On Jun 2, 2007, at 3:31 PM, jonesalley wrote:
"horrible pitch insecurity"
Caused by??? Size? Shape? Bore and resulting air pressure needed? Please
expound a bit?
French horn 101
All brasses work off a harmonic series of overtones. Actually, all instruments do, but let's not worry about them for now.
Originally, brasses had no valves. They weren't invented yet. We're talking pre 1825 or so here. All brass players had to play their instruments by tightening and loosening their lips, causing the buzzing (and resulting notes) to be faster (higher) or slower (lower). The harmonic overtone series (utilized by gradually tightening the lips) goes as follows: fundamental (the lowest note possible -- dictated by the length of the instrument -- octave, fifth, octave, third, fifth, and so on (Go here for a chart:
http://www.smu.edu/totw/overtone.htm). This is actually the written out series of overtones produced by the horn. The trumpet's overtone series, for eample, is pitched an octave higher. On French horn, I can play all the notes on this chart, using no valves, simply by gradually tightening my lips and pushing more air through the instrument.
Trumpet, trombone, tuba, euphonium, etc. use the lowest part of the overtone series for the majority of their normal notes. Not only that, their mouthpieces match the size of the instrument (part of what dictates their comfortable placement in the overtone series. French horn, on the other hand, is the length of a tuba (roughly) and uses the smallest mouthpiece, making it possible to play higher in the overtone series with greater ease. (The smaller the mouthpiece, the easier it is to vibrate your lips faster.)
The insecurity of pitches (in other words, being able to get lip tension exactly correct to hit the note you want dead on, or actually hitting the wrong overtone altogether) comes from playing at the upper end of the overtone series where the notes are much closer together. It's much easier to miss in this section because you have to have really accurate lip tension.
So you can see why the French horn was used much more in orchestral music back when brasses had no valves. In a nutshell, they could play more notes. When valves were invented, it allowed brass instruments to now play all pitches. By pressing down the valves (or combinations of valves) you add more length to the instrument and change its overtone series. The second valve lowers the overtone series by a semitone. The first valve lowers it by a whole tone. The third valve lowers it by a tone and a half. If you write this all out, you'll see that not only can you play far more notes, you can also use different fingerings to play the same pitch in a lot of cases. Life got a lot better for brass players as the 18th century progressed.
All except the lowly trombone players. Their slide does the same thing and they've had that going all the way back to the sackbut. This is why they tend to be a bit 'odd'.
Now if you really want to screw things up, their was a valve system invented by Adolph Sax (yes, it's the same guy) that removes tubing from the instrument instead of adding it. Sadly, it never caught on because the other system was already in use. Sort of like an 1800s version of Beta vs. VHS.
Please read this over carefully. I'll be testing you on this chapter during our next class.
Rick
PS Well, you did ask...