My name is Daniel Grabois, and I am the new editor of the Pedagogy Column for Horn and More. I would like to congratulate Ab Koster on his six years of service providing this column. These are big shoes to fill!

I have been teaching horn for 33 years, in addition to performing. I am now the horn professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I began teaching in 2011 upon the retirement of Douglas Hill (more big shoes!). Before teaching at UW, I spent many years teaching at The Hartt School and at Princeton University, and I chaired the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music as well.

As a performer, I’ve been a member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble (brass quintet) since 1989. I was also an active freelancer in New York City from 1989 to 2011, playing chamber music, orchestra, ballet, opera, new music, Broadway shows, jazz, rock....

As a freelancer, every day is different: different music, different colleagues, different conductors, different situations. The common element is that you sit down and play the music that is put in front of you—and that can mean sight reading on the job.

What I have discovered in my teaching (and through my own self-study) is that we need to sight read music very differently from how we read written words (and most people can “sight read” a passage in a book without needing to explain that “I’m just sight reading here—I might make a mistake”). When we first learn to read, our eyes move from letter to letter, sounding out the words (although I’m sure children learning to read character-based languages like Chinese undergo a somewhat different process). Once we’re well into elementary school, though, our eyes pick up entire words, or even groups of words, all at once.

If we try to sight read music this way, we often fail. Our eyes may take in a group of, say, eight 16^th notes—after all, they are beamed together in groups of 4, so they really look like chunks of notes rather than lots of individual notes. But if we are hoping to play all of those 16^th notes correctly, we actually need to notice, to see, what the pitches are. This more closely resembles the letter-by-letter approach we used when learning to read than the “chunking” approach we end up with.

When I am sight reading and I mess up, most of the time I realize that I didn’t actually know what note to play, and that is because I didn’t see which note I was supposed to play. As I get older, my eyes take in even bigger chunks of material unless I discipline myself to notice and see each pitch.

We are often taught that in reading music, we must look ahead. True enough—it’s always good to be prepared for the next thing. But we also must know what to play NOW, and then we must play that thing NOW. It is a very in-the-moment experience.

It is also an experience that can be practiced. Take a piece of music you don’t know, or don’t know well. Insist that your eyes track along with what you are playing. Try to see the pitches, the note values, and even the articulation marks and dynamics. Note when your eye stops seeing what it needs to see. Your level of concentration should deepen.

If you get to a place in the music where you become confused and need to stop, ask yourself if that happened because of a playing issue or a seeing issue. Over time, you can train your eyes to see better and to take in more information.

Finally, if you notice that the next eight 16^th notes form an E major scale, great! Let your eyes peek ahead while you play the scale, but then start tracking again—return to the present moment.

Please let me know if this method works for you and if you are able to improve your sight reading. dgrabois@wisc.edu   

by Rev. Vichet Khuon

Hello, my name is Vichet Khuon, and I am from Cambodia. I was born in 1980 to a large and happy Buddhist family; I have three brothers and two sisters. At that time, Cambodia was still involved in the civil war with the Khmer Rouge. Soon after my birth, my mother accidently consumed poison that caused her many difficulties. She was not able to talk or even dress herself, so my father decided to take her to one of the hospitals in Thailand. He had to sell our house and most of our possessions to afford this, but we went to Thailand together in 1981. When we arrived at the border, we learned that we could not get to the intended hospital; so instead, we went to a refugee camp and found a hospital there that was eventually able to cure my mother. We lived in the camp for about ten years.

In 1991, we were finally able to return to Phnom Penh; but in 1994, my family decided to send me to live with my uncle because we did not have enough food for us all. I became his house cleaner, car washer, cook—his servant, even though I was his nephew and only a boy. At age 15, he did enroll me in a Fine Arts school. There, I met a teacher named Naomi Sharp from England. She taught me how to play horn, and her Christian faith was a positive and powerful influence on me as well.

When my uncle learned that I had become a Christian, he would not allow me to live with him anymore, so I had to move to the school. From that point, my life became more difficult; I had no food, no room, no possessions of my own, but I tried hard to learn horn. Ms. Sharp continued to teach me, but she also gave me food each day. At first, I felt like I didn’t know anything about music…what is music? why music? I thought that the sounds of guns and mines that I had heard daily during the war and the sounds of the refugee camp were my music; but with the horn, everything changed for me—the beautiful sound which came through the horn comforted me and brought me hope for life. 

Rev. Khuon with his teacher, Naomi Sharp

In 2000, Ms. Sharp said she would return to England. In Cambodia, there was no horn teacher, so she recommended that I go to Vietnam for a bachelor’s degree in horn. While in Vietnam, I joined the Vietnamese International Orchestra. After two years there, I completed my degree, came back to Cambodia, and became a member of the Royal Orchestra which performs for our king. 

In 2007, I married the most beautiful girl, Leakhena, the other half of my life story. We now have two sons, Andrew and Timothy. In 2008, I went to Bangkok to study at the Asian Baptist Theological Seminary for two years, but I have not been able to finish yet because of my family responsibilities.

Cambodia is poor in music, and, besides myself, very few people play the horn. I want to teach students to play, but we don't have instruments for them to use—our cost of living makes them very expensive—and the Fine Arts school does not focus on developing musicians for such things, so I play only for special events.

Rev. Khuon with his pupil, grandson of the King of Cambodia

Leakhena and I have opened our home to students who come from rural areas to study at the University in Phnom Penh. I encourage them to study well, and we try to provide them some funds to help cover their school fees. Most of them are from the poorest families, and they often consider dropping out of school because of this. So, we take them in and help them. I teach them every Friday night: English, Bible, music, and life skills. (I want to teach some of them horn too!) Still, it is not easy for them, as it was not easy for me. Yet we love them and want to see Cambodian children and youth enjoy health, faith, hope, and success.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story.

With respect and gratitude,
Vichet Khuon

Idyll

by Bob Rearden

National Symphony Orchestra hornist Robert Rearden has released his first solo recording, Idyll, available digitally on all streaming services as well as on CD. Rearden is joined on the album by friend and frequent collaborator Teddy Abrams, who not only accompanies Rearden but who composed a new piece for the project as well.

Rearden: In the great symphonic and operatic works of Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, and Tchaikovsky, some of the most beautiful passages are written for the horn. However, the solo horn repertoire by these great masters is limited to the concerti and a few incidental pieces by Strauss in addition to the trio by Brahms. It is my hope that this compilation—featuring other works by these composers, as well as a piece by violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler, and works by two of the most important artists of our time, hornist and composer Félix Dervaux and conductor, pianist, clarinetist, and composer Teddy Abrams—will highlight welcome additions to the horn’s lyrical repertoire.

The horn parts from the works of Kreisler, Mahler, and Brahms are played from the original scores. However, Yuriy Leonovich and Nathaniel Hepler have expertly created transcriptions of the works of Strauss and Tchaikovsky, respectively.

Richard Strauss’ works explore the dramatic range and colors of the horn. The Emperor’s Monologue from Die Frau ohne Schatten features an extended solo (originally for cello) leading to a beautiful, lyrical section and a thrilling finish. Morgen! exploits the singing quality of the horn’s mid-low register. In Hab’ mir’s gelobt from Der Rosenkavalier, Leonovich brilliantly melds the vocal trio and Strauss’ heroic horn writing.

I have enjoyed a long friendship and history of collaborations in many settings with Teddy Abrams who composed Out of the Woods? especially for this album. Abrams writes, “The work is a surrealist fantasia, moving between romantic-style melodies and impressionistic haze. The work conjures both a fairytale magical quality and a feeling of the maze-like uncertainty of our own very real times.”

I chose Kreisler’s Tempo di Menuetto (originally for violin), Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (originally for baritone), and Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile (originally for cello) because they sit well on the horn and highlight the instrument’s rich sound—and because these three pieces have been on my list of “things I want to play” for some time.

Written while Félix Dervaux was a student and intended to be part of a compendium of new works for young horn players, Idyll proved too difficult to be included and was filed away. Dervaux says, “I composed the piece over two days while my girlfriend (now wife) Sophie was out of town; the piece is reflective of my mood at the time—peaceful and happily longing for her return.”

Brahms finished his Cello Sonata no. 1 in 1865, the same year in which he completed his Horn Trio, and the two pieces received their premieres within one month of each other. Although Brahms specified on the original manuscript of the Trio that it could be played by a cello instead of the horn, the limitations of the horn of the time would not have allowed a similar alternate instrumentation for the Cello Sonata, but the modern horn certainly makes this possible. As befitting a cello sonata but unidiomatic to horn repertoire, rests are few and far between, and the piece spans the entire range of the instrument—a real tour de force!

The cover art on the album is from an oil painting by my late grandmother Evelyn Wells.

The recording is dedicated to the memory of my producer and friend Thomas C. Moore, who died in October 2021 from an aggressive brain tumor.

Idyll is now available on CD and on all streaming platforms with links here: https://robertrearden.hearnow.com

About the Artists

Robert Rearden joined the National Symphony Orchestra in 2016 after having served as principal horn of the Florida Orchestra for six years and the New World Symphony for four. He has appeared regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra and as guest principal for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Rearden received his undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina, his master’s degree and Artist Diploma at The Cleveland Institute of Music, and he was a fellow at both the Tanglewood and Aspen Music festivals. Rearden has performed with the Mainly Mozart, Britt, Artosphere, Steamboat Springs, Spoleto USA, and Eastern music festivals. He can be heard performing on recordings by the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Florida Orchestra.

A versatile musician, Teddy Abrams is the widely acclaimed music director of the Louisville Orchestra. Here, he has led the world premieres of his own piano concerto as well as of numerous interdisciplinary projects, including his rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammed Ali. In recognition of his groundbreaking work, Abrams was named Musical America’s Conductor of the Year for 2022. In addition, Abrams serves as music director and conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra, and he has guest-conducted many of the country’s most prominent orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago, San Francisco, National, Houston, and Milwaukee symphonies. He has also served as conducting fellow and assistant conductor of the New World Symphony.

By Orlando Afanador Florez

The diverse pedagogical and academic materials for the teaching of the French horn can be approached in several ways according to the technical level to which they have been developed. My work, "Daily Practice: Technical Exercises for the Learning of the French Horn" has been created for application as pedagogical material for teaching horn at the NEOJIBA State Youth Orchestras and Children’s Orchestral program in the city of Salvador, Brazil. The method has been used as an important improvement tool in many foundational areas, such as the development of a better, more-centered tone quality, articulation, flexibility, and different rhythmic patterns combined with major scales, all of which allow the unification of the teaching criteria used in the program. 

This method features specific technical exercises, for both beginning and intermediate levels, which can be combined with other methods by well-known teachers to allow the students from NEOJIBA to achieve better technical advances on their instruments while performing in various orchestras and formation centers.

Since my arrival in the program, I have been working specifically on the development of the French horn school. One of the goals is for more children and young people to know and play the horn. To this end, the idea formed for having pedagogical materials which could be a reference in the different classes of instrumental technique, at the different levels of the program, thereby unifying the parameters and expectations for teaching the instrument.

Initially, the technical exercises were explained orally; however, writing these exercises helped with their understanding and practice by the students. As the classes developed, these exercises, Chromatic and Major Scales, along with other practice books, have become a fundamental part of the horn class.

Thanks to these written exercises, students have practical material as well as an elementary guide to technique created for the program which allows measurable progress in the playing of the instrument.

“Daily Practice: Technical Exercises for French horn learning” has become the primary method used in the NEOJIBA program for teaching the horn. 

YouTube Links:

Sample of a class from NEOJIBA
Horn Ensemble from NEOJIBA
Horn Ensemble from NEOJIBA

Book Cover

Exercise for developing tone

Exercise for developing flexibility