About Left Coast Horn Playing Technique

Left Coast Horn Playing is a way of practicing and playing that emphasizes training the body and mind to inhale and exhale correctly.  Left Coast Horn Playing takes a logical and behavioral approach and develops controlled, repeatable technique. Our techniques are not designed to produce a single unchangeable style, rather they are designed to give you control over your style by developing a wide palette of repeatable techniques.

Main features of Left Coast playing and practice

• We have a daily plan and we follow the plan
• We focus on controlling the air inside the horn and working daily to improve breathing with the goal of controlling the flow of air from as far down in the abdomen and as far forward in the mouth as possible
• Knowing what and where the target is and aiming the air at it
• Getting away from the illusion that concentration and development of the embouchure is more important than focus on air control and emphasizing exercises that develop air strength and control
• Use of exaggeration in teaching. Sffz, long decrescendos and practicing in a wide range of tempi are typical
• Clean tonguing and using the tongue to focus the air
• Working to reduce or eliminate unnecessary movement of the face and tongue by focusing on air control
• Short progressive and leveraged drills designed to hone in on one particular aspect of playing or combining techniques to make learning efficient
• Working to improve ensemble skills as well as individual technique

Notes for Conductors and Teachers

Few instruments seem as romantic and mysterious as a French horn. There are so many great sounds and great musical moments for horn but it is fraught with difficulty and danger.

We have the smallest mouthpiece, tubing almost as long as a tuba and a bell almost as large. We can blend with the flutes or blast over an entire orchestra. Good players have a five octave range, most of it usable.

Horn playing is like ice dancing on stilts while doing puzzles and lifting weights, while all the time someone is waving a stick at you trying to get you to dance in time with the music and the other players.

Check out Whip Your Brass Into Shape for notes on creating a good ensemble.

General rules that will help your horn players play their best

• Do NOT have the horns sit in front of the tympani. Even if they don't complain. Many horn players are not even aware that this causes problems. The energy from the tympani goes right into the bell where it concentrates and focuses - right at the embouchure! If your horn section gets tired quickly and misses lots of notes try placing them or the tympani in an other location.

• Do not ask your horn players to play the same high passages over and over. Even if they play them well you will be tiring them out.

• Do not ask your horn players to play during your 'warm up' rehearsal right before a concert. How many youth symphonies get ready for playing a Tchaikovsky symphony by playing through the whole thing right before the concert! You are asking high school players to play a difficult, tiring piece of music twice! Your players will feel guilty not playing during your warm up rehearsal and will want to play every note. Don't let them! Do you want me to sound good before or during the concert?

• Demand that your horn players count

• Demand daily practice

• Don't allow slouching or sloppy breathing

• Don't teach from rote. Make them learn how to read! 

We believe every player must know how to conduct in order to play intelligently in an ensemble. Make sure they know the basic beat patterns and how prep beats work.

Teach them to hear perfect intervals and you will have a much better in tune ensembles. Perfect intervals have special qualities on a horn and the players will learn what they sound like if they are pointed out a few times. Read our article on intonation for help on tuning them.

Bands and orchestra go to great trouble to have all the principal woodwind and string players sit together but brass sections are frequently arranged in a straight line. Why? Your last French horn is now halfway across town from the tuba! Especially in younger groups it will help them greatly to sit as a section. Not only will they play more cleanly they will have more luck entering after a rest together.

About clams

No one wants the right notes to come out more than the player. No one. And as difficult as it is we are frequently put in a position that encourages clammy playing.

The factors you can't change come from the design and writing for horn. We miss more notes than any other instrument mostly because our open notes are so close together. For example on a Bb trumpet there is only one open note between third space C and the G at the top of the staff. On an F horn there are four. For some notes we can use as many as six different fingerings.

Other factors that make horn players clam are muscle fatigue (embouchure or ab muscles), intonation problems, sudden changes in the room air pressure or temperature and the intonation of the ensemble.

If a horn player walks into a room where people are warming up and are generally playing in tune it will be easy to play. You want to play an A 440? Someone in the room is probably already playing it or something in tune with it. But if you walk into a room where the intonation is all over the place you will be trying to play an A 440 when an A 443 and an A 438 are going into your bell, fighting your attempt to play.  Instead of the sounds going into your bell reinforcing the note you want to play, there will be sounds interfering with it.

Asking players to play too quietly or too loud will also cause clams. You have to be judicious. We have to fill the tube with enough air to keep a steady sound and not so much that we break it.

And try to have a friendly attitude towards your players. If they are truly trying you will not make it better by taking it personally.

Templating

We spend so much time and effort trying to learn what the inside of our mouth should be and how to shape the air it is a pity to waste it. But that's what many of us do.

How likely are we to hit the half note cleanly? Much of it depends on what we do during the eighth notes and the quarter rest.

If we play the eighth notes nicely then we want to use them as examples, as templates for what is coming up.

Many players would move their mouths and let their throats collapse as their System changes and relaxed during the rest.  Not Left Coast Players! We would try to keep our entire system as much the same as possible  so that we keep our set up to use on the next note.

Consider this snippet. Now we have not only a different note after the rest but it is an octave higher! What to do..

Most players would spend the quarter rest raising their shoulders (and eyeballs), tensing the throat and perhaps taking a shallow, hamster like breath - all things that make the top note harder!

Left Coast Players know what to do. We try to keep our System as much the same as possible. We will try to aim for both Gs in the same place with as little change in our embouchure or the inside of our mouth as possible.

We will stay still during the rest and use the G eighth note as a template for the upper note. Even if we take a breath we will try to keep our mouth as still as possible.

Instead of re-creating our system for the new note we keep the one we had just been using.

If you ask most horn players what the most important note of this phrase is you will get different answers but to us there is only one - it's the first note.

It's the note we are most likely to clam. It's also the most useful note!

If you are careful and play a well supported, cleanly tongued note then you have a template, an example of how to have your system shaped for the rest of the phrase. Since we are trying to make all the notes feel as much the same as possible we want to be extra careful to make the first note nice and use it for all the following notes.

Templating is also very useful for developing low and high ranges. Start your drills in your mid range and move up or down slowly, trying to keep the mouth shape of the mid range as much as possible.

What is The Target?

The Target is where we aim the air.

It is the center of the upper lip, at its lowest point. If you stick your tongue out and close your lips, it is where you tongue touches the upper lip.

The Target is where your lip actually vibrates.* It's where we want to aim the air. Always. We can aim up or down but the air must pass through the target.

Most players aim up higher than the target, especially when playing high notes. Unfortunately aiming above the target makes it harder to play high notes!

It make so much sense, to aim up when we play high and to aim low when we play low.  Fortunately for those of us in the know aiming up or down doesn't make the pitch go up or down.

What makes the pitch go up or down depends on the size of the aperture (the hole where the air goes out your lips), the speed and intensity of the air and the tension of the lips.

Note that we are talking about aiming the air at the Target or above or below it.  All air should be aimed at the Target regardless of pitch or range.

This straight ahead kind of playing has numerous advantages

• It helps to keep the tone quality good and similar in all ranges
• It make slurring smoother
• It allows for large leaps without changes in tone
• It helps you understand where to tongue

Why Tongue at the Target?

Tonguing at or near the target produces clean and powerful attacks and reduces the movement of the tongue. Moving the tongue too much brings the back of the tongue into play, constricting the flow of air, changing the tone and slowing the tonguing down.

When most people tongue at the Target for the first time they can't believe it can work because they are so used to tonguing higher.

Having a Target gives you something to aim at

How handy!

You know that feeling right before a high, quiet entrance? How are you going to get the first note to sound nice? Wouldn't it be great to get rid of that abstract, almost lost feeling?

You have a really loud entrance and don't want to splat the first note?

Give your brain and body something to focus on! Think about the target, where it is and how you are going to deliver the air to it.




* Yes we know vibrates is the wrong word but let's keep it simple.

Building a Low Range

Few things are as useful as a quality low range for a brass player. It helps improve tone quality and control and sets the System up to produce a quality mid and high range.

Building a good low range takes time and focus but we have some shortcuts and recommendations.

Traditional brass teaching espouses making the mouth bigger, exaggerated opening of the throat and the dreaded and destructive dropping of the jaw.

Left Coast Horn Playing advises exactly the opposite. We want to develop an efficient low range, one that is controllable and repeatable. Making the mouth too large keeps us from focusing the air at the target, changes our embouchure from the mid and high ranges and makes clean tonguing difficult if not downright impossible.

When developing your low range keep a bright sound! Make your mouth small top to bottom and front to back. Practicing tonguing hard and keeping a bright loud sound will develop your low range better than simply playing low. Playing with unfocused 'warm air' makes low notes difficult to learn. We use that kind of blowing to make a warm sound, for example when you want to blend with woodwinds or cellos, but for our general practice we make a bright sound.  It's much easier to build a bright low sound then learn how to darken it rather than the reverse.

Warm, dark sounds are important tools for us and we need to learn to play this way too, but to develop your low range you will have better luck and improve quicker if you follow our directions.

To develop your low range

• Use Exercise #1b as a way to develop your low range. Every day go as low as possible. 
• Practice Exercise #5 to develop an even sound across your ranges.
• Use Exercise #12 as a way to develop clean tonguing in your low range. Tongue hard! Play loud!
• Every day take an exercise or an etude (Kopprasch, Kling, Gallay, etc.) or a solo and play the entire thing down and octave or two.

It takes patience, determination and the will to do something today for gain tomorrow to build a good low range.

Sample Practice Plans

The basic outline of a Left Coast practice plan looks like this

• Breathing exercises and routines
• Buzzing exercises
• A simple exercise done the same way every day
• Arpeggio exercises
• Tonguing exercises
• Exercises for special problems or to develop other techniques
• Long tones
• Scales
• Reading and learning music

Each of our exercises can be extended or leveraged. For example Exercise 1b might be played as plain as possible or with decrescendos on the last note, or continued on as low as possible, etc.

For a young student or beginner the entire routine before the music might only take ten minutes, for an advanced player it can be an hour or more.

Sample Beginner Practice Plan
Ten minutes

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
• Exercise #1b (done allegro with brick shaped notes)
• Exercise #8
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation

Sample Intermediate Practice Plan
Half hour

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
  
• Exercise #1b (done allegro with brick shaped notes)
• Exercise #2
• Exercise #3
• Exercise #4
• Exercise #6
• Exercise #8
  
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation
• Exercise #1a

Notice that Exercise #1a is always done last and every other day.

Sample Practice Plan for a Professional Player or Advanced Student
45 minutes to an hour

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
  
• Exercise #1b (done andante and going down as low as possible)
• Exercise #2 (with extended variations)
• Exercise #4
• Exercise #5 (all versions)
• Exercise #6 (two octaves)
• Exercise #7
  
• Exercise #8 (for double tonguing, high and low range practice)
  
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation
• Exercise #1a

Strength and Efficiency

Strength is good. Efficiency is good Strength plus efficiency = the best!

Knowing which muscles need to be strong and which need to learn to relax is key. We need to have the muscles at the corners of our lips to be very, very strong. We need our lower abs to very strong. That's about it.

We need to keep the muscles of the throat relaxed, especially the lower part of the tongue. Your tongue is probably longer than you think. When you swallow the lower part of your tongue helps to push the material down your throat. You can feel the tongue flexing all the way down to your vocal chords.  

Tension in the back and bottom part of the tongue is one of the most common problems in brass playing.

How do we overcome this tension? By breathing from Place #6. Controlling the air in our out from above Place #6 causes causes tension in the throat.

To gain the strength in Place #6 we constantly remind ourselves to breathe from there. We strengthen those muscles simply by breathing correctly over and over.

We strengthen our chops by playing progressively longer and higher drills. Long tones are very important. Long descrescendos help too.

We define efficiency as the percentage of air that goes through the mouthpiece without increasing the buzzy quality of the buzz. You can hear two things in a buzz, the raspy buzzy sound and the hissing of the air. The hissing airy sound is the inefficient air.

The airier and hissier the sound of the buzz the less efficient. The raspier and buzzier the sound the more efficient.

Some benefits of being more efficient are obvious but there are many that are not so obvious. Intonation is greatly improved with an efficient buzz, as are endurance, flexibility, steadiness, tonguing, quiet playing and phrasing.

Don't Play the Horn!

You can't! No one can!

The horn is a tube. That's all. Just a tube. When we play it just sits there. The only thing it really can do is get shorter or longer.

They are just fancy tubes!

What we really play is ourselves and the air trapped inside the tube.

This is an important distinction. Understanding what is going on with the air inside the horn allows you to focus on controlling the air rather than the embouchure.

Anatomy of a Slur

Left Coast playing techniques teach us to have the control to use many different articulations and to have different qualities of slurs. Sometimes we want the smoothest sound possible, sometimes we want the fastest slurs possible and sometimes we want to smoooosh it up so it’s lush and romantic. We want to be able to control the type of slur we work on the extremes.

However the vast majority of the time we want the quickest, smoothest slurs possible even when playing legato. It simply sounds better.

What is the anatomy of a slur?

Think of a slur as having three parts: the first note, the second note and the time that we are changing from the first to the second.

Many players begin their slurs as soon as they have hit the first note. If the second note is higher then first note tightens and the mouth begins to tense. Sometimes the eyes, shoulders and head raise up! Aack! If the second note is lower the mouth opens and the jaw drops. Oh no!

The first note should be as straight as possible (unless there are phrasing issues).

The air should change first, before the lips or tongue to begin the move to the second note.

The mouth and throat should be relaxed so that the new note can sound and the air can flow.

In general the effort you put into changing notes should happen as quickly as possible. We want to play the first note without hinting whether the next note is higher or lower. We want the energy and movements we make to change notes take up the least amount of time as possible.

Even for legato playing we want the valves to move quickly and the air and embouchure changes should be rapid. The only exceptions are to make a really mushy legato slur.

See Understanding Note Clusters for more hints on making smooth slurs and explains what happens inside the horn as you change from one note to another.

Of all the things that happen when we change notes the air should be the first to move. If the lips or mouth move first we hear that in the note as a decrease in volume, a dulling of the tone color and change in intonation. It also keeps you from aiming at the second note with the air and encourages ‘push and pray’ playing instead of aggressive air playing.

A common problem and one that causes all sorts of horn misery is the air slowing down on the end of the first note of the slur. It is usually caused by the back of the tongue raising up to ‘get ready’ for the new note but this takes our mouth out of position and creates wind resistance! We want to increase the air during the slur. You can learn to do this by playing a crescendo during the first note of the slur and continuing to crescendo during the slur and into the second note.

You want to increase the flow of air during the time the notes are changing. You want to use the increase in air to aim at the new note, especially when the new note is lower. We have this tendency to think of the lower note as easier and taking less air, giving a 'falling' quality to the slur. Evil! Lower notes take more air, not less and decreasing the air and falling makes us hope to get to the right note rather than aiming at it.

Even slight reductions in the air volume at the end of the first note can cause problems. It’s helpful to have a friend listen carefully while you practice this to see if you can eliminate it.

Six Places - The Most Important Exercise

Six Places is a quick exercise that makes us sensitive to the different parts of the body that can be used to breath in and out. Doing this several times a day, especially right before and during practice will develop breathing habits that enable you to control the air - and your sound and your technical abilities!

This is simply an exercise to teach you where the air should be controlled by your body. Obviously you can’t put air below your belly button, but developing and using the muscles there will get you the tone and control we work for in Left Coast Horn Playing.

By concentrating on using the muscles in Place #6 we get the big fat brass sound we want and great control over the air. Six Places teaches us where to control the air by focusing on where most people go wrong and showing us what is right.

A brass player, more than anything else, is an air delivery system. How you deliver the air to your embouchure is more important than the kind of horn or mouthpiece you play, the strength of your chops or anything else.

Proper breathing will overcome a less than perfect embouchure but no embouchure can fix your playing if your breathing is incorrect. There is no more important principle in Left Coast playing.

The Six Places

Place #1: the nose
Place #2: the cheek
Place #3: the throat
Place #4: halfway down the sternum, or to sound fancy between the sternum and xiphoid
Place #5: halfway between the bottom of the sternum (the xiphoid) and belly button
Place #6: one inch below your belly button

To practice Six Places we breathe in while touching the places air can be controlled in our bodies and try to feel like we are putting the air in that place. So for Place one we touch our nose and try to put air just in there. Touching the places is very important as it helps your body remember where they are and what they feel like.

The sound of each breath should be distinct enough to hear the change from the wheeze of air going into the nose to the low oh syllable formed when air goes into Place Number Six.

Very important - notice we said the oh sound. Not an ah sound, which is indicative of high breathing. Try breathing in and making an ah sound then an oh sound and you’ll see that the air is controlled from higher up with the ah sound. Bad mojo!

Also very important - the oh sound is for breathing in. Sometimes you will want to use that mouth and throat shape when exhaling but not always. It depends on the sound you want to make. But when you are breathing in you almost always want the oh sound.

The only time you should use an ah sound when inhaling is when you purposely want to make an airy unsupported sound, for example when trying to blend and stay out of the way of a singer or woodwind player.

Getting Your Posture Right

Frequently our posture keeps us from being able to use the muscles in Place #6 correctly. It is imperative that the muscles around Place #6 are relaxed before we start or we can't use them to control the air.

To find out if your posture puts you in a position to use your lower ab muscles do the following

• Stand up straight. 
• Put two fingers on either side of your belly button. Lower them one inch. 
• Bend backwards and you will feel those muscles tighten as they help to support your back. 
• Now straighten your back and lean forward until you feel those muscles relax. That is the position you must be in to breath from Place Number Six.

To sit properly you have to be in a position where you can hold the horn comfortably and have Place Number Six control the flow of air.

Six Places is a great exercise to use with young players as it is easy for them to understand ‘you are pushing from place two’ than any explanation of diaphragmatic breathing or using a device to train them.

How it should work

Imagine holding a plastic bag upright. Gather the top together so the opening is small and round and you can blow into to inflate the bag. When the bag is inflated you could push the air out by squeezing the equator of the bag, right in the middle and pressing horizontally. You will expell the air but the pressure you create will be pushing the air up - and down. This is why so many young players notes sound  like footballs, notes that start quietly, get louder in the middle then die away. It’s also one of the main sources of clams.

When the air pressure changes up and down like that the mouth is constantly changing shape. When the air pressure diminishes at the end of a note the airway constricts making it even more difficult to get the next note out correctly.

Our Way of Practicing

The most important feature of Left Coast Horn Playing is that we work on our breathing every day. Not just an occasional taking of a deep breath or blowing into a machine but real work with real improvement.

1) Work on your breathing every day! Don’t assume you have figured it out. Work on it to improve it every day before you practice or play. Do it all the time!

2) We practice with a written plan on our stand and we follow the plan every day that we practice.

The plan may take ten minutes to execute for a young player or beginner or for a player who is so advanced they can accomplish something valuable in ten minutes, or twenty minutes for an intermediate student to an hour for an ambitious player doing a heavy workout.

Having a written plan that you work from every day means that you build upon your skills every day. A well designed practice plan makes your practice efficient and effective, not scattered, haphazard and inefficient.

3) After our breathing work every day we practice three things

• Careful drills that are the same every single day
• Drills and exercises that increase your technique (higher, lower low, faster trills, cleaner slurs, etc.)
• Reading music to increase fluency

These are in addition to etudes, solos and concert preparation.

The drills focus on controlling the air and reducing manipulation of the embouchure. We use exaggerated hard tonguing, sffz, glissandi and other exercises to learn how to shape and control the air.

20 minutes of this kind of focused practice will be of more benefit than hours of noodling.

4) We are always working to expand our technique. We want to be practicing to higher, lower, louder, softer, etc. every day. If you play only what is as difficult as you played yesterday you get stuck in yesterday.


Focus on Your Breathing All the Time

OK, maybe not all the time. But frequently.  'All the time' is only a slight exaggeration. This is the crux of Left Coast playing. Focus a lot of attention on where you are putting the air in your body, which muscles are doing the work and how it is shaped when it comes out.


Focus on What Works and Attack Your Enemies

Focus on what works, don’t focus on what’s going wrong. If you need to improve your tonguing, don’t think I am bad at tonguing instead tell yourself Now I am going to sit up straight and take a deep low breath and work on improving my tonguing.

No matter what your enemies are, go on the attack!

When you want to improve something set aside time to focus on fixing it. At the same time make sure you are doing what works - good posture, correct breathing, clean tonguing, etc.

Then try to figure out what is actually happening that is causing the problem. Be curious, be aware of what parts of your body are doing what and have patience.

No Negativity!

We are trying to train ourselves to be comfortable reliable players and that is tough to do if you are berating yourself constantly. When something goes wrong try to figure out what caused it and how to change it.

The difference between a genius and a schizophrenic is that the genius tells the voices in his head what to say.

You can convince yourself of anything. If you tell yourself that you have a tonguing problem, or a weak high range or any other problem you won't get better by reinforcing in your mind that there is a problem. Simply think of it as a problem to be solved over time and you'll have success.

Exaggerate Exaggerate Exaggerate

If the exercises say FF or SFFZ we really mean it. If your neighbors call the police when you practice these then you are doing it right? If the dog whines, your teeth self clean and your canned food pops open then you are doing it right.

Hit the SFFZ notes really hard. Blast those puppies! Don't worry about tone color or musicality. Exaggerate!


The purpose of these exercises is to develop breath control and strength.

Make it Your Goal to Get Better Every Day

Even if you have off days you will be on a steady path of improvement.

Lastly

Find ways to really enjoy playing. How often do you take your horn out of the case and admire it. Imagine the knowledge and skill that went into producing the metals, the shape, the case, everything. Read about the great composers. Listen to a style of music you have never heard of before.

Your audience can tell if you are having a good time whether you're playing bluegrass with your family or the most serious opera.  


OK, Really Lastly

A valid criticism of Left Coast Horn Playing is that we do not address musicality in any way on this site. Of course we care a lot about musicality and that's why we are willing to spend the time doing structured practice to be our best at it.

But we feel that musicality is best learned beside a qualified teacher. It is the most human part of music.

Whip your Brass into Shape - The Brigade System

The system here is named after the work of August Escoffier, a French chef who created the brigade system for modern restaurant and hotel kitchens.  It is a simple system and it works. Players need to know when to lead and when to follow and this system allows them to learn and put it into play.

The Brigade System

The purpose of the System is to get all of the musicians focused on the task at hand while applying the techniques that create great music. It gives their minds direction when they would normally wander. It can be taught quickly. It is appropriate for middle school and older.

Players need to be taught how to play cleanly, balanced and in tune. They can only do this if they know who to match and whom to play cleanly, balanced and in tune with.

Section players balance and tune to the principal of the section

If the principal trumpet is playing then the other trumpet players listen to them and copy their dynamics, phrase shape, pitch, style, tone color, etc.

The other principals listen to the principal trumpet. The principals also need to know if they have the tune and should project above the orchestra, or if they should back off and have their section blend with the rest of the orchestra. Any player who has a solo line may ask the whole section to pipe down when they are playing.

If the principals can’t see the principal trumpet, then make them move. If the members of a section can’t see their principal make them move. Or course this not always possible during a full rehearsal but it is worth the effort if it is possible, and it should be done at all times during sectionals.

Active playing vs. passive playing

Make sure the players are playing actively.

Developing your section

When working with a brass section conduct as little as possible. Do not begin by counting out loud. I have the section leader simply take a breath in tempo then play. There will be resistance at first but you will find the section will learn to do this easily and it greatly improves ensemble. Have them practice starting without a conductor. Have them do it until it is really together a few times in a row. Five minutes of focus on this will make them a far better ensemble.

Stop frequently and ask questions

If you stop frequently and ask, ‘who has the lead line’ or ‘how is the balance right now between the trombones and trumpets’ you are going to make the players think and work to get it right. If you wait until the end of the piece you are giving permission for the players to be passive while playing it through. If you stop and demand that they pay attention then their minds will be driven to pay attention and they will pay attention while they play the whole piece.

Demand that they learn to read music

So much music is taught by rote these days. Christmas music is passed out in September.  End of the school year music is passed out in January. Youth symphonies give out their year’s worth of music during the summer but don’t hold the players accountable for knowing it at the first rehearsal.  Many students learn to play by copying the person next to them.

There are high school brass sections where the average experience is 4 or 5 years but players don’t know the names of notes or the fingerings. One student who had piano lessons for 8 years and played in school bands for 4 years when he started taking lesson  did not know what a key signature was,  the note names or what kind of rests there were. When asked how his piano teacher put up with it and he said she just showed him where to put his fingers on the keys and how to play. Hopefully they weren’t paying much for those lessons.

If you are too busy to instruct individuals, give them written assignments or send them to good teachers. If they are not fluent in reading music, your section will only sound good with many rote rehearsals.

Everyone must know how to conduct

If your players don’t know what beat pattern is being used how can they start and stop cleanly?

1) Have them practice a prep beat with the other players playing. Do it on a regular basis until they are all breathing and starting together cleanly.

2) Teach them 2.4 first, then 3/4 then 4/4.

Teach them to count

They must be held accountable for not counting or subdividing or miscounting rests. Players need to be given the tools to  learn. Teach them to count on their fingers, or use verbal games or whatever tools you use. But be insistent that they apply them and be responsible. 

Young brass players have trouble counting long rests. It’s difficult for them to focus on something so simple. Add the negative feedback when they don’t enter properly and they are set up to fail. Instead of being negative demand that they use a system. If they fail to come in, go back and play the same section and make them practice counting the rests. Don’t give them cues to listen for unless it’s in addition to making them count.

When to be positive, when to be negative

The brass player’s experience is often one of neglect except when problems arise. In an orchestra the brass may only get comments from the conductor when they fail to enter or miss notes.  You have to teach them how to count long rests and to subdivide, then you must demand that they do both. You also must recognize when they are doing a good job and congratulate them frequently.

Some leaders scream and cajole. That’s ok as long as there are instructions. If they are not trying then I give you license to chastise harshly. But most of the time when leaders yell at their kids the kids do not have the tools to do what the leader wants.

Being demanding does not mean yelling or berating them. Simply demand that they do what you have taught them. Many leaders ask the group to do something then gives up after one try.  Two minutes of boredom fixing an issue is nothing compared with a lifetime of good playing. The more you demand of kids the more they will succeed and will appreciate the success.

How you can help them play their best

• Make sure your players are warmed up before rehearsal. One of the biggest differences between amateur and professional groups is what happens 15 minutes before rehearsal. Amateurs sit around and talk. Pros warm up seriously and take some last minute shots at the tricky parts.

Don’t have them play a warm up rehearsal. Why would you do that to them? I have seen youth symphonies warm up by playing through entire Shostakovitch symphonies. Come on! The same conductor who did this called me later to ask why the brass was screechy at the end.

Professional orchestras usually have rules written into the contract describing how soon before a concert you can have a rehearsal. It’s to insure a good concert. Do the same for your students! If you are nervous about them all being there or want to go over a couple of places in the music it can be constructive but if they haven’t learned the music by the day of the concert what good are you doing by running through the whole thing?

• Don’t line up your brass section all across the back of the orchestra. They should be in a section, like woodwinds and strings. They will be more likely to play together and to come in correctly if they are seated in a section. 

• It is critical that the players be taught to recognize perfect intervals and how to tune them. Without strong intonation across the group the section will sound thin, the players will tire quickly and the soloists will miss more notes.  Perfect intervals on brass instruments have magical qualities when done right, grating qualities when done poorly.

• Some people feel strongly that you must tune to the lowest voice in the section (mainly tuba players!) but this is rarely how it works in the professional world. In the pro world if you are playing second and turn to the first player and say ‘you are out of tune and need to follow me’ there is a chance you will get fired or not called back.

In a community, school or youth orchestra setting, do you really want your sections to tune to the weakest player?

Demand that they act professionally

Demand that they be on time. For performances they should look sharp. It’s show biz! A loose atmosphere is fine and we brass players like to joke around but there’s a difference between a loose atmosphere and sloppy standards.

Shined shoes, clean shirts and combed hair are part of our professional deportment. Teach it to your players at a young age and they will feel professional when they play.

Face Based vs Air Based Playing

When we play we get most of our feedback from our chops.  We hear players say ‘my chops are messed up today’ or ‘my lips feel thick’ or tired or dry or whatever. We rarely say ‘I think my tongue is not quite in the right position’ or my breathing isn’t being controlled from the right place today.’ And that’s a pity.

We get most of our feedback from playing from our faces. If our chops are tired we feel defeated. If our chops feel good it feels miraculous. Unfortunately this also means that we focus our attention on our embouchure instead of our breathing.

The main focus of Left Coast Horn Playing is to train your mind and your body to focus on the air, not the embouchure

It takes a combination of a strong and correctly formed embouchure,  proper breathing both in and out and the correct shape and texture in the mouth and throat to play well. Most players concentrate on the chops both while they practice and when they play in an ensemble, ignoring their breathing. Many teachers are guilty of having their students work on drills, etudes and solos and excerpts and never mentioning how to breath other than an occasional truly confusing comment about diaphragmatic breathing.

How you take the air in and blow it out is more important than having a good embouchure.  One can play well with a misshapen or ignored embouchure but without breathing correctly one cannot play well.

To divert our brains’ attention from our chops we need to concentrate on breathing. There seems to be an equilibrium between how much work the air does and how much the chops do. If our faces work really hard then the air can’t be doing it’s job. If the air does its job the face can relax an amazing amount.

We want the shape of our mouth when we play to funnel the air to the point where the sound is being made - the center of our upper lip. This target is the flap of lip that actually moves and creates the sound.  Focusing the air anywhere else or not focusing the air is inefficient and produces an unstable, airy sound.

Getting the focal width of your air the same as your aperture will, if aimed at the aperture, be the most efficient way to play.

The most important factor in breathing correctly is which muscles in the body are used to draw the air in and to blow it out.

It’s easy to demonstrate how important this is. I say, ‘I am going to play like a beginner’ and then play like a 7th grader. Then I play like a high school freshman, then a senior, then a good college student then a professional. The only thing I change is which muscles I use to take the air in:

7th grader: I take a quick snort through my nose
Senior: I take a slightly longer breath into my throat and a little into my chest
College student: Controlled by the muscles at the bottom of the rib cage
Professional: I use the ab muscles right below my belly button.

It is the length of the air in the body that determines not only the tone quality and color but that enables us to focus on the air and all but forget about embouchure.

Some great horn players will say to breath naturally. Those same players tend to be large men who take huge breaths when they play. I think what they really mean is to have relaxed muscles pulling the air in.

You’ll note in some of the Left Coast exercises there are notes marked sffz. These notes should be hammered! Play them as loud as possible with sudden contractions of your abdominal muscles, as if someone had punched you in the stomach and you harden the muscles to protect yourself. This is an exercise to learn control and gain some strength in your abdomen, so hit them hard and don’t be tasteful.

These are Annoy Your Neighbor drills. Blast those notes! Don’t worry about tone color or if it goes to the wrong pitch. That’s ok but playing them quietly or weakly is not!

Understand Note Clusters

Three clusters

Note clusters are notes that have the same number of sound waves but use different fingerings or length of the horn.

To understand this it helps to know that when we go from one open note to another we are changing the number of sound waves that are occurring in the horn.

When we play the lowest note we can on a length of tubing we make one sound wave that is the length of the horn. If we add some energy and break the sound wave in half the note will jump up an octave.

If you play the second F below the treble staff on your Bb horn you will be playing the fundamental, making one sound wave. If you slur up to the F below the treble staff you will have 2 sound waves in the horn, each 1/2 the length of the horn.

If you add more energy and break the sound into 3 waves, you’ll go up a fifth and get the C below the staff, middle C.  Add more and you’ll go up a 4th and have 4 waves. The more waves you have the shorter they will be and the higher the pitch.

When you play that middle C and have 3 sound waves and you push down your second valve, you still have 3 sound waves, you have just made each a little bit longer. If you switch that for 1st valve you will still have 3 sound waves.

Middle C and the B, Bb, A and Ab below it are in the same cluster. They all have the same number of sound waves but use different fingerings.

Every open note plus the notes between it and the next open note are in the same cluster.

Now for the good stuff! Slurring between notes in the same cluster can be done with just the valves! You don’t have to adjust your mouth, aim differently or anything else. Slurs done with just the valves in a cluster have a beautiful smooth sound.

You know that you are moving from one cluster to another if you go up and make the horn longer or slur down and make the horn shorter. These slurs can’t be made just with the valves. You have to adjust the energy going into the horn to change clusters.

If you slur from middle C to the D above it you are making the horn longer but going up. You can’t be staying in a cluster. You must add enough energy to break the sound waves and adjust for the slightly longer horn.

Conversely if you are slurring from D to C then you are making the horn shorter and going down. You have to add air volume to adjust for the lower pitch and decrease the energy somewhere (breath, chops or both) to re-connect the sound waves.

You can see how important it is now to slur quickly! To break sound waves or re-connect them takes energy, just like a karate master breaks a board. Would the master move the hand slowly or move it quickly to break the board?

Moving slowly spreads the energy out over time! Doing it quickly, led by the air of course makes for clean beautiful slurs.

All about Intonation

Well, maybe not everything, but some useful stuff!

To most players playing in tune means playing the least out of tune. If your note sounds pretty much OK you must be in tune. If the conductor is yelling ‘you are out of tune’ then you must be out of tune. Sadly that is the most help you get from most conductors.

Being in tune is a physical phenomenon. It is a real thing and while there are differences that come from taste and tradition, a lot of it is simple to understand science. You also have to understand your position in the section to know whether you are setting the intonation or matching it.

If a player plays an A-440 and the player next to him plays an A-442 what A can you play that will be in tune? None! You could be in unison with the first player at 440 or in tune with the other player at 442 but you can’t be in tune with both.

Let’ say you choose to play the A-440. Your playing will reinforce the A you are matching and will interfere with the A playing at 442.

When your note hits the A442 in the air they create a new note, one that is 2 beats per second. It’s called a Difference Tone. That is what being out of tune is. Not matching the perfect intervals and creating a Difference Tone.

As you get closer to being in tune the Difference Tone slows down. An A442 interfering with an A 441 will produce a different tune will produce a 1 beat per second Difference Tone.

In addition to the 2 beats per second Difference Tone you will get an Additive tone. An A 440 played with an A 442 will produce a tone at 882 but it will be very weak. It's the Difference Tone you want to worry about.


4 (General) Rules for Playing in Tune Left Coast Style

Because horns are a natural thing and our major-minor system isn’t we have to make some adjustments.

1. When playing the bottom of a perfect 5th you have to enlarge the interval slightly. The upper pitch stays where it is and the lower player must lower their pitch.
2. When playing the bottom of a perfect 4th you have to raise your pitch slightly
3. When playing the 3rd of a major chord lower the pitch slightly
4. When playing a melody we may raise the 8th degree to sound more like a leading tone

This is different than is what is done in other parts of the world but this is the prevailing system on the Left Coast.

We could add a fifth rule that unisons and octaves have to be in tune or that non-perfect intervals have to be reasonably in tune but we feel these are self evident.

How to Tune for an Ensemble

1. Listen intently to the tuning note
2. Play a note for no more than two seconds. Any longer than that you will use your body to match the tuning note and that is not the idea. The ideas is to tune your instrument so you don’t have to make (many) adjustments to play in tune.
3. Make a slight adjustment to your horn and play another short note. If the intonation is better you have gone the right direction. If it is worse you have gone the wrong direction.
4. Make another slight correction and retest if you need to.

Try not to correct it with your body. If you do then to play in tune you have to constantly be moving, chewing, twisting, etc. and we don't want that.

Other Tips

It’s important to adjust slowly. If you don’t you run the risk of just going back and forth rather than matching. 

If you are playing an A 440 and someone else is playing A 438 you'll get a Difference Tone of 2 beats per second. If you play an A 440 and someone else plays an A 442 you'll also get a Difference Tone of 2 beats per second. This is why it's hard to tell if you are flat or sharp when you are close.

It's also why it's important to tune slowly and not make big jumps.

When there are two horns playing in tune there is one setting the pitch and one matching the pitch. In an orchestral section the 2nd player matches the principal and the 4th player matches the third. It changes depending on what is going on in the piece and who has the top or most important line but most of the time you would tune this way.

Perhaps the best way to learn to play in tune is to play duets. Make sure one player adjusts to the other and that you know who it is before you play.

Welcome to West Coast Horn Playing

Left Coast Horn Playing is a way of practicing and playing that emphasizes training the body and mind to inhale and exhale correctly.  Left Coast Horn Playing takes a logical and behavioral approach and develops controlled, repeatable technique.

Our main goal is to get better every day.

Main features of Left Coast playing and practice

• A focus on controlling the air inside the horn and working daily to improve breathing
• Knowing what and where the target is and aiming the air at it 
• Getting away from the illusion that concentration and development of the embouchure is more important than focus on air control and emphasizing exercises that develop air strength and control
• Use of exaggeration in teaching. Sffz, long decrescendos and practicing in a wide range of tempi are typical
• Clean tonguing and using the tongue to focus the air
• Working to reduce or eliminate unnecessary movement of the face and tongue
• Short progressive drills designed to hone in on one particular aspect of playing or combining techniques to make learning efficient
• Working to improve ensemble skills as well as individual technique
• A mindset that wants to improve every day

As you read the articles and go through the exercises you'll notice there is a word we hardly ever use. The word is embouchure. We work on strengthening the right muscles but only change or move an embouchure via exercises unless there is a dire problem. Most embouchure problems can be solved by proper breathing and tonguing. In fact we believe the great majority of embouchure problems are really breathing and tonguing problems.

The other salient feature of Left Coast Horn Playing is that it works! If it didn't we wouldn't be in demand as players, our studios would not be full and our students would not be successful.