hello my name is Katie and I'm one of
the two principal horns of a pneumonia
orchestra so I'm gonna talk to you about
the French horn it's in the brass group
of orchestral instruments and sits on
the right hand side slightly away
because we're slightly special
we're slightly special for a couple of
reasons I mean fundamentally it's the
same because you make a bit weird
buzzing sound the lips we vibrate our
lips to create sound that vibration then
hits the mouthpiece and then travels
through the horn like that so goes from
an ugly sound to now the horn is quite
special and in that person it's played
with left hand so the right hand that is
because a while back before the valves
are invented a couple hundred years ago
we used to change the notes with our
hand so like this that doesn't really
give you an even tone so they added some
valve so we get all the notes without
having that fuzzy sound another
difference is that it's conical and so
it starts smaller here and wins round
and eventually gradually gets bigger
until you get to the Bell and that's why
it's slightly different to the brass
instruments it's great fun to play one
of the things I love most about the
French one is the variety you get so an
orchestral situation you can play some
beautiful people quiet Tunes kind of
creeping melodies very haunting very
romantic but also you can get some
really exciting moments when the horns
can blast skin you get a Bells outfit
and just creates that little bit of
extra added excitement this is the
natural horn this was a member of the
orchestral family from about 16th
century 17th century or maybe up to 18th
century even it was before then at the
the modern horn and valves over here
this used to be played with the right
hand
is there no valves so we had to get the
notes in between by go the natural horn
works on the harmonic series which means
it can only get a few notes at a time
such as this like that as you get higher
the notes get closer together like that
so generally most the tunes you will
hear will be in the upper upper octave
where you can get more of the
from notes reading and now it wasn't the
most useful of instruments and that you
can only get a couple of notes like that
and to get notes in between you have to
cover your hand like that
now the reason is not so useful is that
very key you have to be in you have to
have different crooks so that is one
crook and here are some more one per
kiri this is just a selection that's not
very good
firstly they're rather loud so as you
change interrupts your Kestrel music and
also you just have two of them all there
it's really heavy to carry around so
gradually last time they added valves
who didn't need all of those on a normal
French one there are two sides F size
and a b-flat side you change these sides
by using this valve thumb valve here
like that now that changes the airflow
it all starts going in there and coming
out of the air but in between it's all
rather complicated so there are two
sides I was talking about the F sine B
flat sides F side is tubing of 12 feet
long and that's the top level so when
you have two layers here the longer ones
are left side and the short ones of the
B flat side now you can change your mind
which one you want by that and also
depending which valve you pressed air
goes down different tubes here so press
the first valve goes round here through
here and then first slides second goes
round here then through here third round
there and all through this one the
longest one or any combination of all or
both before valves are invented you
couldn't play a chromatic Li you could
just play the harmonic series which the
horn and any brass sentiment is based on
or you could play with your hands
slightly getting a couple of notes in
between but now we have the valves we
can play grammatically from the very
bottom to the very top of our register
one of the problems with the French horn
is its awkward shape so we want to carry
it around the Bell gets in the way so
you're carrying a sigh and you wacky leg
and bruises in that kind of thing people
have created a excellent solution to
this by having detachable bells it comes
off so you pack it away it's neatly like
that and it's a nice little toolbox the
role of French horn player has changed
over the years quite a lot when we used
to only be able to play the harmonic
series we just used to be the kind of
filling in the middle or tonic and
dominant
that kind of thing rather boring in
between notes then gradually as we got
to be both firstly better with our right
hand and as our valves came up we got
the tunes and their logic beautiful side
of the horn started to shine through
Gustav Mahler was one of the best horn
writers in his time and actually maybe
all horn riding ever he had some
beautiful loud tunes bowls and some
beautiful choir ones and this is one of
the more melodic pretty ones
you
Oh
so the same simply Marla also wrote some
rather loud bits for horn and this is a
tutti so it's quite a lot was playing it
so imagine this times about million most
of the parts we read are in the key of F
so we see horn and F written which means
that our C or actually comes out as an F
so when we see scale of C major
whoa if you were to play on the piano
that would be an F major scale the
reason is an F was because back in the
day when we used crooks
it was the crook which that was
basically had made appropriate sound so
the one that's a bit lower a bit wofully
not very clear and one's a bit higher a
bit shrill so there's a good balance to
produce a clear start to the note we
quite often tone them so we get we use
our tongue behind your teeth sometimes
through our teeth depending on how long
your tongue is and you just kind of give
it a bit of a kickstart so you can do
quite sharp tummy like that which isn't
very attractive so we generally tone it
down a bit and some people don't use the
tongue at all produce the neck just by
vibrating the lips
which gives you a softer articulation
unlike other brass instruments we have
our hand up the Bell so that's kind of
hangover from when it was a natural one
that's how we used to change the notes
nowadays it just kind of keeps that
sound which they are all familiar with
and we're all familiar with now and it's
good way to hold it instead of like that
looks a bit silly also we can change the
tuning so say you're a bit sharp recover
over slightly and it hopefully goes in
tune like that so guys plateau sharp and
composes sometimes uses it to create a
funny sound so there are two main
composers who spring to mind I think
about people who excellent horn writers
first from a while back is Mozart he had
a very good friend called us flloyd gab
and he wrote four concertos for him one
of which was made very famous by
Flanders and Swann which goes a bit like
this last bit longer than that
you get the idea and the other one is
richard strauss who's a bit later on as
far there was a horn player so he
probably grew up with the sound of horn
floating around the sitting room in the
kitchen that kind of thing so he knew
what sounded good you what sounded bad a
good example is held in Laban which
starts at a low B which within the space
of about ten bars goes up to high B so
yep from very load very high but he knew
how to do it
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