by Austris Apenis
One of my teachers said that to me once, and it stuck. Until then, graduation had been the destination to me, but he was right. Absolutely right!
I decided to study the horn professionally when I was 16. The notion I had at that age was, “You need to get a job in an orchestra! If you don’t, what are you going to do then?” I think many professionals can relate to that. It is a great goal to work for and to be motivated by, but we all know how difficult it is to win an audition. And let’s be serious for a moment: how many of us will actually get a job in an orchestra? Even though it is a hard truth, don’t put your head down…and don’t give up yet! There are many other things that we can do. The last couple of years proved this to me.
Young professionals can have it pretty hard. We need to compete with everyone, no matter their age. Building up a network takes time but rent still needs to be payed. I lived that life for several years, and then something unexpected happened. The pandemic….
Without a doubt, no one expected that, and no one could have predicted how much it would change the world and, subsequently, the music business. Personally, I have to say that it was not all for the worse. At the beginning, I was sitting in lockdown with almost no work and only thinking of what to do. I am a person who constantly needs to work, make progress, and better myself. One thing led to the next, and I started learning how to build a website. It was very exciting, and my dopamine level was off the charts! I love working with computers. I was watching YouTube tutorials and studying 11 hours per day. Maybe it was my way of dealing with the pandemic. Who knows? But I learned something about web design, WordPress, SEO, marketing, and all kinds of useful skills that can be handy for an entrepreneur.
After the website was built, I started having doubts if anyone would even be able to find it, but then the next idea hit me: create a YouTube channel!
Since I am quite a shy person and sometimes have problems with stuttering, I could not have imagined a couple years ago that I would consider standing in front of a camera making tutorials about learning how to play the horn. But at that point, I was already outside of my comfort zone and in a nice flow. This seemed like a logical next step, and it really paid off. When I started, I already had a good amount of teaching experience. But also, you can upload anything to YouTube: teaching tutorials, music videos, orchestral excerpts…whatever you want to show to the world, and so this next adventure began. I had to learn video editing, filming, standing in front of the camera and talking. As a professional horn player who has already performed for 24 years, I am not a stranger to being on stage, but you won’t believe how difficult it was at first to talk to a camera! (I have gained so much respect now for television news anchors.) I pushed the record button and then started to panic. “Wait, what did I want to say again?” Memorizing lines was extra difficult, and I would stop after every sentence. Because of that, some magic needed to happen in the editing phase. That went on for a while, but then I got more and more comfortable with the process and realized that this is just another skill—quite different from playing the horn, but still a skill—and eventually, I got the hang of it. By the way, I think that we musicians are very good problem solvers and skill learners, even outside of our comfort zones.
This enterprise has taught me a couple of really useful things: recording horn ensembles is incredibly fun and satisfying, YouTube is a very effective way of getting your ideas out into the world, and listening to yourself playing is crucial if you want to improve.
If you are interested in seeing what I have made, you can click this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCPnrJpHIakA20s_AOsj2cA
But why am I telling you all of this? Maybe you already know where I am going with it: graduation is not the destination but the beginning. There are more things to do than just playing. Constantly get out of your comfort zone, learn new things which are not related to playing the horn, and, above all, be creative and genuine. That is what people like and will respond to well.
I think this is not said often enough, but I believe that we as a horn community have a responsibility to inspire the future generations, to show people how beautiful, inspiring, and impressive the horn can be, and to evolve with the times and use the most modern tools available to us. We can do so much more than we think!
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by Daniel Grabois
I had the good fortune to spend an hour on Zoom with British horn legend Frank Lloyd, asking him as many questions about horn playing as he would answer. He was in Kent, England, in sweltering heat, preparing to go on a 500-mile, 10-day bike ride to celebrate his 70th birthday. He began pursuing physical fitness in 1976, soon after having been appointed principal horn in the Scottish National Orchestra—after just having left the Royal Marines Band, and actually in need of a fitness plan. He began running to get in shape, switching to cycling 15 years ago when he suffered a slipped disc. The benefits and overwhelming “feel-good factor of training” helped him tackle stress and keep his mind clear, he explained.
I asked what goes through his head when he’s having a great performance. “The head is usually concentrating on what I’m doing,” knowing that losing one’s concentration for even one second can lead to mistakes. He has never really struggled with technical issues as far as fingers go, so his mind focuses primarily on the music and on the performance as a whole.
Frank grew up in a very rural part of the U.K. where employment opportunities were few. He joined the school brass band on the advice of a close friend, playing trombone (the school was out of cornets, his first choice of instrument), and then joined the Royal Marines Band at 16 by auditioning on trombone. He was accepted but missed the intake of new recruits owing to his school exams. By the time he had re-auditioned, they no longer needed trombonists, but they were in need of horn players, so he switched. He was immediately comfortable on the horn, winning an internal competition after his first year, performing Strauss’s first concerto.
I asked him about technique, about air and embouchure. He said that, as a young player, he was not made aware of the underlying principles of good air flow and support. Because he could play with great facility, his teacher never really focused on the fundamentals. At the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied after leaving the Royal Marines, his teacher, Ifor James, concentrated more on repertoire than fundamentals. Only after several years playing principal horn professionally did he realize that he needed to work more on fundamentals. Having to learn unconstricted air flow and support as a professional horn player was neither an easy nor enviable undertaking, but it became an easier task when he moved to 3rd horn in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London a few years later.
I asked him to define air support, since every horn player seems to have a different idea of what this means. He replied, “As far as the air is concerned, the lips don’t understand anything else: they’ve got to have good air to function correctly.
He attended some breathing classes while teaching in Essen, Germany, some years ago, where the theme was “air and sound.” The presenter spoke about the muscles we use to cough and to laugh, explaining that we use the same muscles to support the sound on the horn. Coughing and laughing are natural human functions, and we need to incorporate this natural muscle contraction into our support structure when playing the horn. Simply visualizing a method like this (or, say, a yoga pose) can be difficult, since demonstrations and first-hand experience are necessary to appreciate exactly how to emulate the process and implement the muscles involved. Using these coughing/laughing muscles ensures that there is no tension in the throat, allowing a free and uncompromised air flow. This is just as important in the high register as in the low. The throat stays completely open; the more you restrict the openness, the more you compromise the all-important airflow.
I asked Frank if he was talking about what we call our “core,” the muscles we use when doing a sit-up. He said it may well incorporate the same muscles, but, as in the yoga analogy, it’s easier to concentrate on the muscles that react when you laugh (for example) than on a lengthy technical explanation of intercostal muscles vs. diaphragm. Bring that feeling to your horn playing, not the sit-up feeling—as this would “lock” the muscles—and use this basic and natural feeling to develop tension-free playing.
When I asked about embouchure, he talked first about mouthpieces and the need to be able to play in all registers. We need a mouthpiece that enables all registers by not compromising one in favor of another. So, as teachers, we must make certain that students have the right equipment. It can be complicated since there are so many mouthpieces on the market. Students need help in finding the optimal mouthpiece, one suited to their embouchure and muscle structure, one that does not compromise their strengths but which at the same time helps their weaknesses.
You build your embouchure, Frank said, by working on flexibility (ease of moving between registers), endurance (stamina to play for longer periods), and power (playing a sustained fortissimo). He talked about how hard it can be to switch styles (playing an orchestra concert with a light piano concerto and then a heavy symphonic piece, for example). We must be aware of all these “different disciplines” which each demand a solid technique.
I asked about a player who might be a freelancer, playing principal horn one day, 4th horn the next, then onto a chamber orchestra performance the next. He replied, “Do your homework” and know what you’re going to have to play. Be prepared for anything, and train for all of these facets of horn playing.
It is equally important, though, for all players—but especially for freelancers—to be able to sight-read. Otherwise, you will embarrass yourself and hold your colleagues back. This includes being able to transpose at sight. An ensemble will not wait around for YOU to learn your part.
I asked him to talk about each register of the horn.
Low register: A lot of students are reluctant to be flexible with the jaw. You must open the embouchure (he demonstrated dropping his jaw). Practice descending interval exercises, teaching the lips and jaw to open to accommodate the lower notes. Teach your lips, training them through muscle memory to build a stable low register. He brought up the idea of shifting for the low register. He used the example of middle C. He used to play that pitch much stronger using his lower setting but had to teach himself (or rather his lips) to play it strongly on his higher setting. When you demand something of yourself over an extended period (like training for a marathon), your body, through repetition, will become stronger, eventually giving you what you want. You must keep asking—don’t quit! It’s a training element that will bring results only through perseverance.
In an audition situation, if you call yourself a “high player,” you have to be able to play a strong high C with ease. Conversely, if you consider yourself a “low player,” you must be able to play a powerful pedal G, no questions. These skills are NOT negotiable: you absolutely must learn to do them if you want to be successful in your chosen or strongest area/register.
Middle register, with reference to difficulty in starting notes: It helps to be able to start notes with a breath attack, without having to rely on the tongue. It’s all the same air after all, whether you use your tongue or not. It comes down to support in starting the note by setting the embouchure and then releasing air. The tongue is NOT the starter: setting the air in motion is. The art of playing quiet entrances without the tongue can help enormously with problems of articulation. However, ideally one should be able to do both.
High register: It’s all about training. By increasing the demand on your lips, especially using flexibility (gradually extending the range), you build strength in the embouchure. Don’t pull the mouthpiece into your face, using undue pressure; use your support instead, and a free airflow. This helps build the strength you need. The quiet dynamics are the ones you really need to practice and are the hardest to master. Practice by making a diminuendo as you move higher in the flexibility exercises, for instance. Without support, the tendency is to increase the dynamic as you get higher by pushing faster (faster = louder) air through the horn (to attain faster vibrations in the lips). The key points here are good support, strong embouchure, and clean air (not squeezed or “choked off” with the tongue or throat).
Don’t try to progress too fast in your development—train wisely. The way to the endpoint is a long staircase! Start with a good foundation and work up gradually from there.
Frank is a brilliant performer of multiphonics (playing and singing at the same time). He offered three different ways of practicing them:
Once you can master this separation of the two notes, work on achieving stability with good intonation, keeping both the played and the sung notes in focus and in tune. Frank also warned that multiphonics involving dissonances can be damaging for your vocal cords, so be careful.
We finished the interview by covering a few more technical ideas.
Legato playing: The beauty of the horn lies in its capacity to slur effortlessly between notes. Controlling the larger intervals so that slurs do not “slither” or become messy is important. Avoid a glissando effect by moving quickly between the two notes, as slurring too slowly increases the tendency to play more of the harmonics in between. Experiment with different types of slurs depending on repertoire: cleaner slurs for Mozart, warmer slurs for Strauss, for example.
Help to clean up your slurs by using a very light tongue on the note to which you are slurring in order to attain a clean arrival: in practice, the second note starts where the first note ends as we use an almost inaudible “da” syllable on the arrival note. Dennis Brain used this technique often.
Staccato playing: A clean articulation is paramount in attaining a clean, pure note in staccato; any note that makes a sound like “BL” or something similar is not optimal. Maintaining support through the note ensures that resonance is maintained. Don’t shut off the resonance by stopping the note with the tongue. If you feel you need to do this, it could indicate that you are not supporting correctly, as that is what controls the length of the note, not the tongue. Think: a short note is a short version of a long note, “da” as opposed to “daaaaaa,” and it is always open ended (with no artificial “stop”). Every note must speak with beauty, no matter how fast it is.
Frank likes sporting analogies, like building strength through training, and there are many sporting analogies where maintaining flow and follow-through are crucial to efficiency—golf swing, tennis stroke, and so on—in which we keep the energy going after we have done the required action. In our case, this means keeping the support active through and past the end of your phrase.
Attitude: Enjoy what you are doing. In the end, what is most important is the music. Always respect what the composer has written, interpreted in the style expected of the period, with your own personal musical interpretation. A competition jury will always forgive a few missed notes but will not forgive a lack of musicality.
Tone color: Sound concepts are steeped in tradition around the world, with preferred choice of instrument manufacturer and mouthpiece playing important roles. Two contrasting examples would be the USA and Germany, where in the USA a big, warm, dark sound is preferred to the brighter, more centered sound common in Germany.
Please join me in wishing Frank Lloyd a happy 70th birthday! And if you haven’t heard him play, seek out his brilliant recordings and videos.
by Ian Zook
Volume 1 – Ádám Friedrich
Welcome to a brand new and ongoing series of articles dedicated to re-discovering and preserving recordings from a bygone era.
For each installment of Horn on Record, we will examine a recording which has existed only on vinyl record and which has not yet been commercially digitized. For each featured album, a retrospective of the artist and album contents will be provided along with comments about historic style and influence—and there will be audio excerpts!
Our first album, produced by Hungaroton in 1973, comes from Ádám Friedrich, and it features a program of standard repertoire: Brahms’ Trio, Op. 40, Schumann’s Adagio & Allegro, and Dukas’ Villanelle, alongside a less-frequently performed work, Duvernoy’s Trio No. 1 for violin, horn, and piano. The collaborating musicians are pianist Sándor Falvai and violinist Miklós Szenthelyi.
Ádám Friedrich (1937-2019) was a Hungarian hornist who grew up in Hajdúböszörmény where his mother was a music teacher. From 1951-1956, he studied at the Miskolc Conservatory. He then entered the Academy of Music in Budapest, where he was a student of Ferenc Romagnoli and Zoltán Lubik.
He joined the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra in 1960 and served as a first horn from 1966-1991. A founding member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Friedrich also performed throughout his career with the Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra and the Hungarian Chamber Orchestra.
Friedrich held numerous teaching positions as well. He began teaching at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in 1973, and then from 1983-1997 at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. Between 1994-2002, he was an associate professor at the Béla Bartók Institute of Music at the University of Miskolc.
In 1994, Ádám Friedrich was elected vice-president of the International Horn Society, and the following year, he organized the 1st Hungarian International Horn Festival.
Listening to Ádám Friedrich’s recordings, we can tie the artistry of his interpretations to many of the qualities that make his playing so unique: a vocal and shimmering arc to the phrasing, a compact and precisely crafted tone, and an absolute tidiness in articulation.
Concerning tone color in particular, we can hear that much of the playing is on the Bb horn, with a fair amount of use of the high F horn too. The range of tone colors that Friedrich is able to explore on these shorter tube lengths is illuminating, and it demonstrates that his authentic and graceful sensibilities are only heightened by these choices.
In Dukas’ Villanelle, we will listen as Friedrich floats through the opening espressivo melody:
Later, in the section marked en echo, we hear the ghostly muted effect effortlessly and subtly meld into the ouvert pianissimo:
This recording of Villanelle ends with a jaunty tempo, propelled by Friedrich’s sparkling single-tongue articulations:
The Duvernoy Trio No. 1 in C major only has two movements. As we listen to the opening of the piece, notice the intensity of sound created by the rhythmic and melodic unisons of the performers. This tension gives way to a beautifully spun main theme in the horn. Both Friedrich’s lyrical phrasing and velvety articulations bring this music to life:
Our last excerpt comes from the allegro. Duvernoy’s breezy melodies and idiomatic horn writing further showcase Ádám Friedrich’s nimble style and his blend with the piano’s rhythmic pulsation:
I hope you enjoyed our first installment of Horn on Record! If you would like this vinyl album for yourself, they are available at Discogs. Also, you have the opportunity to help guide the content of this column! Follow this blog link to vote on more upcoming vinyl reviews!
by Peter Kurau, with Morgan Chalmers
The School
Greetings from the Eastman School of Music Horn Studio! I’m Peter Kurau, Professor of Horn at Eastman where, since 1995, I’ve had the great honor of succeeding my own undergraduate teacher Verne Reynolds in this capacity. This year, I have the pleasure of working with 24 magnificent horn students and collaborating with esteemed horn colleagues William VerMeulen (Visiting Professor of Horn), Jacek Muzyk, Maura McCune Corvington, and Stephen Laifer (Adjunct Instructors of Horn), and Derek Conrod (Visiting Instructor of Natural Horn). The students hail from 15 states and 4 countries and are pursuing Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral degrees in horn performance and/or music teaching and learning, with many students pursuing a second degree or minor field within Eastman or at the main campus of the University of Rochester, approximately a 15-minute shuttle ride from the Eastman campus in downtown Rochester. Ensemble offerings in the curriculum include 2 full symphonic orchestras, a chamber orchestra, a new-music ensemble, and 2 wind orchestras—including the venerable Eastman Wind Ensemble—plus a full array of chamber-music opportunities and Horn Choir. Most of the performances are live-streamed, so please join us as your interests and schedule allow. Wishing you all a most successful and enjoyable season and year! Most CORdially, PK
Student Highlights
-Spencer Bay graduated in 2021 and is a second-year fellow in the New World Symphony.
-Kira Goya graduated in 2021 and won the fourth horn position in the Fort Collins Symphony.
-Emily Houston graduated in 2021 and is a private teacher at the Keller Independent School District Division of Fine Arts in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
-Claire Bradley graduated in 2020 and won a position in the United States Army “Pershing’s Own” Ceremonial Band.
-Ava Conway graduated in 2020 and won a position in the United States Navy Band.
-Jessica Elder graduated in 2018 and recently won the principal horn position in the Utah Symphony.
-Senior Joseph Alberico is currently performing a one-year contract position as second horn in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
-Nikkolette LaBonte is pursuing her doctorate at Eastman and is currently guest principal horn for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She has also served as principal horn for Music in the Mountains in Colorado, and she is on faculty at the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, Eastman Horn Institute, and the Natural Horn course at Eastman.
The Horn Studio
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The 2022-23 Eastman School of Music Horn Studio, with Professor
Peter Kurau (far left, front), and adjunct horn faculty Stephen Laifer and Maura McCune Corvington (far right, front). |
Enjoy the Eastman Horn Studio performing the world premiere of Out of the Depths, by Pamela Marshall, written in celebration of the School’s centennial year in 2021 and performed this past March during the Women in Music festival held on campus.
Professor Kurau
Peter Kurau’s principal teachers included Verne Reynolds, David Cripps, William Capps, and Horace Fitzpatrick (natural horn). He has been an active member of the International Horn Society, having served on its Advisory Council for eight years and as Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, Pedagogy Editor, and member of the Editorial Board for The Horn Call. Prof. Kurau also hosted the 29th Annual International Horn Symposium, held in 1997 at the Eastman School. In 2016, he was honored with the IHS Punto Award. To learn more, read his full biography.
by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hello all!
I am so excited to be introducing diverse composers and their works for horn every month in Horn and More! Our first feature is on prolific composer, author, and educator Faye-Ellen Silverman.
Born in New York City, Silverman has studied music since childhood, including piano, clarinet, viola, and composition. Having attained advanced degrees from Harvard and Columbia University, Silverman has been a faculty member at The Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University and The Mannes School of Music at the New School, and she is currently teaching at New York University and Juilliard Extension. Additionally, she is a founding member of the International Women’s Brass Conference and currently serves on their Board of Directors, and she is the Board Secretary of New York Women Composers, Inc.
Silverman has written many pieces which feature the horn in combination with other instruments. One of her more recent works, Singing to My Mother (2018), was commissioned by Julie Landsman in memory of her mother. Melodic material in this solo horn piece is based on the Jewish lullaby “Raisins and Almonds,” which was popularized in 1880 by poet and playwright Abraham Goldfaden for his Yiddish musical Shulamis. Singing to My Mother takes the horn on an emotional journey across the range of the horn, frequently dipping into bass clef as the melody varies and transforms.
Another of Silverman’s notable works is entitled Protected Sleep, for horn and marimba. The music is also based on a Jewish melody, “Durme, Durme,” a Judeo-Spanish lullaby which translates to “Sleep, Sleep.” Drawing on the incredible colors created by such a combination, Protected Sleep allows both the horn and marimba to shine individually and as a duo through alternating moments of unison, solo, and complex counterpoint.
Left Behind for horn and mezzo-soprano sets the poems “The Dream” and “Sonnet II” from Renascence and Other Poems (1917) by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is a tour-de-force of communication. In particular, the challenging third movement, “Solo Horn Interlude,” is highly emotional but richly rewarding for the performer.
Silverman’s other works for horn include Dialogue for horn and tuba, Dialogue Continued for horn, trombone, and tuba, From Sorrow for trumpet, horn, and bass trombone, and several brass quintets and woodwind quintets. Many of these pieces can be heard on her album Manhattan Stories recorded by horn players David Jolley and Ann Ellsworth.
For more information, please visit Faye-Ellen Silverman’s website at https://www.fayeellensilverman.com or visit www.subitomusic.com to purchase her music.
To my dear friends in IHS land, Hello! I’m excited about my new CD (my 16th recording…I think) Sound Vespers, a new work for six brass (cornet, three trumpets, horn, trombone), one percussionist/tuba, and two electronics/field recording artists. It is now available on CD and for download at my Bandcamp page, www.tomvarner.bandcamp.com, or you can contact me on Facebook for a CD as well. The CD has six tracks, and there are also 2 extra (long!) tracks only on Bandcamp. Here are some excerpts from my liner notes:
For several years now, I have been fortunate to present a series of annual concerts at Seattle’s Good Shepherd Center Chapel Space, inspired by the idea of “combining forces” from within our local improvised-music community and members of the Seattle Phonographers Union, a group that presents improvised multi-laptop field recording sound collaborations. When I first heard an example of Steve Peters’ close-mike recordings of termites munching on an old Portuguese church pew, I was hooked, and I immediately had the idea of combining “live” improvisers with field recording/electronics artists. Of course, the Phonographers are also “live” and improvising as well, just like the other instrumentalists.
For our first concert in February 2015, I thought of multiple brass ensembles in a church and those wonderful, strange field recording sounds, and giving our concert the name Gabrieli and the Holy Termites. For me, it was magical, especially because all the improvisers, whether on brass, percussion, or laptops, knew when to play, when to not play, when to blend in, when to clash, when to truly leave silence, and when to blast that silence with something new.
Almost all the other concerts that we’ve done since have been in late August (2016 to 2022), and they have had a meditative, transitional “summer is over, fall is coming, day-changing-to-night” feel. The beautiful light in the Chapel Space would slowly change to dark as the concerts ended, forming a kind of reflective “sound creation vespers service for all”—or, Sound Vespers.
By 2019, I realized that I really should record one of these events, but instead of simply “live in the Chapel,” I would try to record in Seattle’s Jack Straw Foundation recording studio, with everyone miked up-close. We would have the chance to be more creative in the mixing, with reverb and panning, as well as with “close ups,” and, I thought we might experiment with one or two of the takes. Steve Barsotti recorded a “brass only” take, and with reverb treatments turned it into something else entirely for Brass Band in Marianas Trench. Steve did some other treatments on Sewing Machine Water Train, but all the other tracks are simply “as they were.”
And those sounds! I gave up at a certain point trying to figure out “what was what.” That’s not the point. There were sounds from microphones stuck into the sand at low tide, tap dancers practicing overhead in a parking garage, factories, unknown animals, crackling ice, heartbeats, slabs of quartz for a kitchen counter, along with assorted hand percussion, muted trumpets, low brass long-tones, and a lots of brass player air sounds. During the mixing, I told Steve Barsotti, “I loved those weird crickets at the end of that take!” And Steve answered “Tom, that was not crickets…that was my old Chicago radiator.”
Other than my suggestion that duos begin certain takes, there was no “structure” planned—the forms took care of themselves with such experienced improvisers. Each take had a different focus, each one creating something new. As percussionist Greg Campbell told me last week, “Tom, you had your two big ingredients: beauty and crunch!”
This project would not be successful if it were not for the incredible and unique players: Greg Kelley, Samantha Boshnack, Jim Knodle, Ray Larsen, Haley Freedlund, Greg Campbell, Steve Peters, and Steve Barsotti—all were so human and expressive in their own ways, and I was blessed to be playing with them in the studio that day. And, they “got it,” with no rehearsal, no explanation, we just laid down the tracks. There were no out-takes.
It has been a rough three years for so many of us. I hope these Vespers can bring you some beauty, humor, reflection, and joy.
Tom Varner, August 25, 2022.
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