Jump to: Lesson 1, 2, 3, or 4 | Read Summary

For this set of lessons, I taught Kent Richardson about playing French Horn. As this instrument is new to him, the simulation was fairly accurate. He had real issues playing. However, his primary instrument is trombone, so some brass-playing techniques were very familiar to him.

For the first lesson, I started him on some very basic warm-up techniques. Being a trombone player, he already knew the Remington warm-up routine. Thus we started with this. Then we added some lip slurs. Finally, we played a C major scale (his C major scale). His tone was pretty good, fairly strong, but I worked with it a little. I asked him to take a deeper breath, to use more air. Also, I checked his posture. He was sitting up straight, but his hand was a little too far inside the bell. I instructed him to pull his hand out a little, and suddenly the sound opened up some.

Then we moved on into the Standard of Excellence book. We went to number 23, Merrily We Roll Along. I wanted him to play this one first because it is a tune with which we are all familiar. It would give him a chance to focus on opening up his sound as well as centering the pitches without an external reference, since the melody is familiar. The A to G (T12 to 0 fingering) change gave him some trouble. So, to try to remedy this, I had him practice, first, just those two notes, back and forth, gradually increasing speed, going from half notes, slowly, to eventually eighth notes. Then, we did a partial scale – F-G-A-Bb-C-Bb-A-G-F, repeated over and over, in similar fashion. This made the G-A-G change feel more comfortable for Kent, and it sounded better as well. We then put this back together with the rest of the exercise and played it in its entirety.

Finally, I had Kent go to number 38, Mary Ann. For this one, one of my main objectives was to work the use of E-natural (0 fingering). This note is a "new note" on this page and occurs twice in this exercise. Also, skips such as A-G-Bb needed a little work, so we concentrated on such passages, working them until they became clean and precise.

Overall, Kent sounded very good at his first lesson. He certainly is using a proper embouchure and, generally, horn position and posture. The notes and fingerings are still a bit of an issue for him, but he is progressing.

For my second lesson with Kent, I started him on some warm-ups, like always. We used number 25 in the method book, One Step At A Time, as a warm-up. This exercise has four sets of 5 adjacent notes, so it is good for warming up the embouchure. Plus, it starts on an F and goes up to a C, so it stretches the range a little. The warm-up went well, with no particular issues.

We then went on to number 24, Lightly Row. I chose this one, in part, so that we could play together. I worked it like I should were I in an ensemble setting – isolate each line, then play together. We then switched lines and played together again. I worked with him, a little, on phrases (observing the breath marks), but otherwise it went quite well (admittedly, it is a pretty easy exercise, even for "beginners").

Finally, we went to the first Band Arrangement piece, Jingle Bells, on page 12. We also wanted to be able to play together on this one, so this worked well. However, right as we started, he could hardly play any notes because so much condensation and spit had built up inside his horn. He tried looking for a spit valve, but wasn’t really sure how to empty the spit. So I showed him how. I first told him to remove the mouthpiece, and the we emptied what water we could from the lead pipe. Next, we removed the main two tuning slides and emptied a little more. I also showed him how you could, with slides still in, blow though the horn with different fingering combinations to try to find the culprit. And find the culprit, we did – the first valve slide, Bb side. That one made a huge puddle. But then he sounded much better and reported that it was a lot easier to play! After that I worked with him on observing phrases a bit, as well as finding good intonation (referenced from me, as I was playing with him). We adjusted his hand position slightly.

Kent continues to improve. His foundation of air and embouchure is solid, he just has to refine a few more things. Also, he needs to get a little more comfortable with some notes. I am looking forward to the next lesson.

For this, the third lesson with Kent, I selected number 44, Warm-Up, as a warm-up. Upon first playing this, I could tell that his sound was a little stuffy again. At further inspection, I found his hand was too far in the bell and at an angle that somewhat closed it off again. I helped him fix this, giving the suggestion that if he were to hold the horn up to play, and then gently set it back down on his knee, his hand would pretty much be in just the right position, if left like that. That seemed to help. Once he fixed that, however, his sound was terrific – very open, large, and clear-sounding. He also articulated very cleanly, and his slurs were fairly smooth. We also had to review the fingering for E-natural, open. Lastly, he had some trouble remembering to play the high C with trigger-open. I worked on these with him a little, and then he was in great shape.

Next, we went back to number 38, Mary Ann, as we had done in the first lesson. However, this time, we played the second one – the For French Horns Only one. This allowed us to "learn" B-natural, the "new note" for this page. We also worked on D (1^st valve) and played a C Major scale. Once he got the B-natural under his fingers, (up and down the scale, adding the B below the C at the bottom of the scale), then he was fine. We worked a couple of the bars with a D in them, for fluency. That really was the driving force behind working on this one, to improve fluency. It started sounding better, so, for time’s sake, we moved on.

The third and final exercise of this lesson was number 48, Go Tell Bill. I chose this one because of the range involved. We had just come from playing middle-range D and the B-natural below that, bordering on the low range. This exercise, however, goes up to a high D and has B-flats. It also features a recurring perfect fourth and several major and minor thirds, which helped some flexibility issues. Generally, though, he covered all of these fine, once we reviewed the fingering for the high D.

This was a very successful lesson. I felt that Kent learned several things, and improved noticeably overall. There are a couple of flexibility/range issues to work on for next lesson.

To warm-up for this lesson, I had Kent play number 56, Warm-Up. After playing through it once, I had him remove his mouthpiece. We then buzzed the warm-up together, with me occasionally playing the pitches on the piano for reference. As I described to him, this helps to exercise and focus our embouchure, thus centering the pitch better on the horn. So he then put his mouthpiece back on his horn and played it again. His sound was even bigger and his pitches even closer. The only technical aspect that we worked on with this exercise was the A-G (T12-0) change. He was having some trouble with it, so I had him play F-G-A-Bb-C-Bb-A-G-F a few times, to make it feel more comfortable. This improved as we went along.

Then we played number 58, Erie Canal Capers, the first version of it. Since the exercise is in a minor key, it would force him to listen closer, as it would not be like all the other major exercises we have played. Also, there in a recurring descending perfect fifth interval, as well as several minor thirds and other upper-register playing. This exercise single-handedly exercised his flexibility, range, and intonation. He had a little trouble with the high D and finding D-G as well as G-Bb. I isolated these areas, slowed them down, and we found the pitches a little more solidly. Then, put back in context, Kent played the whole piece, and sounded very good.

Lastly, we played number 61, Go For Excellence, both versions. The first one was good because it also went high, like number 58, so we could continue to work the high D and that range. He sounded pretty good, although the D-C-Bb-D figure gave him some trouble. After isolating it, though, he got it. We then played the other version of number 61, which works the lower range a little. Having easier notes and fingerings, this one did not give Kent much trouble.

In conclusion, Kent’s higher playing improved today, which was one of my main goals for this, the final lesson. Also, he learned a new warm-up technique (playing on the mouthpiece) and became a little more dexterous with the different notes and fingerings.

I taught Kent Richardson French horn over the course of four lessons. Being in actuality a trombone player, Kent learned very quickly. The embouchure adjustment was not huge, although understandably did cause some issues, especially in the closely-spaced partials. Kent is also very bright; therefore, learning and associating fingerings is not really difficult for him, so he learned these fairly well.

Overall, some of the biggest problems areas would include: playing high, finding the right partial (especially at the beginning of a song), moving quickly between notes (especially when a trigger change is involved), and producing a quality tone. I worked Kent through general teaching techniques I know, such as isolating sections to concentrate effort, having him play adjacent notes to make finding the target note easier, and using the mouthpiece to open up the sound. He was very receptive and this techniques all seemed to help.

I feel that my teaching was fairly well-done. I have taught many students privately, in similar situations, prior to this. Therefore, teaching Kent in this manner was not a foreign concept and was, in fact, comfortable for me. I hope I have many opportunities the future to teach students and help them individually.

[ home ]  [ philosophy ]  [ mused courses ]  [ pgp ]  [ intasc standards ]  [ links ]