French Horn

The horn is a brass instrument that consists of tubing wrapped into a coiled form. The instrument was first developed in France (?) from the cor de chasse, or hunting horn in about 1650. more...

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Since 1750, when the instrument was refined and improved in England, it has been known as the French horn, mainly in the United States (musicians generally refer to it simply as the horn). In the 1960s the International Horn Society declared the official name of this instrument to be the "Horn."

General Characteristics

The horn is a conical bore instrument much like the cornet and Saxhorns. This means the bore is tapered, steadily increasing in diameter along its length, unlike the trumpet and trombone which are considered cylindrical. Unlike most other valved brass instruments, which use piston valves, the horn uses rotary valves, though earlier horns used pistons. Each valve toggles a length of tubing, changing the length of the instrument and therefore the pitch. Each length of tubing is a separate part, and is moved to adjust the tuning of the instrument, making them tuning slides. A modern double horn contains a total of 21 ft (6.4 meters) of tubing, including all tuning slides.

Compared to the other brass instruments commonly found in the orchestra, the typical range of the horn is set an octave higher in its harmonic series, facilitated by its small mouthpiece. In this range, the "partials" -- notes available in a given valve combination simply by changing the frequency of the lip buzz -- are closer together than on other brass instruments, making it very prone to playing wrong notes, even among professional players, due to not having just the proper lip tension. Its conical bore is largely responsible for its characteristic tone, often described as "mellow". The typical playing range of a horn differs from its written range by a fifth down, and extends from the Bb below the bass clef to the F above the treble clef. Although this is the standard range found in classical repertoire, some players can play many notes beyond this range, both lower and higher.

History

Early horns were much simpler than modern horns. These early horns were brass tubes wound a few times and had a flared opening (the "bell"). These early ("hunting") horns were originally played on a hunt, often while mounted. Change of pitch was effected entirely by the lips (the horn not being equipped with valves until the 19th century).

The horn (or, more often, pairs of horns) often invoked the idea of the hunt, or, in the later baroque, to represent nobility, royalty, or divinity.

Early horns were commonly pitched in F, E, E flat, B flat, and C, and since the only notes available were those on the harmonic series of one of those pitches, they had a no ability to play in different keys. The remedy for this limitation was the use of crooks, i.e. sections of tubing of differing length that, when inserted, altered the length of the instrument, and thus its pitch.

Read more at Wikipedia.org