Horn Tutor : An online learning resource for hornplayers

Phillip Farkas used to tell an old joke about a man who was looking for a famous concert hall in New York City. When he asked someone on the street, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”, the person gave him a musician’s answer.

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Well, practice, practice, practice!” If you want to get somewhere on French horn, you, too, are going to have to practice, practice, practice.

Practicing versus playing through

Sometimes students think that playing through a piece several times is the same as practicing. It is not. While you may gain a little bit of endurance from several play-throughs, you rarely improve your technical skills by simply playing a piece from beginning to end. You have to stop and work the difficult sections separately.

Going slowly at first

How fast should you play when working on difficult passages? About half as fast as you think you should. Maybe even slower.

We all like to play our music up to tempo, but going full speed on a tough passage usually results in a musical train wreck. Resist the urge to play anything at full speed while you are still learning it.

Start very, very slowly in order to let your fingers catch up with your eyes. Then gradually increase the tempo each time you repeat the passage. If you find yourself making errors, start over again and begin practicing it slowly once more.

Building habits

Our brain is an amazing organ. It remembers everything we do, both good and bad. Whatever actions we repeat, become a habit.

If you chronically misfinger a passage in your music, it will become a habit. If you practice a passage with correct fingerings, it will become a habit, also.

The more times we repeat an action, the deeper that habit is grooved into our brain. As the shampoo commercial reminds us, lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Make your good habits, automatic ones.

Practicing attentively

In our practice sessions, we want to build good habits that can be used in actual music. That’s why we practice scales and fingering exercises. These patterns show up frequently in real music.

Whenever we practice, we want to practice attentively – paying full attention to details. If we allow a few mistakes each time we play, our brain will begin to record those mistakes as one of our habits, too.

Unlearning bad habits

You can’t unlearn bad habits, but you can override them with stronger memories of good habits. When you get a difficult passage right, don’t just end your practice session. Repeat it correctly at least ten more times to build it into a stronger habit. This is the only way to overcome mistaken habits.