by Andrew Pelletier

I was very honored and a little amused that Mike Harcrow and the Horn and More team wanted to do a “Meet the People” feature with me—I'm always stunned when anyone shows interest in what I've done and try to do with the horn, believing that there are several thousand horn players more deserving or interesting than myself, but I'll try my best....

I was born and raised in Maine, in the Northeast of the USA, and started playing the horn in sixth grade. I quit through junior high school (I could not afford a horn and the school didn't have one for me to borrow) but picked it back up in senior high and have been trying to perfect it ever since. I attended the University of Southern Maine (GO HUSKIES!) for my undergraduate studies and found myself, at 18, playing in the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Maine's only professional orchestra. I played with the PSO for 5 seasons (undergrad plus one gap year), before heading to Los Angeles for graduate study with James Decker at the University of Southern California, earning my master’s degree in 1998 and the Doctor of Musical Arts in 2001. While in L.A. I was super lucky to freelance quite frequently, including for television and feature film studio recording sessions. I also played principal horn for the Santa Barbara Symphony and taught at a few community colleges. In 2004, I moved to Bowling Green, Ohio, to become the horn professor at Bowling Green State University. In my time at BGSU so far, I have played principal horn in Ann Arbor, Michigan (for 11 seasons), and principal horn for the Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit (for 16 seasons), and I have been a frequent substitute player with the Toledo Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, in Columbus, Ohio. BGSU named me a Professor of Creative Arts Excellence in 2020, and I was elected the Chair of the Department of Music Performance Studies in 2023.

Now, my deep love and care of the IHS goes all the way to the very beginning, leafing through my former teacher's collection of old issues of The Horn Call. I was (and am) so excited by the history, the traditions, the personalities, and the music of our great instrument. I attended my first IHS Symposium in 1997 at the Eastman School of Music (bravo, Peter Kurau!), thanks to the Jon Hawkins Memorial Scholarship, and I was hooked. The IHS kindly gave me a platform to experiment as a solo artist, usually bringing new pieces I'd commissioned, and I've been lucky to perform at 12 Symposia (thus far—see you in July!) and have commissioned and premiered over 60 works for our instrument. I've made lifelong friends through the IHS, and I always come away from IHS events charged up to learn more, to try new things, to experiment. One of the greatest honors of my life was when I was elected President of the IHS, starting in 2018. It was a challenge to keep the Society healthy and moving forward during covid, but thanks to the extraordinary staff, volunteers, and the hard work of the Advisory Council, I feel like we escaped the pandemic in a good position for growth. I've been involved with the IHS for almost 30 years, now, and although I am currently enjoying a bit of a break in official duties for the Society, I know that this won't last forever, and I look forward to any opportunity I may have to help it grow and prosper, and help to inspire and develop horn players and teachers the world over. I am immensely proud to be an IHS Life Member, and I am always thankful for what the IHS has done for me.

by Marty Schlenker

Dear Fellow Amateurs,

It’s been several months since I devoted a column to my journey in resuming lessons in middle age. So…how’s it been going? 

In previous columns, I’ve shared the advice that helped me the most the fastest, including repositioning my tongue farther back and reshaping my air column to be narrower and rounder, as if it were a straw that I was holding between my lips. Making these changes has enabled the fronts of my notes to be less percussive with the tongue, and they have made it easier for notes to speak. 

I alluded to but didn’t really describe other guidance which I know will be good in the long run but which was really challenging at first. It was said in several different ways, but the common concept is that I was exerting too much of my whole body in the attempt to get notes, especially in passages containing large interval changes. This manifested in small ways (eyebrows) and large (clenched shoulders), but fundamentally, it was a substitute for work that should have been done by facial muscles within the mouthpiece ring.

The advice, “keep still outside the mouthpiece ring, no matter what the register or interval” has proven quite difficult, especially right after travel-induced practice breaks. The “hefting” I was doing was only delaying the development of a broadly capable embouchure. Quelling this movement made sense, but it took a while to find any kind of substitute.

Practice breaks…. My business travel slowed down significantly in March and April. The circumstances of my employer weren’t great, so this wasn’t planned; but the silver lining was the longest continuous stretch of practice days since I resumed lessons. With daily conditioning rather than a couple sessions a week, it became easier to summon air from my lower torso, and I could start to make melodic jumps while maintaining a more relaxed upper body. 

That’s not to say that this is a resolved issue. Far from it. I would estimate I’m not even a quarter of the way to the embouchure strengthening that I think I need. But it’s a start. Here are some of the “case-in-point” passages newly attained (most of the time, anyway):

Mueller (ed. Chambers) Vol. 2 #23:

Kling #4, in the style of Rossini:

There’s lots more to report that will have to wait until future columns: I acquired another horn and have some things to say about it. I was invited to conduct a trombone ensemble and overcame some self-doubt. I attended the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s oratorio Saul and made a playing adjustment inspired by the horns of the Harrisburg Symphony.

Fellow amateurs, have you resumed lessons? Are they helping? How? Please write and share your stories; this column will be better for it. marty.schlenker@cavaliers.org

Your servant and kindred spirit,

Marty Schlenker, Amateur Hornist

by Mike Harcrow

To articulate is to make distinct, more so or less so in music as the style and other aspects of a performing situation (acoustics, number of players, etc.) may require. A very basic articulation diagram for musical styles of the Classical and Romantic eras might look something like this:

How wind players accomplish these (and other) indicators is considered a function primarily of the tongue. If we think more thoroughly about what really happens as we articulate, however, we will discover at least five articulation activators: the tongue, the fingers, the rotors, the lips, and airflow.

THE TONGUE

A horn player’s tone is distinctive, in great part, because our bells face away from the audience and we have our hands placed in them for functional purposes (the subject of another discussion), including tone control and manipulation…not to mention playing nearly into our own concert attire and, possibly, into curtains! These factors contribute to some disadvantages in performance, most notably (in light of this discussion) to a loss in the clarity of tonguing.

Most horn players use a letter “T” as their articulation consonant—and occasionally a letter “D” if a more lyrical passage is made more beautiful by using the softer articulation. I was once, however, quite shocked and disappointed in listening back to a recording of myself in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in which all the repeated pitches in the famous solo were so unclear because of my choice to tongue softly that the measures [mm. 11, 15, 19, and 23] sounded like long tones rather than distinct rhythms!

Tonguing must not be mushy; neither ought it be harsh or explosive. The default concept for tonguing should be clarity.

THE FINGERS

Tonguing is quite often done while fingering different notes. If the tongue and fingers are not perfectly coordinated, the effect of articulating is that of popcorn popping. We must develop an ergonomically comfortable left-hand position that is relaxed—remembering that the hand is attached to the wrist and the wrist to the arm, in order to avoid any possibility of developing carpal tunnel syndrome or any other repeated stress injury—while maximizing our ability to move the fingers quickly in synchronization with the tongue. “Fly-away” fingers or fingers flattened onto the rotor levers are not efficient in their movement, so a grip which can hold an overripe tomato without rupturing it is most desirable. The fact that a majority of horn players have a dominant right hand, moreover, means that most of us have a bit more to overcome in developing the best facility in finger-tongue coordination. The easy solution is to practice single and multiple tonguing daily in conjunction with valve work (starting with scales).

THE ROTORS

Closely related to the fingers as articulators are the instrument’s rotors (or valves), since these are what the fingers operate. What really needs to be said here is that rotors must work well. Rotors must be well oiled so that they are quick (light oil) and quiet (more viscous oil). Linkages, mechanical or string, must be in excellent repair. Neoprene, rubber, or cork bumpers must be placed and trimmed so that the rotors open and close with the best possible internal alignment, and they should be neither too squishy nor too hard.

THE LIPS

Most of us will agree that every single pitch we play has a different and distinct “buzz.” The generation of sound by the aperture is how brass players create pitch; placement or positioning of the pitch in the buzzing aperture is how we accomplish note changes, with or without valves, and, to some extent, pitch control. I recall sitting in the front row in a small concert hall in Seoul, South Korea, to watch a very famous colleague conduct his own performance of a difficult modern horn concerto played from memory. In getting the chamber orchestra started, he completely mis-fingered much of the challenging opening passage yet still got every note right! That is the power of the buzz.

AIRFLOW

None of the first four articulators work their best without optimum airflow. Indeed, there is no buzz without it; but we must also use a copious amount of air for both power and nuance. Our entire torsos function as big air pumps. Additionally, as we read in chapter 2 of the well-known Yogi Science of Breath (made known to American brass players by Arnold Jacobs), “breath is life,” that is, oxygen makes every functioning part of our bodies work well. How much do we need the focus and concentration to multi-task as performers, the energy for the creation of sound and for stamina, and generosity of tone and beauty! We are generating little tornados in our horns every time we play well. Air is foundational to what we do; air gets us—as articulation masters—and the music going.