Gabby's French Horn

[unblock]

6. French horn is one of the harder instruments to play

In high school band/orchestra I used to go around and ask to play other students' musical instruments. I tried everything except drums (which is a bit ironic because eventually the orchestra conductor asked me to play timpani after throwing a fit at the drummers who couldn't keep a beat and were always blowing their entry because they couldn't count 12 measures of rest.)

Anyway, I was always able to get a decent tone out of any instrument within a minute or two. Bit of a parlor trick because I would study their fingering and mouth/cheeks the previous session and try to mimic them later. Add a bit of experimentation and it wasn't hard to get a reasonable tone.

But the French horn took several tries. It seemed to be the most unforgiving if the seal wasn't perfect or the pressure wasn't in the right narrow range.

In fact there wasn't much of a "decent" tone. It either sounded great or horrible. Usually horrible. But done well, it's a beautiful instrument.


Amazing that gabby could play it, I can certainly see how that would have helped in her recovery.