III. Composing for the HORN · MASTERCLASS SERIES

The JAM Masterclass Series is an inspirational, interactive composition course aimed at emerging UK-based composers of any age. Free to apply and open to all UK-based composers.
In this 5-part Masterclass Series on composing for Brass Quintet, Andrew Sutton shares how to compose for the HORN and gives tips for dealing with transpositions.
Please visit www.jamconcert.org for more details.

[@jurassicbread4279]

This has been very helpful thank you! As a studying composer whose main instrument is percussion, I’ve been struggling with the French horn but this helped a lot!

[@johnpcomposer]

Thank you. I will be looking at more of your videos. New subscriber. Can you tell me how you achieve microtones with the horn, say 1/4 tone. Do you use your hand in the bell to bend the pitch, or embouchere? or both depending on the amount of bend from the natural note. If writing microtones for horn should each microtone bear some kind of notation as to how that should be made? Also, when it comes to stops, you said if stop was written a horn player would know what that means. Were you saying that when a player completely stops the opening of the bell with their hand that is actually muting rather than stopping?...otherwise couldn't there be confusion about how much to cover the opening? I like the tip about a loudly played stopped note having that fuzzy or raspy sound...How loudly would you have to mark the score to achieve that quality. F or FF?

[@Tehom1]

Can't agree about the key signatures. Everyone I ever played with had no problem reading key signatures. Having played both types, I found the scores that lacked key signatures to be a chore to read; my reaction was like "I know you're really in Eb, why won't you just admit it?". And it made it harder to catch mistakes in the score. When the engraver forgets one of the million accidentals, it looks exactly the same as deliberately going out of key, which a part with a key signature would make clear with an accidental.

[@MichaelSmith-on1ig]

You're good at explaning and demostrating

[@amj.composer]

super helpful, thank you!!

[@JAMontheMarsh]

Wonderful!

[@just1stone689]

Thank you.

[@JAMontheMarsh]

It is a pleasure!

[@evansentnote]

Luckily, horn players can read key signatures. Just like Parisians actually CAN speak English