Introduction To The Natural Horn

Introduction To The Natural Horn

Master the principles of natural horn playing

This master class is meant for French horn players who are looking for information about and experiences with playing the historical horn.

In these step by step masterclass I guide you through the principles of natural horn playing. By doing easy but progressive exercises you will quickly become more accustomed with controling the harmonic series on all the different crooks.

I will demonstrate you how the right hand technique works and give you exercises to train the coordination of the right hand, embouchure, and air support in a most accurate way.

After finishing this course and by doing the assignments, you will already be able to succesfully participate on the natural horn in ensembles and orchestras. In the last lesson we will study the first movement of Mozart's first horn concerto into detail, in order to give you an idea of your soloistic possibilities on the natural horn.

Video's: 3 hours

Skill Level: Intermediate

Language: English

Get personal video feedback every week and earn a certificate from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam: Visit the Course page!

How it works:

The course is a series of related video lessons, each structured around a specific topic or topics. By the end of this course, you will have developed a strong sense of direction in your daily study routine.

Weekly video lessons
after joining the course, you will be able to view a new video lesson weekly. Each video lesson consists of:

Examples that musically define the sound of the topic you are studying in each video

A study routine section in which we first discuss how to study the specific topic of each lesson. We will then play several exercises specially written to show you how to structure your daily study routine

Assignments that will help you consolidate and practice what you have learned in each video.

Weekly assignments
After each lesson, you will be asked to study, practice and then video record yourself playing an assignment which may consist of several exercises. When ready, you submit the video of your assignment. The process of having to record yourself every week, significantly helps to internalise the material discussed in this course - quickly and naturally.

Weekly feedback: This function is only available in the "course" mode.

Certificate: This function is only available in the "course" mode.

Content of this course:

Lesson 1 - Warming up

Lesson 2 - Right hand technique: Slightly stopped and fully stopped notes

Lesson - 3 - Open notes, the 7th, 11th and 13th. Harmonics: Bb, F# & A 

Lesson – 4 - Finding the ‘First note’ 

Lesson 5 - Intonation Exercises on Stopped Notes

Lesson 6 - Low Crooks, Orchestral Excerpts

Lesson 7 - High Crooks, Orchestral Excerpts

Lesson 8 - Stamina Exercises

Lesson 9 - Mozart Horn Concerto No. 10