How to Play French Horn: Getting Started

Series Summary

The French horn is a brass instrument often used in orchestral music and arrangements. It has a rounded body, which tapers from a small mouthpiece to a rather large bell. Perhaps this quality, most of all, allows it to produce a distinctly smooth tone still often associated with an afternoon of the fox and the hound in the pastoral English countryside. This strong connection is well-earned, since the French horn is a legitimate descendant of the hunting horns of simpler times. While modifications like valves and slides have been incorporated, the musical heritage is still quite apparent.

In this free video series on how to play French horn, learn basic tips and techniques for playing this brass instrument, including how to hold the horn, form proper embouchure, and changing pitch using your lips, the rotary valves, or by putting your hand in the bell. Also learn some intermediate French horn skills involving orchestral music, like how to play slurs, legato, glissando, staccato, and accent notes. Finally, get some practical care and maintenance tips for your horn, as well as some basic guidelines for creating a practice routine.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Katie and I am here on behalf of expertvillage.com and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to not to get frustrated when trying to play the French horn. Now if you are trying to learn to play the French horn and you feel very frustrated, you are not crazy. The French horn is the hardest wind instrument and there's actually very good reason for that. It is something called the over tone series. It has to do with the way the horn is built and basically what it means is that you might put down a particular fingering for a particular note but that doesn't mean that is the note that is going to come out. You have to have the right fingering and you have to have the right embrasure which is the way that your mouth is set. Now on the over tone series for the horn what happens is the higher that you go the fingering of notes get closer and closer together. So for example an F,G and a A all the top of the staff on the French horn are all fingered the same way which is just thumb. So if you are playing a low register and you want to go up and hit a G it is going to be hard because the note on one side as the same fingering and the note on the other side has the same fingering. So you have to hit just so and what is going to make the difference is the way that you set your mouth. So for example that F, G, and A that I'm talking about I'm going to play them all for you and you would notice that they are all the same fingering. I do that all with my mouth and that is what you have to do too. It is very hard but, do not get frustrated the French horn drives away so many other people that you would be in high demand once you practiced it and mastered it and can do it yourself. So take heart it is a great instrument and you do find at it if you practice enough. "