What Really Makes the Embouchure?

As some of you may know, I've been having some trouble with my facial muscles lately. A few weeks ago I overplayed, and this was followed by a very intense week of rehearsals and performances which caused me to overplay again. I think that somewhere along those two intense weeks, I injured something in the right side of my face, and continued playing demands have continued to stress the muscles since. I've tried ice and massage, neither of which was very helpful with swelling or stiffness. I have had some success the past few days with heat.

Because of my Alexander Technique course, I've started wondering what muscles we use and how they work when we're playing. The injury to my muscles that I've been dealing with for the past couple of weeks has also fueled this desire for knowledge. I was astounded by how many muscles and layers of muscle go into playing the horn. If any of us hears a muscle name, it's the obicularis oris, but that's just one of many muscles we use. Other muscles we use include the masseter muscle, which allows us to drop the jaw, the buccinator, which tightens the cheeks towards the teeth while we play, and the triangularis (depressor anguli oris) and zygomaticus major and minor muscles, which create the tension that allows us to play as they pull contrary to the obicularis oris. I'm discovering that refining my body map of where the muscles in my face are and how they work is making me more aware of how I use them when I'm playing. It's also helping me to pinpoint the source of my trouble beyond the vague awareness of jaw or lip pain. If you'd like to get more acquainted with your facial muscles check out this website. It has links to information on nerves, muscles, bones, and anything else you can think of that is on your head.

Try a Hand Strap

If you have small hands and a large horn, that can be tricky. If you stand and play you may be likely to lose your grip on the horn. For a lot of players, the pinky hook is in a bad place that doesn't fit their hand. Even when it does fit well, all of the weight of the horn is resting on that one little finger. This can create excess tension in the outer muscles of the left hand, causing not only tendinitis problems, but also limiting the mobility of the third finger. A good way to alleviate these troubles is the use of a hand strap. Permanent straps can be very expensive, and require soldering new pieces onto the horn. Another option is the flipper, but those can be uncomfortable and also require the addition of new pieces to the horn. A non-permanent strap has been made, but it attaches to the horn with Velcro straps and doesn't always stay in place.

I have developed an alternative combination hand strap and guard that is not permanent, so there's no need to add new parts, but still provides the stability of a permanent strap. If anyone in the horn studio is interested, I'm donating one of these new straps to the studio as an alum, so that anyone can try it out. If you do and you'd like to buy one, I'll be happy to help you. If you want to see what they look like, check out my horn or Leah's, she purchased one last week. I'm currently developing a new model that will not require a pinky hook. A website and photos of the strap are on the way, and I'll have a new post when it's all up and running.

Verne Reynolds

I came across this quote about large ensemble rehearsal and thought it was advice worth sharing. This quote comes from Verne Reynolds' Horn Handbook, pages 44-45.

"Being bored in a large ensemble rehearsal says more about the player than about the rehearsal. Orchestral brass players do not play as often as woodwind or string players, and percussionists, happily, play hardly at all. During these non-playing times, we can choose to be mentally active or drift off into dormancy. Why should a horn player choose not to look and listen while the strings are being rehearsed? Is it because the possibility of musical growth ceases when the orchestral contract is signed? Why would a horn player choose not to observe how the composer, woodwinds, percussion, and conductor all combine to produce a magical sound? Is boredom really more attractive than curiosity? Why would an orchestral player not want to know more and still more about music? Why do orchestral players take pride in not remembering what was on last night's program? Apparently there is a point where "professionalism" can block artistic development. Not to participate fully in all rehearsals during the training years is the first step in forming an apathetic attitude toward the very thing we have chosen to do. Full participation includes observing how the conductor tries to shape a phrase in the first violins. Does it matter if the phrase starts up-bow or down-bow? Why? How do the horn parts contribute to the seamless sequences of the first twenty-three measures of second movement of the Brahms Third Symphony? Why does the music of Debussy and Mahler sound so dissimilar when their life spans are nearly identical? Questions never end if they begin with a desire to discover."

Discipline

Last night was the last orchestra rehearsal of the semester, and our concert tonight will be the last of the season. For some like me, who are graduating, it will be the last of their career at the University of Iowa. Dr. Jones left us with some parting words last night. I don't know if you'd call them parting words or a lecture, it was somewhere in between, but I think it was a good message, and we all needed to hear it. He spoke about discipline and how far it can take you when you have it and how disappointed you'll be in life if you don't. When I came here, I was one of the people who didn't have it. I didn't practice enough, I complained about long rehearsals. When break came, my horn went in the case for two months. I wasn't a career focused musician.

Despite what you may think, discipline is not an inborn quality. I changed my attitude. It was time to put up, or shut up and get out of music. I decided to be a musician. My horn doesn't stay in its case on break, I practice every day of the week, and I am patient in long rehearsals. Even when we work hard and learn discipline, it will still be a struggle. My weak spot is weekends. It's very hard for me to practice over the weekends because it's time to catch up on work or spend with my husband. It's hard for me to have the discipline to put the horn over him.

Discipline isn't just something we have. It's a choice that we make. It's something we do for ourselves to become better. Sacrifice is involved in greatness. Discipline is accepting the sacrifices you have to make in order to achieve your goals. If you're struggling with the discipline to practice, then reconsider your priorities in life. I know now that my husband is more important to me than horn, and that the level of sacrifice and discipline it would take for me to be in a major league professional orchestra is more than I am willing to give. And that's okay. The sacrifice this semester of a 12 hour schedule on Mondays so that I can get two hours of practice in is worth it for the recital performance I'll give in a week and a half. Know your priorities and know yourself. Discipline. The farther you want to go, the more of it you need to have.

Finding Value

Finding value in unpleasant or stressful situations can be a real challenge. I just went through comps a couple of weeks ago, and that was one of those situations. They're so stressful, and require so much work, it's hard to maintain a positive attitude. Honestly, though, it was kind of nice to stretch my legs in the world of horn pedagogy. I discovered just how much I have learned up to this point. It also reaffirmed that I am ready to be turned out into the "real world" and will be okay. I think maintaining a positive attitude during these tests really helped. Sometimes we don't see the positive in unpleasant situations, and we choose instead to focus on the stress or unpleasantness. I know I've experienced this in regards to rehearsals or ensembles that I didn't necessarily want to be in at the time. It's always important to stay focused on a positive attitude and making music. It can make otherwise unpleasant situations more enjoyable, and will probably help reduce your stress level as well. Negative thinking can be really detrimental, both to our playing and our health, so try to stay positive!

Meifred Translation

In my research of historically important pedagogues, I came across Meifred, who I've already given a biography for in my Horn History post. Meifred's horn tutor was the first comprehensive tutor for the valve horn, but our library doesn't own a copy. Well, we do on microfilm, but who wants to deal with that? Luckily, I came across a translation! In his DMA dissertation, Jeffrey Snedeker discusses Meifred's contributions to the horn world at length. He also includes a full translation of Meifred's "Methode pour le Cor Chormatique ou a Pistons." The full dissertation is available on ProQuest through the music library's website.

Go Hornless

There's more than one way to skin a cat, or so they say. I don't know who they are, but they must not like cats. It's a true enough statement, though, however mean it may be to our feline friends. There's also more than one way to practice. For example, you don't need a horn. Most of what we do as musicians is mentally based. Our brain is coordinating fingers and lips to produce a sound. Our mind is also processing and remembering what is on the page. We're building muscle memory. This is the reason a hard to read passage with lots of accidentals gets easier the more you practice it: your brain has learned to remember how to read it, what it is, and what has to be done to play it.

Armed with this information, imagine how much you can get done without wasting your lips. Scales? Done. Arpeggios? Done. Crazy hard scale on page two of your solo? Done. Whether it's rhythms, scales, articulation patterns, or specific intervals, you can work on it without the horn. Thinking through the fingering patterns, hearing it in your head, and thinking about what you'd be doing with the embouchure to play it can be very helpful. It's a nice way to occupy boring bus rides home or time waiting for a bus to come. You'll still be committing difficult passages to memory, increasing coordination, and building muscle memory. When you actually go back and put it on the horn it will be much easier to play, you won't have killed your face to get the results, and you'll have made otherwise useless time on the bus very productive.

Facial Massage? Yes Please.

So, something we can do for our faces that feels great and helps relax our muscles is massage. I have a lot of muscle tension problems, especially when I have to play a lot. The biggest trouble I have is that it's hard to massage your own face. It takes a lot of pressure and muscle to work out the knots that can develop in a horn player's jaw, and quite frankly, I just don't have that much muscle. I tend to get cramps in my arms and hands. Lucky for me, my husband bought me a cute little personal massager. It's cute, meaning reasonably compact, and very affordable for college student budgets. I found mine at Walmart. It keeps the tension out of your arms, gets the tension out of your face, and is relaxing. It also comes with several attachments, so you can use it for arms, back, etc., and a plug in cord means you won't waste tons of money on batteries. It's also great for getting the blood flowing and loosening up the embouchure muscles after a heavy playing load.

Alexander Observation

This past week we focused on the arms in my Alexander class. It was very interesting for me because I've had so many problems with my shoulders and hands. In learning to release the hand and arm, I discovered a pleasant effect on my horn playing. It actually got easier. Weird that your hand can affect your embouchure. Releasing the excess tension in my left hand on the keys in turn released the pressure between my mouthpiece and my face, and my facility on the overtone series went through the roof. Everything felt so light and easy, and shifting between registers was a cinch. My finger dexterity is also improving because I don't have all that excess tension. Remember to look into your whole-selves on occasion. You can discover some great benefits by checking in and inhibiting excess tension.

Horn History: Pedagogues

I had to do a lot of research for my comps, and I thought everyone could benefit from my findings on a few of the most important pedagogues in the history of the horn.

Anton Joseph Hampel (1710-1771) was one of the first teachers to make landmark pedagogical strides in teaching the horn. He is credited with the development of the hand-stopping technique in the 1750s, though others had been experimenting with altering pitch through the use of the right hand since the early 1720s. In an era of natural horns, the ability to raise and lower the pitch increased the versatility of the instrument and made a new realm of tonal coloring available. This newfound ability to play diatonic and chromatic tones between the overtones made virtuosic solo horn performance possible. Unfortunately, Hampel taught within the context of a teacher-apprentice system, so he wrote no method books detailing his theories.

Louis-François Dauprat (1781-1868) also made a significant contribution to horn pedagogy. Dauprat was a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1824, he published his Methode de Cor Alto et Cor Basse. This method remains one of the most detailed and comprehensive tutors on horn technique. The method has independent lessons for cor alto and cor basse appearing side-by-side (cor alto on the left page and cor basse on the right). He precedes preliminary exercises on the horn with detailed discussions of the role of the horn orchestrally, mechanical subjects, such as the use of crooks, music notation, embouchure and mouthpiece placement, breathing, and the alteration of pitches according hand horn technique. With the acceptance of the modern valve-horn, Dauprat’s method, which concerns primarily natural horn, has become a history book and is little used as a resource today. Nonetheless, the thorough and articulate treatment of a variety of subjects and developmental exercises concerning horn technique is something to be admired.

Joseph Émile Meifred (1791-1867) was a pupil of Dauprat at the Paris Conservatoire, and eventually became a colleague on the conservatoire staff. Meifred is most well-known for his contributions to the improvement, teaching, and performance of the valve horn. Given his strong advocacy of the valve horn, it is unsurprising that he gave the first known solo performance on the valve horn. He served as the first valve horn professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and during this time he produced the first comprehensive valve horn tutor, Méthode pour le cor chromatique ou à pistons. In this tutor Meifred advocates the use of the full range of the horn, rather than the restricted cor alto and cor basse distinctions which were prevalent at the time. He also developed a complex technique for combining hand-stopping practices with the use of the valves. Despite his strong advocacy, the valve horn class at the conservatoire was disbanded upon his retirement, and it was not reinstated until 1903. Meifred clearly saw the potential of the valve horn in both solo and orchestral contexts, looking towards the future while others continued to cling to the use of the natural horn.

A modern pedagogue, Philip Farkas (1914-1992) was a prominent orchestral horn player in the United States of America. Farkas was well known for his prominent positions in several major orchestras, including Cleveland, Boston, and the Chicago Symphony. His writings on both the horn and brass playing in general resulted in several books, including The Art of French Horn Playing, The Art of Brass Playing, and A Photographic Study of 40 Virtuoso Horn Players’ Embouchures. The Art of French Horn Playing is an excellent resource, and is a required text for almost every college horn student. Farkas discusses common problems encountered on this very difficult instrument, and he provides solutions to these problems from both his experiences and those of his teachers. Farkas succeeded in bringing the influences of symphonic orchestral horn playing to future students, and by doing so, helped to define the expectations of what being a modern symphonic horn player entailed.

Douglas Hill (1946), who is currently Professor of Horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of the leading pedagogues of our time. He has explored the many ways in which the horn can be used, and in doing so has pushed the boundaries that define what is possible on the horn. His book, Extended Techniques for the Horn: A Practical Handbook for Students, Performers and Composers, explores and teaches the many extended techniques possible on the horn. Some of the presented techniques are fairly known, such as the flutter-tongue, but other, more exotic techniques, such as half-valve and vocalization techniques, are also addressed in Hill’s book. One really fantastic feature of this book is that an accompanying audio CD provides examples of what each effect sounds like when performed correctly. Rather than being satisfied with the current limits, Hill has pushed the envelope of what the horn is capable of doing, and has opened a whole new series of possibilities for horn use in the future.