by Austris Apenis

While practicing, I think many of us have been frustrated with the horn. We always try to do our best to follow our teacher’s advice, try new techniques, perfect every aspect of our playing, and practice vigorously. But even after doing all this, some things just don’t work as we want them to. We might think that maybe we’re just not good enough or that maybe we’re missing some crucial piece of information about playing technique. I admit that these thoughts have gone through my mind more often than I’d like. But in the last few months, my eyes have been opened: I finally got the chance to own a custom-built horn.

The journey was life-changing. Of course I knew that the instrument makes a difference, but I had no idea that it has so much influence on playing technique. I experimented with different models, tubing, tuning slides, bells, and even rotor caps. Every single element either directly changed the character of the horn, or it changed the feeling that I had while playing the horn, and these things influence the sound. Little shortcomings in technique can be solved by having an instrument that works with you rather than against you. An instrument that is efficient and makes certain technical aspects easier, in short, brings balance.

I’ve also seen my sound improve greatly. This comes from two things. First, players need to know what kind of sound they want to have. It’s like fashion: we need to feel comfortable with what we wear; it is an extension of our character, and the horn needs to match that. Second, we must feel comfortable with the resistance of the horn and with what comes out of the bell. This gives you confidence which allows you to relax. Relaxation is, in my mind, the fastest way to improve every aspect of one’s playing.

Don’t underestimate how important it is to have an instrument that matches you as a player. It can make or break you. Find a horn maker that can help you and start experimenting!

Austris: Did you play an instrument when you were young?

Klaus: I started music school when I was nine. My dream was to be a professional trumpet player. In the 1970s, I saw Roy Etzel and his Golden Trumpet on TV playing a piece that felt completely magical, and I thought, “I want to play trumpet like him.” So from about nine to eighteen years old I took trumpet lessons.

I always loved the horn sound too. In our school orchestra I sat next to a horn player (Stefan Dohr), and that sound stayed with me. I didn’t think of switching at first because trumpet was so fixed in my head.

When I was 19 years old, I moved to southern Germany where I learned the traditional German skills of brass wind-instrument making. Seven years later, I completed my “Meister” certification—still playing trumpet, but my connection to the horn kept growing.

When my wife (she works in woodwind repair and restoration) and I moved to the Netherlands and joined a really good wind band, it hit me in the first rehearsal: I have to switch to horn. In symphonic wind music, the trumpet can be less prominent, while the horn often gets the beautiful melodies. I started taking horn lessons and within two months I left the trumpet behind.

For me, the horn has a special job: it connects instrument groups and blends the orchestra. It also has critical moments—solos, soft passages, exposed entries. The sound has to be present without pushing: magical, mighty, beautiful, or holding back so others can shine. It’s the heart in the middle of the orchestra…like the human heart.

Austris: Exactly what Robert Schumann said. How did you become a horn maker?

Klaus: I...

by Charlotte Ulmer

Charlotte Ulmer is the Professor of Horn at Purdue University–Fort Wayne and second horn in the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic and Central Ohio Symphony. She was also former principal horn for the North American tour of Disney’s Frozen.

Charlotte received her Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music and her Bachelor of Music from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Additionally, she studied abroad in Vienna, where she worked with Wolfgang Vladar, third horn of the Vienna Philharmonic. She also completed a graduate certificate in Arts Marketing and Management through the University of Denver.

In addition to Frozen, Charlotte toured with Les Misérables as a substitute Second Horn and regularly appears with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, and is a former associate member of the Civic Orchestra in Chicago.

Charlotte’s primary teachers include Haley Hoops, Randy Gardner, Tom Sherwood, Jeff Nelsen, and Rick Seraphinoff.

Notable accomplishments in her career include founding the 501(c)3 nonprofit, Artist Unleashed, for which she produced its inaugural event; she won an Emmy® for her role as Associate Producer in addition to her team’s seven wins for their work on a multi-genre concert and fundraiser.

She was a Jacobs Scholar and Indiana University Founders Scholar for the entirety of her undergraduate career. She won the state title for outstanding chamber music group from the Ohio Music Teachers Association in 2016 and is a Brand Endorser for Robinson’s Remedies.  

As an artist administrator, she has worked for the Classical Tahoe music festival and is a part of the artistic team for Opera Theatre St. Louis. She served as the Business Development Manager for a regional orchestra in Cincinnati, where she wrote and received over $80,000 in grants for the orchestra.

by Katy Carnaggio

Textures. Rhythms. Tiny emotional blueprints. Your brain has been collecting them and filing them under “music,” whether you asked it to or not. But you can help. Most mechanisms of transfer can be leveraged by noticing a moment, naming the quality it holds, and linking it to something you already know on the horn.

If you love music, you can't help it. You learn timing from the neighbor's car alarm, phrasing from your cat's mid-morning yowl, and articulation (if you're truly desperate) from the pop and splatter of breakfast sausages. Not everything translates directly (don't try to build your embouchure away from the horn, for example). But the instinct to listen and connect your favorite parts of your life to your music? That's what makes transfer so powerful.

Both practice and transfer build skill—one through focused repetition, and the other through lived experience. And the deepest musicianship relies on both. Here are eight ways this may already be happening for you:

(Adapted from: Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis. Human Learning. Eighth edition. Pearson, 2020.)

Next time something catches your ear (or your eye, or your gut), name what it's doing. That's where Part IV picks up.

by Inman Hebert

While watching the recent Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina, I could not help but admire the individual brilliance and dedication of each athlete. From figure skaters such as Ilia Malinin to cross-country skiers like Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, many Olympians created lasting impressions. In particular, the grace, expression, and technical precision required to be a figure skater mirrors the musicality and accuracy necessary to be a horn player. As with these athletes, musicians put themselves in the artistic spotlight to be compared against their peers.

One performance seared into the minds of viewers deserves reflection for its relatability to our anxieties. Prior to the Olympics, Ilia Malinin had not lost a figure skating competition in two years. He even earned the nickname the “quad god” for his quadruple axle jumps, which no other Olympic skater attempted; however, despite this dominance, Malinin faltered on arguably the biggest stage of his career during his free skate routine as the media pressure of being the Olympic gold hopeful overwhelmed him. His story provides a glimpse into the harsh realities of competition.

As horn players, we can feel defined by competition. From solo competitions to auditions that determine whether we gain admission or employment, the high-stakes environment can create tunnel vision towards an extrinsic goal of winning. Unfortunately, that single-minded pursuit can be unhealthy and unproductive, decreasing our performance levels. Focusing singularly on winning ties our entire self-worth to external sources of validation, which can lead to a downward spiral as inevitable losses accumulate.

So what should we do instead? The answer lies in focusing on the process over the result. Horn playing is a highly individual journey, and our goals should always be relative to our current state. For example, with an upcoming solo competition, redirect the mindset from winning to focusing on improving a specific aspect of a performance. Only then can one’s playing become more compelling. As long as we grow over time, the competition results do not matter because we have already won the real battle: the one with ourselves.

As we approach music competitions, I urge every horn player not to be defined by rankings. Our losses do not determine our value. In an increasingly attention-based world, we must turn towards our inner self. The real competitions we fight are internal, and those results are measured only against ourselves.

Chamber Music Corner—Tamberg: Prelude and Metamorphosis

by Layne Anspach

This month, Chamber Music Corner introduces Eino Tamberg’s Prelude and Metamorphosis, Op. 38 for violin, horn, and piano. Eino Tamberg (1930-2010) was an Estonian composer who studied at the Tallinn Conservatory (now renamed the Estonian Academy of Music). Tamberg taught at his alma mater beginning in 1968, becoming Chair of the composition department in 1978, until 2005. Works for orchestra and the stage make up the main body of his oeuvre.

Prelude and Metamorphosis, Op. 38 is a short two-movement work composed in 1970. Tamberg had five self-determined compositional periods, and Op. 38 was composed during the second period, a period defined by experiments with twelve-tone music within a tonal setting. The first movement, Prelude, is marked andante maestoso, and it features all three instruments together. The horn and violin occupy the melodic space while the piano provides primarily chordal support. The movement ends with horn and piano on a D chord without a third which is sustained into the next movement.

The second movement, Metamorphosis, allegro molto, starts with violin pizzicato. The horn joins, and the two play a duet. In the absence of these two, the piano performs a brief faster section which is followed by a second duet without piano. This volley continues with ever-increasing tempo until all members come together at piu mosso. With the full ensemble, the movement continues in intensity towards a caesura. The final section, Andante, returns to the opening material. The movement ends—in contrast to the ambiguous final chord of the first movement—with a complete D major chord.

The reference recording is from the 2023 New York Chamber Music Festival with former New York Philharmonic hornist Howard Wall.

Ein Waldhorn Lustig

by Caiti Beth McKinney

Hello all! I want to share an absolutely lovely piece of music with you this month, written by the incredible Mel (Mélanie) Bonis (1858-1937). Bonis was a French composer active during the era known as the Belle Époque whose music is currently experiencing a resurgence, despite being almost completely lost until the 1990s. She was an incredibly prolific composer, writing more than 300 pieces of music ranging in genre from solo and chamber works to large-scale pieces for orchestra. Bonis’ life was a continuous tale of perseverance in the face of hardship and obstacles. In a clever effort to bypass misogyny in the music industry, Bonis signed her compositions using a shortened and more androgynous iteration of her first name and once was even congratulated in print as “Monsieur Bonis” by music critics.

During World War I, Bonis endured the hardships and tragedies many Europeans faced during the conflict but funneled her energies into work supporting the war effort, including taking children orphaned in the fighting into her home. She was a deeply spiritual woman, and many of her pieces were inspired by ancient sacred musical styles like plainchant.

I was recently reminded by a former student/colleague of the specific Bonis piece I would like to bring to your attention, Scènes de la forêt, Op. 123 (1928) for flute, horn, and piano. While originally written to include horn, the part is frequently borrowed by other instruments—I have seen performances with cello, English horn, and even viola substituting for the horn. The four-movement, fifteen-minute piece is evocative, ranging in mood from ethereal to triumphant. The Scènes are definitively representative of Bonis’ signature blending of Impressionistic and Romantic elements in her compositions and the play with color and texture to create vivid images in the mind of the listener. This chamber work is an outstanding addition to any recital program. I hope you enjoy listening to it and performing it!  

Pedagogy Column—“Fast is Fine…

compiled and edited by Mike Harcrow

…but accuracy is everything.” I have used this famous Wyatt Earp quote for decades with my students as a reminder to build, without haste or impatience, the physical coordination accuracy requires. To use lips, tongue, and fingers perfectly in tandem, supported by excellent airflow and well-practiced audiation skills, comes at different rates for different players—but I doubt even our horn-world superstars would say that flawless accuracy comes quickly.

I grew up with the Philip Farkas warm-ups, including the love-it-or-hate-it page 69 from The Art of French Horn Playing, an exercise designed to improve accuracy. Clyde Miller, my [very patient] teacher from 7th-12th grades, a Farkas contemporary, often exhorted me to “hear” with my lips. I confess that this instruction made no sense to me in my initial years of study, but I understand it now as audiation + muscle memory (and, at some level, this is how string players relate to their physical contact with a fingerboard).

What follows are some approaches to the issue of accuracy, some short and some longer, some thought-provoking and some to the point, but all helpful. These have been contributed by various players and professors who serve the International Horn Society in some administrative or content-producing role. The ideas, while by no means an exhaustive list, represent decades of information passed from teacher to student as well as personal experiences honed by inquiry, application, and success.

With a well-prepared tongue, you will never miss a note.

Austris Apenis, Horn and More Europe Desk Editor

In accuracy of playing, I am especially helped by focusing on air usage and core support, as well as being aware of tongue position or vowel shape. Accuracy is very much about timing and good coordination of the different aspects of playing technique. Focusing on air use keeps my attention both in the present moment and on the most essential element of playing technique at the same time.

Tommi Hyytinen, International Horn Society Advisory Council

Try these two very helpful resources on accuracy:

1. Read Nicholas Smith's book Don't Miss
2. Download and use the app Farkas 2.0. Available on the App Store.

James Boldin, Editor, The Horn Call

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast—a great sentiment to hold for both horn and life.

Rusty Holmes, “Mental Fitness” column, The Horn Call

Over the years, I've become convinced that a fair percentage of accuracy issues relate to synchronization of the fingers as we change notes. If you could see your fingers in slow motion as they move, for example, from 0 to T23, I suspect you might see them roll into place, with the third finger going down first and the thumb going down last.I find that passages in written E major are particularly important to master in this regard, and I often return to Pares Scales no. 99 (an E major exercise) to recheck the synchronization of my fingers.Be sure that your valve levers are adjusted so that they are in an ideal location to reach them. This may involve adjusting heights, adding lever extenders (like small coins), etc.I offer this final tip: My former colleague, tubist Sam Pilafian, was always reminding people to use fast fingers in slow passages. Fingers need to move into place quickly and with total synchronization.

John Ericson, “Equipment Notes” column, The Horn Call (see also Horn Matters)

Record yourself: One thing often forgotten in our efforts to increase accuracy is that we must be relaxed and confident. Our modern smartphone is our secret weapon in this matter. Record yourself early and often in your practice sessions. Not only will you discover issues about which you were unaware, but hearing yourself perform something will serve to build your confidence and remove the physical tension that causes “chips” and missed notes. Your performance will become exactly what you expect it to be, not just something that you hope it will be. Tuning and accuracy: A friend of mine once said a missed note is a note that was going to be out of tune. Tune your horn carefully, play daily with tuning drones, and be sure you can play in the center of each and every note. Any note that has to be bent to be played in tune is a note that you are likely to miss.

Brad Tatum, “Cor Values” column, The Horn Call

When working on accuracy, I recommend singing through the passage you are practicing to be sure you are hearing pitches correctly. Then, make sure your instrument is in tune. Finally, simply “sing” through the horn.

Susan McCollough, Executive Director, International Horn Society

Wyatt Earp poster free download!