my fellow band members manage to play quite well – decent tone, only a few missed notes, etc. – each week at rehearsal without picking up their horn during the week. They walk in, toot a few notes as a warmup if they aren’t late, and get through an entire rehearsal. And this is band so we play non-stop for the whole rehearsal.

I was talking to my horn teacher last week about this and we thought this might be a ‘the more you play, the more you need to play’ problem. In other words, the muscles in my chops are used to playing a couple of hours a day every day and consequently, need to be used a couple hours a day. This is different than the typical weight training schedule of working one group of muscles one day and resting them the next day. For most things rest is usually helpful. This doesn’t seem to be true for me when it comes to playing the horn. Do any of you experience anything like this? Will I get to a point where I can take a day off and not pay for it with several days of poor horn playing?

My schedule eases off after an orchestra concert tonight so I should be able to practice everyday and stick to a plan. When I have band rehearsals I don’t practice for more than 40 minutes, if that, in order to save my chops for the rehearsal. I don’t have rehearsals again until the first week in January.  It will be interesting to see if several weeks of very consistent practicing will make a noticeable improvement.

Quiet time –>

December 15, 2009 Posted by | Learning the Horn | , , , , , , | 6 Comments

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