practice french horn more

and I will consider that ‘more’.

This summer, I’ve been asked to play the horn part in the County’s production of Les Mis! I’m way excited [:

Well, right now I have to, for school, but I want to practice horn just because I feel like it – and play all the parts I love most. Really, why not?

fair warning, this post is going to be full of music nerdity.
I practice a lot on my days off.
For a while, I didn’t practice, because I couldn’t find my box of music. I have an entire box devoted to music, inside that box are folders,with everything organized inside: etudes by the method, yhr big names being Potag, Shoemaker, and an entire folder dedicated to Kopprasch, of course. A folder for excerpts, several for concertos, and a few for horn choir parts and duets.

I recognized something in my playing the other day – and this might be part of the reason it is so difficult for me to improvise on my horn – is that I am trained to play notes on a page. I see little black dots and I play the rhythym and notes as they are written. I’m very classical like that. Of course, I know all of my scales, but only as little dots on the page. It’s much more difficult to play anything by ear or by memory.

As part of my goal of losing my fear of composing music, I want to become better at playing my horn by ear, so I can play little melodies without having to scratch them out on ledger paper.

I’ve started practicing in a different way – I start off with my usual lip warming exercises – but then I do my best to run through all of my scales by memory. It’s a lot harder then I thought it would be – I can make it up Db to with my flats and then to A in my sharps before I start to flounder. It’s really a mental exercise.

I want to get to the point where I am comfortable improvising in any key. Without little black dots to tell me which notes to play.

Of course, I can’t help but play a concerto or two just to make sure I still can.

1. I’d rather focus on quality, not quantity.
2. Forced practice takes enjoyment out of activity. This “goal” makes practicing an obligation.
(This is not to say that I should only practice when I want to, but that, hopefully, I will want to once it seems like a choice.)