by Joshua Pantoja

I consider myself to be passionate about the horn, regardless of the style or genre being performed; from symphonic music to popular music, my personal interest has always been to transmit music of the highest level, the type of ensemble notwithstanding, to break the stereotype of the horn as an instrument used exclusively for symphonic music, and to allow the world to see it as the versatile instrument that it really is. Since my early days in music, I have found it fascinating to be able to play without having to have something written down, to create from within and develop an idea through creativity. My admiration for great trumpeters such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, and Arturo Sandoval, motivated me to try to bring their way of playing to the horn, and that's how I began to explore the world of improvisation, both empirically and intuitively, since my main focus had been classical music and my training as an orchestral musician.

Five years ago, I finally decided to begin to give shape to my idea of using the horn in jazz in a structured way, and that's how I got to know my teacher and friend Julio "Julito" Alvarado, one of the most widely-recognized trumpet players in Puerto Rico, known for his contribution to jazz and Caribbean music. With him, I began my formal learning process of jazz, and at the same time I began to investigate how I could share this knowledge with classically trained musicians in a clear way that is familiar to those who have not had the opportunity to have contact with the world of improvisation. Thus, I came up with the idea of writing my first book, From Classical to Jazz, an Improvisation Method, in which I compiled practice exercises that I have used as improvisation tools, presented in a simple language for players of any instrument. It is based on different scales and chords and their structures, allowing for the learning of these resources in a gradual manner, making use of the circle of fourths. As an additional tool, I created individual tracks for each exercise; this makes the process more fun and complete as it expands the aural aspect to new sonorities. The book contributes and enriches the creative possibilities when improvising, giving the musician the freedom to create without the need for a score.   

Musicians around the world have begun to look for ways to diversify and have found, to my great satisfaction, a possibility in my book. We have created a community through the Facebook group “From Classical to Jazz, an Improvisation Method” and through my website www.joshuapantoja.com, where we discuss the book, analyze its exercises and work on jazz standards in a simple way. In addition, I have had the honor of visiting several universities in the United States, where I have been able to teach virtual master classes and individual lessons for the purpose of sharing all these tools with as many musicians as possible. More and more people are receiving this information and are beginning to explore improvisation as another possibility in their musical training. 

I would like to close by saying that music is an infinite world, where learning is limitless, in which the more skills we develop, the more opportunities we will have at a professional level. To me, jazz has been an infinitely enriching experience that has opened my mind, and expanded my creativity and my way of listening to and enjoying music. I invite you all to rediscover yourselves, to dare to experiment and not set limits for yourselves.

by Jeffrey L. Snedeker

Hand and/or Valve: Horn Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire in the 19th Century, and the Transition from Natural Horn to Valved Horn

The transition from the natural horn to the valved horn in 19th-century Paris was different from similar transitions in other countries. While valve technology was received happily by players of other members of the brass family, strong support for the natural horn, with its varied color palette and virtuoso performance traditions, slowed the reception and application of the valve to the horn. Nowhere was this support more evident than at the Paris Conservatoire.

The traditions of virtuoso natural horn playing at the Conservatoire were established by its first teachers, in particular Frédéric Duvernoy and Heinrich Domnich, but even they presented the horn in different lights. Duvernoy was a noted soloist whose method emphasized the development of hand technique that produced even tone colors over a three-octave range. Domnich, a student of Punto, was more of a pedagogue, producing a method that was more comprehensive in support of the traditions of high horn and low horn playing as well as the development of a chromatic range covering more than four octaves. Domnich also promoted even tone colors throughout the range yet celebrated the variety of colors as a benefit to the horn’s expressive potential. The successor to both teachers was the Domnich’s former student Louis François Dauprat, who took Domnich’s ideas and expanded them. It is clear that Dauprat’s method is a significant step forward—482 pages long and divided into three large sections, it contains not only numerous exercises for technical development but also extensive written discussions on topics that range from mechanics of playing technique and horn construction to practical suggestions for performing practices (e.g., ornamentation), as well as advice to students, teachers, and composers regarding styles, taste, and performance. Dauprat’s method still casts a shadow over all method books that have appeared since it was first published in 1824. Dauprat’s two successors on natural horn, Jacques-François Gallay, who joined the Conservatoire faculty in 1842, and Jean Baptiste Victor Mohr, who was appointed Gallay’s successor in 1864, carried Dauprat’s work forward and built on it.

Valved brass instruments first appeared in Paris in 1826, and their reception was mixed. Applications to soprano instruments, like trumpets, and later to bass instruments, like tubas and saxhorns, were more readily embraced, especially in military music, but their inclusion in the orchestra and even in solo repertoire moved more slowly for a variety of reasons. The obvious advantages in applying valves to the horn, e.g., more open notes in the middle and low ranges, were countered with preferences for the variety of colors available on the natural horn that worked well with other instruments and offered opportunities for a wider range of personal expression, at least in the opinions of some commentators. The first successful application of valves to the horn in Paris involved a mixed technique that simultaneously combined hand technique with options in fingerings to encourage performers to pursue nuanced and personalized performing practices (thus, hand AND valve). The promoter of this approach, Joseph Émile Meifred, became the first valved horn teacher at the Conservatoire in 1833. His approach was embraced and supported actively by Dauprat, and Meifred continued to teach at the Conservatoire until his retirement in 1864. 1864 was also the year that Gallay died and thus a natural horn teacher was also needed.

Clearly at a crossroads, the Conservatoire administration had choices, one of which would have been to hire replacements for both teachers/classes. They didn’t. They could have looked to the future and chosen to hire a valved horn teacher and let the traditions of the natural horn fade away. They didn’t. What they did do was to hire Mohr, not only a natural horn specialist but also a former student of Gallay apparently committed to maintaining the traditional instrument. There are several possible reasons for this decision. First, of course, was budget cuts. Still, one might think that hiring a valved horn specialist who could play some natural horn (or vice versa) would make the most sense in terms of horn activity at the time. Another possibility is a strong preference for the natural horn, which was still deemed appropriate for older repertoire that was popular at the time. Still, there was plenty of new repertoire that would support looking ahead. Yet another possibility is that other studio classes might have been able to handle general valved brass study. In the 1850s, the Conservatoire had decided to pick up the musical slack from the difficulties experienced by the Gymnase de musique militaire (Military Music School) and hired additional teachers to provide instruction on “modern” brass instruments for military musicians. It is possible that valved horn could have been viewed as “close enough” to be included in those studios.

Mohr, however, was the only official horn teacher at the Conservatoire from 1864 to 1891, and it appears the natural horn was the only type of horn taught. Over the course of Mohr’s tenure, calls for valved horn teaching increased, especially as performance repertoire became more chromatic/complex and the requirement of valves in professional circles became more prevalent. As the Conservatoire administration considered a change, a commission to examine the possibility of valved horn instruction was suggested and then formed. The result, accelerated by Mohr’s unexpected passing in 1891, was the hiring of François Brémond, an accomplished performer sympathetic to the traditions of the natural horn and well versed in the advantages of the valved instrument—the perfect person to guide the transition from the past to the present. His approach, as evidenced in his method books, encouraged the study of both natural horn and valved horn but treated separately (thus, hand OR valve). The pieces promoted by Brémond for study at the Conservatoire included separate sections for natural horn and for valved horn, e.g., Paul Dukas’ Villanelle (1906). This was not the same approach as Meifred’s method of combining hand technique and valves simultaneously. Comparing the approaches of Meifred and Brémond offers interesting insights into the way two different time periods viewed the horn and its attributes.

For those who are interested in learning more about this time and place in horn history, please come to my presentation at IHS 54 where I will be discussing these two approaches to the valved horn. Here is a preview:

If you would like even more detailed discussions of both valved horn and natural horn teaching at the Conservatoire in the 19th century, please consider reading my book, Horn Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, 1792 to 1903: The Transition from Natural Horn to Valved Horn (Routledge, 2021). 

“The book is very well researched, very well written, and will be a substantial contribution to the history of the horn. In structure and scope, this book goes deeper into the history of the horn in France in the nineteenth century than anything written previously. Highly recommended.” Professor Richard Seraphinoff, IU Jacobs School of Music, USA

Dr. Jeffrey Snedeker has taught in the Music Department of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, since 1991. Jeff is active in several national and international organizations, having served on the Advisory Council of the International Horn Society (including three terms as President), the Board of Directors of the Historic Brass Society, and the Washington Music Educators Association Advisory Board (elected to two terms as Higher Education Curriculum Officer). Jeff currently serves as Principal Horn with the Yakima Symphony. Jeff has published over 50 articles on a variety of musical topics in scholarly and popular journals, including seven entries in the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary/Grove Music Online.

by Julie Landsman

I recently interviewed Julie Landsman, retired Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and horn professor at Juilliard and the University of Southern California, about her horn playing and her teaching. We discussed foundations of technique and musicianship, and how to teach these things to students. The essay below puts Julie’s words into a narrative flow about horn playing and pedagogy. We began by talking about Carmine Caruso, who worked with many brass players in the 1970s and developed a series of exercises designed to build a stable technique. -Daniel Grabois, Pedagogy Column Editor

The Carmine Caruso exercises are totally a part of my teaching and playing. They have been there since I was twelve. I’m always in the Carmine mindset when there’s a horn involved. But I have found that you really need to move at the pace of the student, not of the method. Being wise as a teacher in what I give my students really helps tailor what I give to each student in the Caruso. For example, some of my students do better without free buzzing, and we may find a few ways around that. It really depends on the student. If you force free buzzing, you could get in trouble.

What you don’t want to do with the Caruso is overdo it. Those who overdo it run the risk of getting injured. Keeping the mouthpiece in place and breathing through the nose is a really good idea for the Caruso, but I would never recommend it for regular playing. It helps stabilize the embouchure as it moves through the registers. There are so many aspects to this method that I find therapeutic and helpful. Developing an embouchure that doesn’t need a lot of reset as you go through the register breaks is one of the greatest assets of the Caruso method.

There is much refining of how the embouchure functions. The concept of using subdivision for movement is crucial. If you refine your subdivision as you’re moving through the intervals by using the subdivision of 16^th notes in the beat before you move, it really refines how your chops move (with the hundreds of muscles that it takes to move from one note to another), and what you want is coordination and refinement, so that your technique is clean and clear. That refinement really shows up in orchestral auditions, where roughness is a deal breaker.

Defining horn technique includes building from the ground up. How is your support working? How is your air working? Are they in balance with how your embouchure is working? If you’ve got good foundation and good blow and good support, it’s going to take you very far with balance, and balance in the embouchure is essential. The tongue, for instance, can’t work without support and blow. I teach foundation through Caruso, but I’ve also studied Alexander Technique and Feldenkreis. Both of those methods really helped me with basic foundation, so your body is optimized with air and support.

“Support” is a very amorphous concept since we can’t see it. It is the engagement of your core in your horn playing. In my last few years at the Met, I started studying Alexander Technique, and I learned to pull my belly in to provide support to the sound. This was an essential aspect of healthy playing: without support and without blow, you punish your chops (embouchure) more than they can handle. You can actually damage your chops and your endurance without good balance of air and support.

“Good air” means a constant steady moving stream of air. It could be steady and fast (loud) or steady and slow (soft), but it is moving and engaged and constant. This is how we feed our chops to create dynamic playing. These are essential ingredients in the recipe of good horn playing.

There’s something called the “taste” of the note that is a miraculous thing that we horn players can do. We can hear it, we can feel it, we can see it, and then we time it and play it. What does that note taste like? There is a note tasting exercise in Caruso that develops accuracy. There is a certain magical aspect to what a note tastes like. As a young student in beginning band, I was mystified that classmates knew how to find the first note they had to play. How did they know? As we age and practice and develop, the taste of the notes gets developed and becomes automatic and natural.

I don’t ever think about my lips. I don’t direct my embouchure by instruction. I just feel it. If another horn player or a student plays a note, I have an empathetic feel of that note. We just develop a sense with repetition over time.

Many players, when they drop their jaw to go into the low register, lose even and equal pressure on their chops. If that’s going on, I may say, “Make sure you feel both sets of teeth.” Players often lose this contact as they descend. I can hear when a student loses this contact because the sound becomes unstable. It should sound similar and beautiful in all registers (in an ideal world). A tuner is a great teacher for descending through the registers: when it goes flat, you know you’re not using enough pressure in the lower range. I help my students discover, moving slowly and incrementally, how they are connecting with the mouthpiece. So, I do talk about chops if there’s trouble.

If the blow (airflow) going out the aperture and through the horn is even and equal to the pressure in the front, you’re good. If you overblow and you don’t have enough pressure in front, the sound gets raucous. And if you smash the mouthpiece into your chops in front and you don’t hold it up with a good blow that has even and good support, you can get into trouble, and you hurt yourself.

Less thinking is better. A lot of teachers micromanage their students’ embouchures. I like going for the larger groups of muscles: butt, belly, core, and tailbone – those are so much more stabilizing than micromanaging the embouchure. I remind my students constantly to turn off their thinking. I redirect their focus away from their chops.

In the best of moments, I am fully engaged in what I’m doing: loving the music, loving my part, loving my contribution, loving my colleagues and what I hear on stage. I engage in positive emotions. I also time what I’m doing very strongly. I’m looking to make it sound easy, even if it’s hard. I want a “tool chest of ease,” and number one is timing. Number two: am I blowing and supporting? Beyond that, if I’m worrying, I have things in the tool chest to replace worry. For instance, I dedicated many performances in my heart to my parents. There’s a live recording on my website of Va tacito from Handel’s opera Giulio Cesare. I had had pneumonia six weeks before, so my chops did NOT feel good. I had to do a lot of meditating and visualization to bring myself away from the worry, to go instead to the imagination. I played the aria having a conversation with my parents, thanking them with a grateful heart for all they did for me. That’s how I managed my high anxiety, and it went great. I’m so proud of this recording, where I’m channeling different energy. It has NOTHING to do with technique – it’s all about imagination.

To get out of your head, you must find something stronger than what’s in your head. Put yourself into a scene and provide as many details for the scene as possible. You should experiment. Find something very specific to imagine, and come up with a story, so that when you play, you’re caught up in the details of the story rather than thinking about your own worries. You must make the story stronger than the worry. And it’s fun!

The purpose of doing the Caruso exercises is to free yourself so that you can be completely immersed in the music.

The biggest education you can give yourself for knowing how you want to sound is to listen to others performing. It doesn’t have to be horn players. I was at the opera five times a week when I was in high school, listening to incredible singers. My world changed listening to these singers. I wanted to sound just like Marilyn Horne: a beautiful, centered pitch with a solid core and a rich creamy outside. Can I ever sound like that, please??

I warm up on Caruso: six notes, lips-mouthpiece-horn, and so on; I have a set routine, which I can expand. I move through all the registers, feeling the flexibility.

When I got to Juilliard as a student, I couldn’t play low at all. I started to work with Carmine Caruso on low register: how to practice, and what to do to make the sound even and in tune. I worked an entire summer on developing this. “Even and equal pressure” was what he told me: let the lips find the balance.

What does it take to learn balance on a bike? Repetition, falling, skinning your knees, and getting back on the bike. Your body naturally can find the balance with time and repetition. I like to raise the creativity level with my students: think about images, colors, scenes. The visual element can take students away from their thoughts about how to play. I try to distract the analytical side of the brain so that the creative side is more active than the analytical. Students have their own style of learning and their own pace. The master teacher treats each student as an individual. How do I get the best results from this person as an individual? Do I need to change my approach? I just keep looking, and I don’t accept anything less than great.