The Horn
I studied horn with Bill Karstens.
My grand-horn-teacher (Bill's teacher)
was James Chambers, and my
great-grand-teacher was the
famous
Anton Horner.
My horn is a Conn 8D.
I bought it new when I was a student in the
mid-1980s, when Conn had just come out of its
bad period and was getting its act together again. The mouthpiece is a Giardinelli C1.
This is the instrument which, for obscure historical reasons, is often called the "french" horn by Americans. However, the instrument is more properly referred to as simply the horn (le cor in French, il corno in Italian, etc.). The International Horn Society has declared the "horn" to be the official name for the instrument.
The horn is a conical instrument usually made from nickel silver or yellow brass. The right hand, which rests on the inside of the bell when playing, is used to influence intonation (tuning) and tone quality. Prior to the invention of the valve, the hand was used to obtain pitches which otherwise could not be played. Players discovered that they could flatten the pitch of a note by partially closing the right hand in the bell, and that they could cause the pitch to jump up a half-step by "stopping" the horn, i.e., closing off the bell completely with the hand. Hand-stopping also causes a dramatic change in tone quality, and is still used as a special effect.
The normal range of the horn is from concert F, two and a half octaves below middle C, extending upward for more than four octaves. The instrument is longer (and therefore pitched lower) than a trombone, yet we play it with a tiny little mouthpiece, and are routinely called upon to play way up high with the trumpets, often jumping up and down from one extreme of the horn's vast range to the other (okay, I live for that stuff). The horn is a difficult instrument to master, but for my money, no other instrument comes close to matching its beautiful sound.