A Singing Approach to Horn Playing

In A Singing Approach to Horn Playing, author and renowned teacher-musician Natalie Douglass Grana develops the fundamental sense of pitch that is essential to play the horn. The book begins with simple songs to sing on solfège, buzz on the mouthpiece, and play on the horn, followed by inner hearing, transposition, and polyphonic exercises.

Readers learn to fluidly hear the notes on the page before playing them, through sequential exercises with songs, improvisation, stick notation, and duets. Training continues with progressively challenging melodies, including canons as well as vocal etudes (solfeggi) like those of Giuseppe Concone.

Finally, hornists apply their musicianship skills to standard etude, solo, and orchestral horn repertoire. Horn parts are provided with important lines from the orchestra or accompaniment, transposed to also be sung and played on the horn. Accompanying rhythmic and harmonic exercises enable performers to learn to hear the parts together as they play.

Through a wide-ranging synthesis of theory, practical advice, and exercises, Douglass Grana puts forth a crucial guide for a new generation of horn players and burgeoning musicians seeking to improve and perfect their sense of pitch.