Author Archives: newhornist

International Horn Symposium Day 4

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I opted against going to the warm-ups this morning and it’s a good thing I did. I heard at the adult amateur ensemble session that the warm-ups were brutal. Full 4 octave range across all keys for starters. Most of the people that attended the warm-ups had some trouble playing in the ensemble. I always thought that the idea of warm-ups was to warm-up, not to kill the day before it even starts.

The amateur ensemble went well. The conductor upped the tempo to performance level and I still kept up and played well. Phew. We will be performing on Sunday evening. 

The rest of the day was loaded with performances, almost all of them fantastic. Jan Boen performed several excellent pieces by Jan Bach. He really played brilliantly. (See the description on this CD about the pieces Jan Boen played.) Jacek Muzyk performed the Suite for Cello in G Major by J. S. Bach.  Mr. Muzyk is technically excellent but I found the musicality a bit lacking. I felt his performance to be quite robotic. 

The evening concert began with The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse quartet. They were a delight to listen to and they interjected a lot of humor into their performance which kept us laughing. Annamia Larsson (popularly known for her You Tube performance of the Siegfried Long Call) and Jeff Nelson were the featured artists for tonight’s concert. Both were amazing. Between the two of them they played for well over an hour individually and together. My chops hurt just watching them. IMHO, this was the best evening concert so far.

International Horn Symposium Day 5 –>

Naughty Horn

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Hans has been misbehaving ever since he first arrived in my home. He just doesn’t play nicely with others. Numerous sessions in his time out corner haven’t helped either. Big Bertha, my mother’s piano, also gets quite upset when Hans misbehaves, especially since she can’t do anything about it. She’s got this nice equal temperament and she just can’t help herself. See, Hans problem is that he plays sharp even though I try to keep pointed objects away from him. 

I spent quite a lot of time with Hans parents, Herr and Frau Hoyer, here at IHS. They were quite surprised to learn about his bad behavior. They said he was behaving nicely when he left Germany though they admitted that they really didn’t spend a lot of time with him before he left home. I responded that whether or not their parenting skills were good or bad, Hans behavior was just unacceptable. 

I dropped Hans off with his parents and told them that they needed to play with him and see his bad behavior first hand. I pointed out that when he plays with his cousins in band that they don’t like him very much though I admitted that they have their own share of problems. One of Hans relatives from Germany on his father’s side saw his behavior first hand and gave Hans a good talking to but that didn’t help much.

Since several of Hans brothers and sisters were there, they decided to pay more attention to their behavior as well. Hans parents were very surprised to see that they also exhibited the same bad behavior. Something seems to have gone wrong during gestation for Hans and all of his siblings. At first they suggested that I just accept his bad behavior and be more accommodating of his flaws. Then they suggested giving him some Ritalen to flatten him down. I said no, that we really needed a cure not a cover up or band-aid and that Ritalen is not the be all and end all for behavior problems. 

I really didn’t have to push much to have Herr and Frau Hoyer agree that they needed to do something permanent to end Hans’ problem. They decided that they needed to modify parts of Hans anatomy but assured me that they would send me the necessary parts to do this. I said they had to do it quickly because Hans relationship with Big Bertha was going sour really fast. 

Poor Hans, all this time I thought he was just misbehaving and it turns out that he really can’t help himself.

International Horn Symposium Day 4 –>

International Horn Symposium Day 3

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Today I got to the warm-ups right at 8 am. The session was packed so I ended up standing in the back of the room along with 20 other people. I think over 60 people showed up. I’m finding these warm-up classes really tough. I really don’t think my body wants to play the horn at 8 am. Actually, I know my body doesn’t want to play the horn at 8 am. Taking in tons of air and breathing properly is a big part of the warm-ups as it should be. However, first thing in the morning, the breathing makes me dizzy. Getting sound to emerge from my horn and getting my brain to remember the routine is close to impossible. I don’t think I’m going to go tomorrow. 

The adult amateur (also called the over 50) ensemble is wonderful for me. I can play all the music, something that I don’t think I could have done a few months ago. It’s very rewarding. 

David Amram led a jazz improvisation class that was just superb. We all brought our horns so we had this huge jazz horn choir with Richard Todd, no less, as one of the soloists along with Amram. I spent some time talking to David yesterday since I knew him from back in the day. He was one of my mother’s students. David’s a brilliant composer and a truly interesting guy. 

I went to two master classes this afternoon. William Klingelhoffer, co-principle horn with San Francisco’s Opera Orchestra, led an orchestral master class. He had two students play excerpts from Italian operas and then explained how to play them better by using vocal techniques on the horn.  

Jeff Nelson, Hornist, Canadian Brass, led a session on fearless horn playing. He talked about how there are three components to successful horn playing – musicality, technique, and performance – and that we don’t practice the performance side often enough. He talked about practicing walking out on stage, thinking only positively about your performance, staying in the ‘now’, and more. He’s a really good speaker and it was an excellent presentation.

The performances today were all excellent. John Ericson (Horn Notes Blog) gave a fabulous performance of Teleman’s Concerto for Horn in D. Richard Todd just blew everyone away with his jazz technique.  

All in all, it was a great day today.

Naughty Horn –>

International Horn Symposium Day 2

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My ankle is better thank goodness. I bought this special ankle brace from CVS yesterday and it is working wonders. I got to the 8 AM warm-ups and just got back to my hotel at 9:30 PM. It’s been a busy day. 

At the warm-ups I learned that deep breathing exercises at 8 AM are not the best idea. I got pretty dizzy which is not normal for me. I also learned that I don’t know my scales as well as I thought I did. We had a handout that included the C major and C# major keys for all the warm-ups and then we had to do the rest of each sequence without written music. I can play a straight scale in all of the keys but my brain just couldn’t compute thirds and fourths in many of the keys.

At 10 I went to the adult amateur ensemble. That was lots of fun. I didn’t have any problem sight reading the 7th horn part. I remember back in March going to the Northeast Horn Workshop and being totally intimidated. I didn’t even try to play in the horn choir.  I can really tell that I am improving and that’s a really nice feeling. 

I attended a lecture by Gregory Hustis next and that was very interesting. His talk was geared to students and how to get ahead in a career playing the horn. He is a really good speaker and he made his points effectively with an appropriate amount of humor tossed in.  Later in the day he held a master class on orchestral excerpts and he did a great job providing constructive criticism without terrifying the young students playing for him.

The rest of my day was comprised of checking out the exhibits and going to the afternoon and evening performances. Most of the performances were outstanding though there were a few hiccups along the way. One of the hornists who played in the afternoon was having a bad day and one of the horn choirs that played in the evening struggled through a few of their selections.

I found the exhibits a bit disappointing. Unless you wanted to buy a horn or sheet music, there wasn’t much else to see. There were some mutes, mouthpieces, cases and cds. Surely there is more stuff for horns than that. I’ll take another look tomorrow. Maybe I’ve missed something.

International Horn Symposium Day 3 –>

International Horn Symposium Day 1

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I have not had the best beginning at IHS. This morning I got up and went to get my first cup of coffee. Not being quite awake yet, I managed to trip and fall down part of the hotel stairs and badly sprain my ankle. I actually heard a snap. I got up and hobbled to the breakfast area (had to get the coffee) and then got back to my room and iced my ankle. 

Fortunately the symposium didn’t start until 11:00 AM so I had some time to keep my foot up before I had to leave. I got to my car (thank goodness this was my left foot so I could drive) without too much pain but the problems started once I found the parking lot we were supposed to park in. As is true of almost every college campus I have ever been on, there was no relationship between the parking lot and the building the symposium is in. 

Grimacing in pain I made it to registration and then was able to sit with my foot up for the opening session. The opening session was excellent. There were the usual welcome speeches but they were accompanied by some really excellent  performances setting the stage for the caliber of the rest of the symposium.

My next challenge was lunch. I bought the meal plan back when I signed up and discovered that lunch was in a completely different building and the we had to take buses to get to that building. Guess where the busses were? Yup, back at the parking lot. Well, that wasn’t happening and I went and got Burger King from the student union. That required navigating to the ground floor but at least I didn’t have to leave the building.   

I went to hear Lowell Shaw’s Deserts (single horn) Bipperies (two horns), Tripperies (three horns), Fripperies (four horns), and Quipperies (five horns) for the first session of the afternoon. My horn teacher and I have played a few of  the Bipperies and they are really fun. Lowell Shaw spoke about how he came to write these pieces and then about a dozen of them were played. Again the performances were outstanding.  

After this I got myself to some of the exhibits (barely) and had a few pros play my horn. The consensus is that it is sharp. (Look for another post about this by next week.) By now it was almost 4 PM and I gave up. I didn’t want to miss the rest of the sessions and the evening performances but I was in terrible pain by this time. If I had any hope of walking around tomorrow I had to get off my ankle so I slogged back to my car and went back to the hotel which is where I am now writing this with my feet up. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the drugstore and got an ice pack and an ankle brace. I’m really hoping that tomorrow will be better.

International Horn Symposium Day 2

Traveling

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I’m on my way to the International Horn Symposium by car so I have several nights in hotels on my way. I’ve never used a practice mute before. I borrowed one (Yamaha silent brass mute without the electronics) and used it for the first time two days ago. It was weird. Very, very weird. The first thing – how to hold the horn. The mute takes up all the space in the bell. No room for a hand. This is pretty obvious but it didn’t occur to me until I stuck the mute into the bell. I tried holding on to the end of the mute, holding the edge of the bell, shoving my elbow against the mute – nothing really worked.

The second thing – really bad posture which is a consequence of the the hand problem. I found myself fairly hunched over once I found a somewhat comfortable place for my right hand.

Then there’s the sound or lack thereof. I was surprised how quiet the mute makes the horn. It’s hard to describe the sound. It’s not just softer, it’s got kind of an edge to it. I also found that if I wasn’t careful, I would play a ‘wa-wa’ sound similar to a trumpet with that kind of mute. I practiced for about a half hour  – mostly slurs and scales – and that was about all I could stand. Trying to play real music just didn’t work for me.

Yesterday the horn gods were looking favorably on me. I was originally planning to stop in Columbus, Ohio but when I got there I wasn’t very tired and I decided to push on. I went a little past Dayton and saw one of those exits with a bunch of hotels listed. One was a Hampton Inn and I like those so I decided to head there. I followed the signs and thought I had gotten lost. I had to follow this long, winding road (remember this is by an Interstate exit) up a hill. I had past the other hotels on the highway sign before following this road. I finally got to the hotel and at first I thought it wasn’t open. There was only one car in the parking lot. I checked in and asked how full the hotel was. Only 10 registered guests (Hmm – I wonder why?) I explained that I wanted to practice my horn and asked the desk clerk if she could put me far away from the other guests. “Yes – I can put you on the noisy side of the hotel by the highway. All the others are on the ‘quiet’ side.”  Two hours of practice – yes!

International Horn Symposium Day 1 –>

Quick endurance update

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Several day ago I posted about how my endurance (see Endurance) has improved. I did an experiment where I added a third practice session in one day which added half an hour to my usual two hours a day.  I was hoping that the next day would be good and not show any ill effects from the extra practice the day before.

I can say that this was a success. I did not have any issues on the next day that I could blame on too much practice the day before. In fact, my chops were a lot less stiff than they usually are at the beginning of the day. I haven’t played for more than two hours each day since then but that’s because I’ve been busy, not because I thought I couldn’t do it. It’s quite a relief not to have to worry so much about playing in the morning when something  else – duets, band rehearsal, lessons, whatever –  is going to happen later in the day.

Traveling –>

Endurance

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I’ve managed to get 2 hours of practice in almost every day since late January when I changed my practice routine from playing straight for 45 minutes and killing my chops to a play for 20 minutes then rest for 20 minutes then play then rest etc. schedule with a four to five hour break between my first hour of playing and my second. I am starting to see some real improvement from a few months ago both in my playing in general and especially with endurance.

I’ve been really busy for the past several weeks so I started to skip the 20 minute breaks for my afternoon practice session and just go straight through the hour. I discovered that I had no problem playing for that length of time and it didn’t seem to effect how I played the next day. Then about a week ago I decided to try going straight through the first hour also and I didn’t have any problem with that either. I haven’t seen any detrimental effect to the afternoon session.

The only time I still rest during the morning practice session is after the first Singer exercise – half note, half rest, half note, half rest, whole note, whole rest starting at F in the staff and going up to G above the staff – if I do it. At the end of this exercise Singer actually says ‘rest’ so I follow the instructions and take a 20 minute rest.

The other thing I have noticed is that if I don’t get two hours of practice in every day I play significantly worse the next day. When I first realized that this was happening I was surprised because for most other activities rest usually improves things. But I’ve noticed this consistently now and I can pretty much guarantee a bad day if I miss my second hour of practice the day before. I have not tried taking a whole day off and then seeing what happens with my playing. What will be really interesting is to see what effect the layoff on my way to IHS in Macomb (I’m driving from Long Island, NY) has on my playing. I’m hoping that several days off will have a beneficial effect. I expect to get plenty of playing in once I arrive. I am bringing a practice mute but I doubt that I will want to practice instead of moving on toward my destination.

This evening I decided to try an experiment and see if I could play for another half hour. I already did an hour in the morning followed by 3 hrs rest and then an hour in the afternoon. I added the half hour after another 3 hour rest. I think I played similarly to how I played earlier today. I did notice that arpeggios got a lot easier. On the other hand, tongued notes were not as crisp.  I didn’t feel as though I was playing on my teeth which is how I feel if I am overdoing it. Range and tone were okay. 

I’ll have a good idea about the outcome of my experiment tomorrow. If I can get in an hour of practice in the morning and survive band rehearsal in the evening then I will call my experiment a success.

Quick endurance update –>

A really good lesson

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Finally. I actually managed to play close to how I play when I practice by myself in front of Lynn, my teacher. It’s been a long time coming. Usually I’m just nervous enough to screw up, in some way or another, almost every passage I play during a lesson. That’s followed by my statement, “I usually don’t play this quite this badly”.

At the beginning of the lesson I didn’t do a good job with the arpeggios starting on middle C. I don’t typically have much trouble with these (my opinion, not necessarily Lynn’s) and I was thinking that maybe this lesson wasn’t going to go so well. Fortunately things improved a lot. Again, my opinion but at least I was happy.

We started working on arpeggios that start at low C with the goal of getting to third space C with an embouchure shift from low to high somewhere around middle C. I can do this from high to low pretty easily but not from low to high yet. Occasionally I can do this without the embouchure shift but the tone is bad. I got some really good instructions about how to go about working on this shift. I don’t worry too much about how I play when the lesson is on new stuff. I’m just happy that I understand and remember  (I forgot to take notes) what I need to do.

Next up was the Singer #4 exercise. (See A lesson in basics for a description of this and the Kopprash exercise.) This went well and I started to think that maybe this would be a good day after all. The Singer #4 exercise is not one that I beat myself up over if I don’t play it all that well. I’m still learning to do it right so I’m happy with any improvement. 

Kopprash #2 followed the Singer exercise. This exercise went really well. In fact, Lynn said it was the best she had heard me play it. She was right. It was the best I’d ever played it. Now that hardly ever happens at a lesson. 

Time for Kopprash #19. This is basically an articulation exercise – all 16th notes, some slurred, some stacatto. We’ve been working on my stacatto tonguing for at least a month, maybe two, and it’s been slowly getting better but even this was good today. My assignment for next week is to pick up the tempo.  

Onward to Mozart 3, 1st movement and then Strauss 1. There are several passages in both pieces that we’ve been working on. I messed up the rhythm a bit (actually you can’t really mess up the rhythm ‘a bit.’ It’s either right or it’s not) but I got the notes. I’ve had plenty of lessons where I miss more notes than I make so it’s a really good thing if we are only working on the rhythm. By this point I have concluded that I’m having a very good day. I don’t really know why but I’m not complaining.

We finished up the lesson playing some Brahms duets. Even these went well. I remember when I used to get lost or play a wrong note and stop every few measures. I probably stopped once or twice but I played better than I have in the past. So, as I wrote at the beginning, finally a good lesson.

This is a picture of my dachshund Frankie’s butt, taken today, as he hides under a chair during my afternoon practice session. He also passes gas at every lesson.    

What my dachshund thinks of my playing.

What my dachshund thinks of my playing.

Endurance –>

International Horn Symposium

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I’ll be attending the International Horn Symposium in Macomb, IL early next month. This will be my first symposium and it will be a fantastic learning experience for me. I’m really looking forward to going.

Their website says: Study horn playing with guest artists and distinguished horn teachers.

  • Enjoy directed playing experiences in classes, clinics, and horn choirs
  • Visit exhibitors to discuss horn study and playing
  • Compete in solo performance, orchestral playing, horn ensembles and jazz solo performance
  • Participate in clinics on specialized topics of technique, literature, and performance
  • Experience outstanding performances and presentations by guest artists and contributing artists of solo and chamber music for the horn

Wow. 

If any of you are planning to attend and would like to meet at the symposium please leave a comment and I’ll come up with a plan.

A really good lesson –>