How to Warm up on French Horn

Properly warming on the French horn requires that you pay attention to effective breathing technique, lip muscle building and flexibility. Of all the standard orchestral brass instruments the French horn has the most tubing. This alone forces the horn player to put a premium on effective breathing techniques. The standard mouthpiece cup is narrow and deep demanding that the air stream be extremely precise before entering the lead pipe. The lack of a proper warm up can result in damaged muscles and poor performance quality.

Instructions

1. Sit on a comfortable chair or piano bench. Keep your back straight. Take a deep breath starting in your diaphragm, slowly working the air towards your mouth. Inhale until your chest cavity is completely filled. Slowly exhale with an emphasis on a thin air stream. Do not let the air come out of your mouth too fast. Your air will not be quickly coming out of your mouth when your mouthpiece and horn are affixed so it is imperative you practice your breathing exercises as though you're playing your horn. Repeat this slow breathing 15 to 20 times. With each breath make sure your diaphragm is expanding before your chest does.

2. Take your French horn out of the case and attach the mouthpiece. Begin by playing a concert F scale starting on C4. Play this scale with whole note durations and a tempo of about 50 to 60 beats per minute. The object is to sustain each pitch in the scale for a lengthy time period to allow your muscles to slowly adjust to the tension required to produce pitch. Ascend and descend the scale three times. Repeat this same scale exercise with F, Bb, Ab and D major scales.

3. Play Bb4 and slowly descend down the chromatic scale until you reach Ab2. Set your metronome to 75 beats per minute. Ascend back to the original starting pitch. Repeat this same scale this time tonguing each individual pitch four times each. This will warm up your articulations.

4. Play oscillating octave jumps beginning on C4. Play the same pitch class an octave higher for every lower pitch you play. The object is to jump from the lower octave to the higher octave with rapid succession. Raise each bottom note by one half step and stop at G4. Reset your embouchure and play G5 continuing to slowly come down the chromatic scale until you reach F2. Slur all of these notes as you descend and sustain each one for two seconds.

5. Double-tongue any flat-side scale. Set your metronome to at least 120 beats per minute. Ascend and descend your flat-side scale of choice. Each pitch should be double-tongued twice resulting in four articulated notes per pitch class.

6. Put your instrument down and repeat the same breathing exercises outlined previously before stopping your French horn warm-ups. Proceed to flutter your lips for no less than two minutes to get the blood flowing in your lip muscles.