trumpet blower88

Hey everyone, I've been playing trumpet for the last 8 years in my school band. Last year I played second trumpet in my schools top orchrestra. Now this year I've made principal trumpet in the top orchrestra, and I've been asked to play French Horn in the lower erchrestra. I've heard from many people that playing French Horn can really mess up my Trumpet playing. Does anyone have any opinions about that? I've talked it over with both of my directors and they don't think it will be a problem, that my lip has developed strong enough that it'll take more than just doubleing on Horn to really screw up my chops. But I hear from so many people that that doubleing on Horn can be one of the worst things for a trumpeter to do. Do any of you guys or gals have any opinions on this? Should I play Horn, or should I stick to Trumpet?
Thanks,
Dave

Manny Laureano

I've never heard a horn/trumpet player that sounded EQUALLY as good on both. A trumpeter can develop a nice high register on horn but I've never heard one that had a great lower register on horn as it should sound.

ML

Tootsall

"Correct" embouchure placement on French horn is 2/3 top, 1/3 bottom. This will mess up your trumpet set which is "usually" 1/2 - 1/2. Of course there ARE exceptions and maybe you are one of them.

rjzeller

I have horn students as well as trumpet students, and often will play for them to help out on a tough part or just to get them to hear it. There is CLEARLY a difference in sound quality on the lower register. I play it fine enough, and like ML said the upper register was quite strong, but the lower is ... I dunno, fuzzy, I guess. Thin, flat, not quite the full range of harmonic overtones I might hope for.

That being said, to answer your real question -- I haven't had problems with it. I would think the bigger problem is making the adjustment from the Bb to the F and the fingerings, not to mention the slotting and the harmonics. Making sure you know the horn well enough to use the proper fingering to hit each note in tune is a big deal, especially on some of the notes above C on the staff.

Keep in mind I only play it once, maybe twice a week at most, and then for only a few minutes at a time. But I should think that so long as the bulk of your playing is still trumpet, you'll be fine.

Now...going back and forth between OBOE and trumpet...now...THAT's a real chop buster!

robertwhite

FWIW, David Guerrier - the only trumpeter since Maurice Andre to take a 1st prize at the Munich/ARD competition, is also solo horn of Orchestre Nationale de France. Oh, did I mention he's 21 years old!

Manny Laureano

There ya go, Dave... there's always the exception. Now, I will say this... the conception of sound on the horn in France is a bit different form the traditonal sound in this country or England or the Austro/Germanic approach. I'll stick my neck out so far as to say that trumpet playing is closer to the French style of horn playing than the other styles I mentioned. That's my opinion based on hearing French players on horn years ago. Maybe it's changed.

ML

Ryan

Well, I played French Horn one semester... I came back second semester on trumpet and won 4th place overall in a local competition so it didnt affect me too much. French Horn is awkward because the pitches are all very very close, it's weird but doable. Also, I was playing trumpet in pep band and taking private trumpet lessons while playing horn, so that helped.

Now I also have a friend who switched to horn to avoid playing turmpet with braces. He played for a long time (2 years) and now he's trying to come back to trumpet. His tone is bad, he has no range, and it's really not that great. This guy was first chair all state before he switched, now he can barely pop an A.

Be careful, if you play don't play for too long, and make sure you continue playing trumpet while playing horn.

trumpet blower88

Hey you guys, thanks for all your coments on this, I'm not really worried anymore since I'll still be playing trumpet in one band, one orchrestra, and marching band, and horn in just one band and one orchrestra I think it should be ok.

And to reply to Tootsall:
I've been playing my trumpet for 8 years now, and when I first started no one really taught me the right way to set my embouchure so I did it the most comfortable way, and that was with 2/3 top, 1/3 bottem lip, so maybe doing it wrong this whole time will actualy come back and help me out.

Thanks!

Tootsall

If it works for you, that's great. The horn is something that I think I could have gone to when I first picked up a chunk o brass about 8 years back... too bad that they cost so dang much! Enjoy all the bands... I'm sure that you'll get stuff from each one of them that will help "build" your skill base.