Horn singing

Every issue of Brass Bulletin is filled with interesting reading, and nr. 5/6 1973 was especially exciting for me. Among all the other excellent articles, three subjects captured my particular attention to an extent that, in the course of relating my own thoughts about horn playing and teaching, I feel compelled to comment on the essays by Heinz Knodt, Robert Bouché and Rev. Dr. h.c. Wilhelm Bernoulli.

Over 20 years ago I studied horn for a year with Victor C. Kress, a colleague (trumpeter) in the San Francisco Symphony. It was he who taught me to sing on the horn, rather than merely blow. Several years later I studied singing and how to apply a singing technique to my horn playing. These two years did more to improve my tone quality, phrasing, facility and overall musicianship than had all the other years of emphasis upon mechanical-technical aspects of playing. So Heinz Knodt's proposal: «Singing Lessons for Brass Players» could not have found a reader who is in more complete agreement with this fine idea than I.

To Prof. Knodt’s list of references: Reiche, Altenburg, Agricola, Wetzler, and Baumann, all of whom advocate developing close affinity between singing and brass playing, I should like to add the names of some other authors, most of them illustrious artists on the horn. Dr. Birchard Coar published a book titled «A Critical Study of the Nineteenth Century Horn Virtuosi in France», 1952 at DeKalb, Illinois, in which he cites in at least nine places recommendations to students of the famous professors of horn at the Paris Conservatory not only to learn solfege, but to carry a singing style into their manner of playing the horn.