Reference - Horn
See also Miscellaneous
Horn Central - looks a bit like this site: many categories of web links (alphabetized: Accessories, Alphorn, Auditions.... to Work), plus some other categories Horn History, Books, Magazines, plus a Repertoire section that we really like. It looks like a great complement to this site as a vast repository of well-organized information on the horn. The biggest difference is probably that our site adds annotations on most listings and Horn Central simply lists the link. Clean, clear, no muss, no fuss. Bookmark this one!
Index of Horn Call articles - 3 parts, annotated: Part One, 1971-1995, Part Two, 1995-2002, Part Three 2002-2007. See also The Horn Call Index, 1970-February 2010 (all articles listed by author and subject). There is a vast amount of information in the many decades of issues of the The Horn Call, but finding a needle in a haystack would be a supremely daunting task without an index of the contents. The first Horn Call Index was done by Mick Sehmann for his 1990 University of Iowa doctoral dissertation - bravo Mick! Harriet Fierman started creating an annual index of each volume of the HC, and Molly White then complied Part 2. It has been updated twice since then, alleluia. Copies of back issues can be ordered from Horn Call editor Bill Scharnberg
Sarah Willis Horn - Possibly the most attractive and elegant horn web site on the web, and one of the most informative and up to date. Notable for its “Horn Hangouts” with famous horn players, which are captured in a series of videos. Photography is superb throughout. Bravo, Sarah! This site is a model of excellence that everyone else should aspire to.
Music for Horn - A database of music for horn ensembles - by Armin Terzer.
Music Minus One - “leader in sheet music with accompaniment CDs since 1950”. 99 albums for horn. They also sell all kinds of fake books, DVDs, and more
Google Book Search - How to get there (besides the link given here): Google>More>Books>Advanced Book Search. Put in "French horn" (or just "horn") and click "Full View Only." Then marvel at all the article from years and ages past (scanned articles going back to the early 1800s) that you can either read online or download as pdf files or plain text. What an age we live in!
Dr. John Q. Ericson’s Articles Online
Over 60 articles about the horn, its history, technique, etc. A great resource.
Brass Instruments - this is not a web site, but a group of audio files available through iTunes. Find it thus: iTunes>iTunes University>Fine Arts p. 6: Brass Instruments. There are number of short talks on many subjects, e.g. “How Brass Instruments Work”; “Development of the Trumpet”; “The Performer’s Perspective”; “Physics of Brass Instruments”; “Historical Craftsmanship”, and more.
The Literature section of the Forum of the web site of the International Horn Society is a great place to ask or answer any questions about the literature of the horn.
Improvising cadenzas: read advice from contentmeisters John Ericson and Bruce Hembd on the subject: Seven Tips for Cadenzas, Improvise your Cadenza, Want to Hear Some Mozart 3 Cadenzas?, Quantz on Cadenzas
Library of Congress Horn & Brass Literature Call Numbers
This listing tells you where what LOC numbers have what category of music for horns; for example M255-259 is horn and piano; M557 is brass quintets. Go to the stacks of the music library and use these numbers to locate categories and enjoy some musical serendipity in discovering new literature.
pdf Search Engine - pdf files are a very useful way to make text files available across platforms. The link given here will take you to the results of a search for pdf files available on the web for the search term "French horn". A search for "horn" gives somewhat different results, including a lot more about animals.
Horn Planet
Tom Bacon’s mega-multi-site: Welcome Center, HornPage, St Louis Brass, Opus 90, Hornplanet Store and more. The HornPage contains The CyberHorn Museum, Horn Trivia, The Study Guide, Music, Links, even some tasty-looking recipes!
Hornplayer.net
Robin Moffatt turned his extensive site over to the International Horn Society: free horn classifieds, information archive, section listings, teacher database, Veneklasen horn. This link will take you to the new location.
The French Horn - My Favorite Musical Instrument - A Squidoo “lens”. Videos (YouTube), T-shirts, horn stuff (mugs, gifts, etc.), tips, short lists of gear, CDs, posters, etc.
French Horn: Horn in F - Another Squidoo horn lens; this one has more videos and fewer T-shirts and horn stuff.
Recital Planning and Preparation: Tips for Students Planning a Required Degree Recital - article by Cynthia Carr
Horn - long article based on the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
Articles and Dissertations on the Horn - lists by Ricardo Matosinhos
Ricardo Matosinhos has also crafted an online survey that lists type of player (professional/amateur/teacher), type of horn, mouthpiece model for a random and limited but interesting comparison of what players are using these days.
Spectral Analysis of the French Horn and the Hand-in-Bell Effect - downloadable pdf file of a 20 p. paper by Adam Watts of the Dept. of Physics, U of Illinois
The French Horn
Ameerah Morsy has put together a smorgasbord of horn stuff: horn history, guide to horn playing, horn jokes, scales, fingering chart, links, horn graphics.
Horn - Wikibooks - "From Wikibooks, the open-content textsbooks collection". A Wiki project that anyone can edit or add to; this one is pretty new and could use a lot of help and development. General sections of this entry include Introduction, General Information, Playing technique, and Repertoire.
"Horn" at Encyclopedia.com - brief, but interesting: definitions/descriptions of the horn (side-by-side if you desire) by the Columbia Encyclopedia, the Oxford Pocket Dictionary, and the World Encyclopedia. There's also a short list of horn videos (YouTube), and a number of newspaper and magazine articles. Perhaps most intriguing was one of the ads - for Yemenite Shofars...
Windsong Press Ltd
Windsong is one of the new breed of micropublishers, having started by publishing Brian Frederisksen’s bio of Arnold Jacobs (Song and Wind). Although Arnold Jacobs was ot a horn player, his teachings have had a lasting influence on all brass players. Available on the site are brief streaming videos of Arnolds Jacobs talking about breathing and the use of breathing devices. Windsong offers for sale a list of books for the brass player, including Farkas’s bio his photographic study of horn embouchures, and his books on the Art of Brass Playing and The Art of Musicianship. Also for sale: breathing devices, CDs, music, mouthpieces (clear plastic for viewing embouchures and/or playing outdoors in cold weather), visualizers, brass teaching texts, and more. Outstanding set of links (dealers, publishers, sheet music, musician’s health, music education, and much more). Last but not least, a valuable feature of this site the many (short) bios of brass players (limited however to famous members of the various brass societies).
How to Hold the Horn - Chapter 14 from Richard Merewether's book "The Horn, The Horn"
About the Horn - article by none other than Dennis Brain!
The Impact of Technology on Musical Instruments - article by Edmund Bowles. See the section on "The Venerable Valve"
The GPO French Horn Tutorial - by Terry Dwyer. GPO refers to the "Garritan Orchestral Libraries." Garritan is a company that offers high quality samples of instruments for use in computer music sequencers or to use with notation programs like Finale. This article from the Garritan web site is a tutorial on the instrument for composers. Although basic in some ways, it offers a useful different way of looking at the instrument and its sound and music from the "outside." The short recorded example (from Semiramide) gives comforting evidence that Garritan is a long way from capturing the sound of the horn as a sample, and that horns will certainly be one of the last instruments (if ever) to be successfully replaced in electronic renditions.
Understanding Your French Horn - online article by Catherine Schmidt-Jones "For eighth grade and up, a series of lessons that can be offered by an instructor or done as a self-study course, to teach French horn players more about their instrument." Includes sections on musical acoustics, orchestral instruments, transposition, history, repertoire, and information for composers.
Works with Horn by Female Composers
Lin Foulk, horn professor at Western Michigan University, has compiled "a resource for performers, teachers, scholars and others who are interested in works with horn by female composers." Over 1,000 works are listed in the catalog. Don't miss Lin's CD "Four Elements" with works for horn and piano by female composers.
Brass Reference Pages
Extensive collection of URLs of sites with information on brass instruments, players, playing, associations and groups, manufacturers, and more.
Brass Resources
Bare bones design, but a fascinating and vast assemblage of all manner of websites for all brass, including some hard-to-find sites such as “Photographic Case Studies of Instrument Repairs,” “Wilhelm Furtwängler’s Essay on Brahms” and “How to Build Brass Instruments” [a tour in photos]. He also includes sections on ‘Classical Resources’ and ‘Jazz Resources.’ One caveat: there are a lot of dead links in the huge list; I suspect that he has not updated in quite some time (the copyright is 2001). Still, the counter reports 2,228,230 visitors since December 9, 1999. He should charge a penny a visit and retire. Maybe he has…
Horn Player's Where to Find?
Wonderful, content rich site with History of the Horn, Care & Maintenance, Chamber Music, Methods, Solos, Players, Related Articles, Studios in America, How Horns are Made, Jobs, Links, Midi Files, Mind, Body and Horn, Technique. Needs updating; lots of dead links.
Piano Accompaniments.com
Limited selection for horn, but good idea: mp3 or CD piano accompaniments of solo pieces for horn by Beethoven, Mozart, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Strauss.
Corales Horn Ensemble
A beautifully done site by Thomas ‘Thü’ Hürlimann, who documents how he recorded himself (overdubs) as a quartet with a computer (Mac) and software (Garageband). Hürlimann is by profession a graphic artist and offers (for sale) a number of stock images (photos and graphics) of horns. Hürlimann also has a fascinating set of links, including one to his own Horn Beauty Contest, where, as a professional graphic designer, he discusses the factors that make a horn most esthetically pleasing and then picks the winners of this contest. He also includes a useful link to Horn Music on CD available from Amazon.
Hornmidi
Sharon Zurflieh’s site is a compendium of MIDI accompaniment files of (mostly) famous horn solos, contributed by various people. There is no explanation of how to use them, so you need to learn about how to use MIDI files elsewhere first.
Ever wonder who is playing that fantastic horn solo in some movie soundtrack? This site may help you find out.
The web site Hollywood Studio Symphony presents you with a list of Films + the film score composer. If you click on the name, you get (in very small print) more details on the music credits. At the bottom are the names of instruments - click on any of these (horn, for instance), and you get a list of players who made up the horn section that played on that film. Examples: The Italian Job: Rick Todd, Dan Kelley, Kristy Morrell, John Reynolds. National Treasure: Jim Thatcher, Mark Adams, Dan Kelley, Kristy Morrell, Brian O'Connor, John Reynolds, Kurt Snyder, Rick Todd, Brad Warnaar, Phil Yao. Elf: Brian O'Connor, Steve Becknell, David Duke, Jerry Folsom, Brad Warnaar.
Film Score has excerpts of movie soundtracks of all eras. Example: Franz Waxman wrote the score for “Untamed” (1955); click on Main Title to hear some impressive multilayered hunting horn type calls.
Top Ten TV Themes (featuring the horn) - by Bruce Hembd
Marc Papeghin has made a very impressive overdubbed 12-horn tribute to John Williams film music, YouTube video of it below. You can also hear just the audio here.
French Horn Resource Page
Another multi-site, offering: horn mart (instruments, books, music, CDs, accessories, horns on Ebay(!), apparel & gifts), French Horn Information Centre (history, fingering, repertoire, tuning, etc), links, horn teacher’s directory (Asia & Australia). Caveat: last update was in 2002.
The Harmonic Series - What is it? Article by Stuart DeHaro.
Horn Harmonics - a moveable "wheel" chart that quickly & easily shows alternate fingerings for the double horn. See John Ericson's review.
Hornarama - This Australian site offers sheet music, CDs, accessories, horn news, auditions, horns for sale, concerts & events, and links.
Brass Instrument - Wikipedia article.
Horns in Haydn Symphonies
A listing of how many horns in what key in all of F.J. Haydn's symphonies. Compiled by Louis Stout, Jr.
A New Horn Concerto: From Concept to Recording: Part 1 - Jonathan Boen commissions Jan Bach to write a concerto for horn.
A New Horn Concerto: From Concept to Recording: Part 2
A Guide to Testing Horns - Horn Call article by Francis Orval
Horn Swicki - A swicki is a combination search engine and Wikidpedia. The community may add, delete, and improve the results.
Wagner Tuba - a wonderful comprehensive site devoted to that unusual instrument. Includes Bill Melton's superb history of the Wagner Tuba.
Guide to the Orchestra: the French Horn (intro)
Hans Pizka
Worth a look.