IHS 55—more amazing featured artists!
What better way to start the new year than by announcing six more featured artists for IHS 55! All are well-known players and teachers from all over the world, and we are looking forward to meeting them, sharing with them, and, of course, listening to them play.
The BBC Music Magazine says of Ursula Paludan Monberg: “The Danish horn player..., thoroughly in command of her instrument, produces a miraculously smooth and agile line with secure tuning.”
Born and raised in Adelaide, Australia, Andrew Bain has held positions and soloed around the world, including across Australasia, Europe, and the United States where he settled as principal horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2011.
Since receiving degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, Jeff Scott has enjoyed a career as a studio, chamber, and orchestral musician, performing in Broadway shows and with ballet companies, touring with various commercial artists, and recording for film, classical, pop, and jazz genres.
At the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, Yun Zeng, at the age of 19, became the first ever gold medalist in the brass category and the first Chinese gold medalist in the instrumental categories. In 2022, he became principal horn of Staatskapelle Berlin.
Since 2017, Jean-Christophe Vervoitte has initiated with musician friends—members of Les Arts Florissants, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain—a collaboration of chamber music in the framework of the programming of the Philharmonie de Paris. Since their creation, these chamber music concerts have considerably enriched the range of themes offered, and the public has given these concerts an enthusiastic welcome.
A native of Vancouver, B.C., and our first Canadian featured artist so far, Allene Hackleman has been principal horn of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 2004. Allene is a member of the Canadian National Brass Project and has performed with this group at the Festival de Lanaudière and at the Toronto Summer Music Festival. In 2015, Allene was invited to teach masterclasses at the Musikacademy in Belgrade, Serbia. She currently teaches at the University of Alberta.
You can read more about all the featured artists at www.ihs55.org/artists.
To register for IHS 55—and to take advantage of our early-bird offers—visit www.ihs55.org/rates-registration.
Pedagogy Column—
Mouthpiece Placement, My Embouchure, and Yours
by Jeff Scott, IHS 55 Featured Artist
In my playing and teaching career, I’ve thought a lot about embouchures. It’s a fancy word for a simple thing: you put the mouthpiece on your lips, and you play. How could such a simple thing be so complicated?
I went through college and graduate school questioning my mouthpiece placement and mouthpiece size. I am African American, with fleshy lips, particularly my lower lip. I tried to position my mouthpiece the way my teachers suggested, but it never felt good. It just seemed impossible to get enough of my lower lip inside the rim of the mouthpiece. I have this distinct memory of my mouthpiece sliding down my upper lip as I tried to play and reposition to two-thirds upper, one-third lower.
Finally in my doctoral study, a saint entered my life: the late Jerome Ashby, Associate Principal Horn of the New York Philharmonic from 1979-2007. Mr. Ashby did two things for me that changed my life as a horn player.
First, he found a mouthpiece that worked for me. Mr. Ashby gave me a mouthpiece with a much larger interior dimension which allowed for more of my lower lip to fit. Most importantly, this extra space allowed the “sweet spot” of the embouchure, the aperture, to resonate (buzz) freely. I played a note, and it was like the heavens opened and revealed themselves to me! The right mouthpiece and rim made an enormous—and immediate—improvement in my horn playing.
Mr. Ashby also validated my technique. My setup is unconventional. To that point, in all the books on horn playing I’d read, I saw nothing on this topic. Mr. Ashby was the missing chapter that gave me confidence in my horn playing; he encouraged me to play like me.
My cardinal rule of embouchure now is this: be comfortable. Of course, some students come to me with a setup that is destined to cause problems. A typical scenario: a student has the mouthpiece too high (almost entirely on the upper lip) or too low (almost entirely on the lower lip). Such a student will typically have a discernably stronger and weaker range, combined with limited flexibility. A very slight adjustment to bring the mouthpiece higher or lower can work wonders in this situation. But it must be slight. Big changes create discomfort, and discomfort is the enemy of good horn playing.
I used to look at Philip Farkas’ book A Photographic Study of 40 Virtuoso Horn Players’ Embouchures and think, “None of these embouchures looks like mine.” But we all have different sized lips, different mouth shapes, different teeth settings. So, I have some advice for young horn players: find comfort. You may not set up the same way as your teacher (I certainly tell my students not to try to look like me when they play), and that is ok. If the comfortable spot for your embouchure is somewhat off center, that’s probably all right; some of the best brass players I know play a little off center. Also, what you see in the mirror when you play, and what your teacher observes when you play, does not tell the whole story. Things may look very different inside the mouthpiece than they look on the outside.
If you have a huge struggle to play low or high, you may need to make a change, but it should probably be a small change. Don’t be radical since that will take you away from comfort. If you do need to move the mouthpiece to a new position, you may have a temporary setback in accuracy, range, or endurance, or maybe all three. Work slowly to build back your comfort.
Talk with your teacher about mouthpieces. There are very few mouthpieces out there that feel comfortable to me, and you may have the same experience. I’m working with a mouthpiece maker right now, developing a prototype of a mouthpiece that feels perfect for me. But we’re all different. One thing is for sure, though: a mouthpiece that doesn’t fit your mouth will give you constant grief.
If you feel bad when you play the horn, you probably won’t sound very good. Work with your teacher to find comfort. Your lips should fit against the mouthpiece in a way that makes the instrument feel like it is a part of you, the way your head feels when it hits the pillow!
Once you have that all set, get practicing!
Horn on Record
by Ian Zook
Volume 4—Milan Yancich
With more votes cast on the Horn on Record website for this month's topic, we will visit a pedagogical recording from noted orchestral performer and teacher, Milan Yancich. Yancich is joined by Edwin McArthur on piano, and together they perform the complete collection of solo works he arranged and published for Wind Music, Inc. titled 15 Solos for French Horn.
This recording, from 1978 and produced by Helden Records, provides interpretative recordings of each selection from his volume of arrangements. These songs are derived from opera arias, and repertoire for both violin and piano, as well as one original composition for horn. In the preface of the printed edition (and also on the reverse album jacket), Yancich explains:
"The Mastersong solos found in this book represent some of the great composers in the world. Each bears the hallmark of genius and originality. Our goal is to stir the audience with emotion, and to do this the player must enter into the spirit of the text of the song or musical composition. He must understand the correct tempo and the constant modifications of tempo, dynamics, and special accents which are the life of the music."
Milan Yancich (1921-2007) was born in Whiting, Indiana and he studied at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. During his early career from 1946-1952, he played with Columbus Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He began teaching at the Eastman School of Music in 1957 while performing with the Rochester Philharmonic.
He owned a publishing business, Wind Music Inc., for which he both composed pieces and wrote pedagogical methods. Many of these are still in use today, including his Practical Guide to French Horn Playing, Method for French Horn Volumes I & II, and his arrangement of Bach’s 6 Suites for Cello. His book, An Orchestral Musician’s Odyssey: A View from the Rear is an account of his life and that of many notable musicians of that era including George Szell, Erich Leinsdorf, and Howard Hanson, as well as a matter-of-fact exposé of a musician’s life in the orchestra.
Yancich was on the IHS advisory council for two separate terms (’81-’84, ’98-’01) and was honored with the Punto Award in 1997 at the annual symposium hosted by the Eastman School of Music. Yancich also collaborated with Alexander horns to create the “Heldenhorn” Geyer-wrap model, which was recently re-introduced in 2017 as the Model 1106. As if more proof of his musical influence was needed, look no further than his children who also became professional musicians: Mark is timpanist of the Atlanta Symphony, and Paul is timpanist of the Cleveland Orchestra!
Yancich’s 15 Solos was made as a companion recording for his collection of arrangements. The first ten songs are easily approachable for early performers, as the tempos, key signatures, meters, ranges, and brevity allow for one to concentrate on sound, phrase, and expression. As Yancich emphasizes in the preface, “All successful performance results in the power to stir an audience with emotion.”
The remaining five solos increase in difficulty considerably, incorporating lip trills, high tessitura lines, rapid technical passagework, and many opportunities for bravura interpretations.
Now, let's enjoy some samples of the music on this album!
The melancholy melody in Edvard Grieg’s Solveig’s Song is played with pensive mystery:
Another somber tune from Jules Massenet’s Elegy pairs Yancich’s round tone with his yearning interpretation:
Yancich also played with humor in his arrangement of the Cavatina from Rossini’s Barber of Seville:
To conclude the album, Yancich dazzles with his rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee!
Happy New Year to all, near and far, from Horn on Record!
Thoughts From Frøydis, Part II: Feedback Among Musicians
by Frøydis Ree Wekre
When asked to give a lecture during the Lieksa Brass Week, I admit that I suggested this theme myself. However, the reason was not that I consider myself an expert—rather, the opposite.
However, I did want to take a closer look at this subject and find out more about it, and thus maybe find new ways for continuing progress as a musician (and brass player).
I am sorry to report that I found more questions than answers in my ‘research.’ Nevertheless, I think some of these questions are important and well worth sharing.
The world of performing musicians is a very sensitive one, and the general level of tension is rather high. In chamber music, the rehearsals usually include comments, feedback, and discussions; the more gracefully the members of the group can give and receive such messages, the better the progress and the musical result. Without having made any obvious ‘mistakes,’ a musician can also expect messages and critique from colleagues with different tastes and opinions.
In an orchestra, the individual member will receive feedback mostly from the conductor and from the principal player in his/her section—feedback based on their particular tastes. Comments from other colleagues may occur, but less frequently, unless you ask for them yourself.
But first, let me try to make the meaning of the word feedback in this context more precise. In Norwegian, this word is tilbakemelding, which would translate directly as “message back.” The first question then is: what kind of message, and back after what?
The message could be words or body-language signals from other people about a musical task that you just performed, or more generally about your playing, not in reference to a specific musical event. In other words, a response from the society around you as to how they respond to your music-making, whether they like what you are doing, or whether they like some parts of what you are doing more or less than other parts, not to mention the possibility that they actively dislike what they are hearing….
Sometimes, it will be YOU who gives these messages to the other musicians, for various reasons. For example, if you are a conductor or a teacher, it is your job to send out various messages to improve the musical result coming from your group or a singular student. But also, just as a colleague, it might be a natural thing to do occasionally.
Hence, I will start by discussing the GIVING of feedback.
WHO can give musical feedback to others?
- Teacher
- Conductor
- Principal or acting principal player
- Colleague/co-player
- Friend
- Enemy
- Audience/Fan/Music lover/Family
Since the teacher and the conductor are both professional feedback-givers I chose not to discuss their jobs here; that is a huge subject, though, for another discussion, another time.
WHY would you give feedback to others? (What is your motivation?)
- you were asked directly about your opinion and feel that you must answer
- you want to help to improve the musical result
- you want to help/encourage this person to become a better musician/brass player (out of love, friendship…)
- you want to be a very honest person (or you just talk before you think...)
- you want (or feel that you need) to defend yourself, and attack is often the best defense
- you like to belittle others
- you like to make it harder for an enemy (‘sweet is the taste of revenge’)
- you want to be everybody’s friend (and hand out praise only)
WHERE and WHEN could feedback be given?
- In an orchestra or bigger group:
- Before, during or after rehearsals?
- At the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or last rehearsal?
- Before, during, or after concerts?
- On stage? Privately? On the phone? In the pub?
- After being asked? Without being asked?
- In chamber music:
- Mutual feedback is expected during chamber music rehearsals; it is, however, very important to find a good balance between give-and-take.
- Being a listener/part of the audience:
- After a concert?
- After having listened to a recording?
- Being asked, or just offering your opinion anyway?
- During regular corridor/coffee break conversations:
- Offering general negative remarks on national versus international levels of performance on a particular instrument.
HOW could feedback be given?
- without words, body language, sighing, shaking head, thumb, etc.
- by imitating, exaggerating, adjusting, parodying, showing...
- by words, and then you have a choice! (When in doubt, leave it out?)
Good teachers (and some conductors) know to find the right balance between [1] the positive and encouraging feedback, so necessary for self-confidence and bravery, and [2] the constructive critique, comments, or suggestions so necessary for progress and development.
While only dealing with good teachers, we live in a protected world. Out there, in the real world, the feedback does not always appear in a gentle ‘wrapping.’
When you yourself are the one who gives the feedback, you are in control—at least theoretically—as to the way the message is delivered, with what words, tone of voice, timing, etc.
RECEIVING feedback, especially, the kind that contains some suggestions to improve or to change the way you just performed, can sometimes be hard to deal with.
One example from orchestral life: a principal wind player performed a small cadenza in his part during a rehearsal. (It is necessary to know that this musician’s father happened to be a professional musician as well, playing the same instrument in one of the major US orchestras, and this father was also known to be considered a personal enemy by the son’s conductor.) The conductor stopped, looked at him very negatively and said with an arrogant voice, “WHO taught you to play it LIKE THAT?” After a few seconds of silence, the wind player replied calmly, “How would you like me to play this solo?” This musician chose to ignore the immature, childish part of the conductor’s personality, and just to listen to that part of the message which concerned the music; the conductor wanted to hear the solo played differently, and thus the musician’s job was to find out how.
It takes a true ‘adult’ person to control the reactions to feedback presented in such a negative way.
On the other hand, I have also seen extremely emotional and/or angry reactions to very careful and mild instructions or suggestions. Some people look calm and collected on the outside, while the inside is like a time bomb of nerves and insecurity.
Looking into the REASONS for such immediate, emotional reactions, there are many interesting possibilities:
- the suggestions are ‘wrong,’ or to be ignored because they came
- at the wrong time/with the wrong words/from the wrong person
- wrong person, because: he/she
- is an enemy, trying to make it harder for me…
- is a ‘weaker’ musician than me; has lots of own problems
- has a different taste, I will not yield.
- wrong person, because: he/she
- at the wrong time/with the wrong words/from the wrong person
Also, some musicians with a very high level of inner stress feel that any kind of feedback might be devastating to their performance. Therefore, they choose to argue back, walk away, or ignore the message somehow in order to protect themselves.
And, of course there are times when it is really necessary for most of us to protect ourselves against difficult suggestions that occur at the last minute, or that demand skills that we simply do not have at that moment, due to fatigue or whatever.
Nevertheless, I think that the ability to react calmly and with dignity can be trained.
Nobody is perfect, neither the one who delivers the feedback, nor the one who receives it. We all make mistakes, whether in the actual performing of music, or in the way we deal with our colleagues/friends/students/teachers/conductors/family. Interesting and important is how we handle our mistakes.
A proverb says that the fool always makes the same mistakes; the smart always makes new ones.
When being told of a possible mistake, there is a choice on how to react: allow some time for cooling down, and then ask yourself, “Is there in this feedback a possibility to learn something?” To find out for sure, it might be wise to seek a second opinion from somebody else whom you trust.
If the answer to the question is NO, you will probably need to defend yourself mentally by ignoring the given feedback.
However, if the question can be answered with YES, do consider the comment! It might help your progress, maybe not right there and then, but hopefully some time down the road.
The art of receiving feedback—whether we asked for it or not, and whether the words, the timing, and the person delivering it were all wrong or right: by considering the content of the given feedback, you might be able to eliminate some old mistakes and start looking for new ones. And after all, it is boring to keep repeating the old mistakes…maybe being the only one around who is not even aware of them!
Lieksa, July 21, 1990
Frøydis Ree Wekre
Mike's Carols
From a collection of 42 Christmas Carols for Two Horns, please enjoy the two offered here as a gift to you this holiday season. These simple settings were originally written for my younger students with the idea that they would play the melody as solo training while I played the second part to support and encourage them. Merry Christmas! MH
default While by the Sheep(54 KB)default Of the Father's Love(63 KB)
IHS 55 — Just in time for the holidays!
Dear fellow horn players,
We are so excited to announce that registration for IHS55 is now open! So far, we have announced 7 featured artists: the American Horn Quartet, Katarina Javurkovà, Victor Prado, Ursula Paludan Monberg, Jeff Scott, Yun Zeng, and Andrew Bain…what a line up! And we still have 12 more featured artists to announce. We feel incredibly lucky to have so many wonderful horn players coming to Montréal next summer.
To find out more about IHS 55, the featured artists, contributing artists proposals, and to register, visit the website at www.ihs55.org.
- Early bird offers will be available until April 1, 2023.
- Contributing artists proposals will be accepted until February 1, 2023.
To celebrate the holiday season, four of our team members—Louis-Philippe, Maude, Marjolaine, and Xavier—have recorded a short holiday quartet. It was arranged by another team member, Eric, and it contains a few hidden horn excerpts. Can you identify them all?
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season!
—Your IHS 55 Team
Pedagogy Column —
Improvisation: How Do I Begin? Harmony? Modes? Licks?
by Victor Prado, IHS 55 featured artist
One of the questions I get most from horn players and students is: I want to improvise, but where do I start?
My first quick answer to this question is to keep an open mind, get out of your "automatic" and standard mode for a while, look around for what is new, listen to different genres of music, and learn from them.
I often say that 60% of the process of improvisation lies in what you do without your instrument. If you are an open-minded artist, great, that is already a big step!
Now, going deeper into the question, I have various answers rather than one exact answer that works for everybody. However, some common ideas can help all people who want to start improvising. Let’s start with these.
Elements such as harmony, modes, ready-made phrases, rhythm, articulations, and effects are indeed extremely important for improvisation in any musical genre. However, you should not necessarily think of these as the main elements of improvisation when you want to start exploring this world.
When we focus our improvisation only on techniques and harmony, we are automatically assuming that only those who already have some prior knowledge of improvisation can do it, and THIS IS NOT TRUE. From beginners to the most advanced professional horn players, everyone can improvise.
So how do you start your improvisation practice in a more natural way? Answer: start from wherever you are today. You can and should draw on everything you have already learned about music and the horn.
Now, get to work!
Do you like duets? How about trying to do some duets with Milton Nascimento, Lester Young, Beyoncé, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday, or Alice Coltrane? That would sound great, right?
Start experimenting by playing along with recordings, without the notion of playing something right or wrong, but rather of just being part of the music, doing it together with the recording artist. This kind of practice can definitely help you enter and understand the world of improvisation.
Start by finding the key, trying major or minor scales, and even copying the little phrases you hear. Then try to modify the phrases by changing notes and rhythms. After doing this for a while, you will begin to feel more comfortable playing without any music written out. Do this as much as you think is necessary! Of course, this applies to any genre of music. Try not to stick to just one style of music unless you want to master just one specific musical language.
After you feel comfortable playing duets with your favorite recording artist, add more features such as bends, glissandi, vibrato, and whatever other musical effects you can think of.
Put aside the concept of right and wrong; the important thing is to feel good and free!
Improvisation can help you rethink certain concepts. It can be difficult to detach yourself from the idea of right and wrong in your horn playing, but in improvisation anything and everything can be right. Improvisation teaches you to let go. It is a world of spontaneity and surprises, so absolutely everything is valid! Every improvised note you play will serve as a stepping-stone to your future, so do not worry.
Forget for a while the "standard" way of practicing scales and arpeggios with a metronome. Choose a recording with a rhythmic feel that attracts you and play scales starting from different notes, accenting the notes in unusual places, playing whatever you feel. Make it fun.
I need to learn about harmony and patterns!
Take your time. The process of internalizing harmony is a long one, which means that you will not master everything in a year or two. The idea is to start slow and try to understand what you are doing. And you probably have already mastered the major and minor scales in all keys; you know how they sound and how each one feels.
Something important to consider in the study of harmony in improvisation is the sensation (rather than the rules). We must be able to feel how a diminished scale or a sharp-9 Locrian mode fits into the music. At first this may seem too strange or unfamiliar, but trust me, in time, by listening and playing, you will learn to create these feelings; this is very important in improvisation. When you are improvising, there is often no time to think precisely about the scale or the chord or the mode you are going to use, so this feeling of the harmony will be the most important tool at hand. As time goes by and you become more comfortable, musical feelings get stored in your subconscious mind and will be available for use when the right moment arrives.
Improvisation certainly does not happen by magic; you must work hard at it but have fun with it. What I always advise is that you start creating small phrases with the scales and arpeggios you are practicing. You can start with just two notes and some different rhythms. Then gradually increase to three, four, and five, until you feel comfortable with as many notes as you want.
You will see that the possibilities are endless. You will kindle a desire to go to new musical places, to create new musical gestures, to play phrases that are more challenging. And all this will be stored in your head as you create an improvisational vocabulary.
Jazz improvisation methods can also help a lot in this process. All the "tricks," such as transcribing solos, playing everything in all keys, coming up with licks and patterns, for example, can definitely guide you. However, you can explore many other more personal musical places as well. And remember that in the world of today, there are many kinds of music that we can fit into as horn players.
