Update on the Excerpts

  Now that I'm a little over a week into my excerpts and etude for college auditions they're starting to come along. Today I'm going to share a few problems I faced when working with certain ones and what steps I specifically took to overcome them.




Beethoven Symphony No. 3, 3rd Mvt.; 2nd Horn in Eb

  This is a very famous low horn excerpt that gave me some fits. Make sure to start it much below the normal tempo to make sure that everything is precise, present, and in tune. Every time that the 2nd horn has moving eighths, those need to be brought out as neither of the other horns has that. The video above best demonstrates the 2nd horn part being prominent and still having a great sound. At 174 make sure that you start out very present, but not too loud, as you'll need room for a huge crescendo all the way to the descending eighths. Then make sure that the low Bb is center and you're not scooping into the pitch. This entire passage should feel like a waltz, so once up to tempo, try to always feel it in one.


Brahms Symphony No. 2, 1st Mvt.; Horn in D


  At this point this excerpt is still in it's infancy with me. I've only gotten to the point of working it with a metronome for a consistent tempo. Surprisingly I couldn't find any videos of this solo on YouTube, but there are plenty of great recordings on hornexcerpts.org. The initial problem I had with this one is that my transposition from D isn't too great, which then made it take longer to really feel solid on just the notes. Soon I'm going to start working with all the stringendos and ritards, as well as the all the phrasing that goes along with this piece.


R. Strauss's Ein Heldenleben

  This is one of the excerpts that makes me feel very proud to play the horn. That being said, this is one tough cookie. Make sure the opening Bb is strong and has wobbles or pulsing to the sound, and be positive that you're holding for exactly 2 1/3 beats. The horn is adding a dramatic effect effect to the low strings as this is the arrival of the hero.
  Throughout this entire piece rhythmic steadiness is vital. Differentiate the triplets from the sixteenths, make the dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythms snappy, and watch out of the triplet quarters leading into 1. After 1, make sure to the rests carefully as the judges will be sure to watch out for that. The dotted eighth-sixteenths can either be played slurred or with a slight tongue. I prefer the tongue because it adds clarity since it's just you versus the entire low strings on this melody. If you're going to tongue here's a few things to watch out for:

•  Make sure the dotted eighth still gets full value and leads into the the sixteenth.
• Don't accent the sixteenth note.
• Accent the repeated long note after the sixteenth. (As notated in bar 5)

For a great professional breakdown of this piece -- Greg Cass

Kopprasch No. 55


  Unfortunately there are no YouTube videos of this piece and I don't know where any others would be at this time. I know there's a few horn players working to record the entirety of both books, best wishes to them.
  I'm actually just starting out on this one as well. I had the funny notion that we were doing Kopprasch No. 59, so I had spent the past week working that. Then when the official list was finally released I double checked it and good thing I did, No. 55 was listed there instead.
  I can't say too much about this piece at this point but this any Kopprasch technique and ease of playing will vital. Make sure to note that this etude is Largo and it shows that eighth note gets the beat. This might sound absurdly slow, but with the tongued 64th note runs I'm even considering giving the beat to the sixteenth. If I only have one huge suggestion for this piece so far, it's to make sure to play it with a metronome, you don't want to accidentally play 64th's like 32nd's or anything along this lines.