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The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B ♭ (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular.
The French horn (as distinct from the German and Vienna horns), is also usually referred to simply as the "horn" by orchestral players. The bore of the French horn is small, between 10.8 and 11 mm, compared to 11.5 mm for the German horn, but not as small as the Vienna horn at 10.7 mm.
In a French horn, the length of tubing (and the bore size) make the partials much closer together than other brass instruments in their normal range and, therefore, harder to play accurately. The F mellophone has tubing half the length of a French horn, which gives it an overtone series more similar to a trumpet and most other brass instruments.
This family includes all of the modern brass instruments except the trombone: the trumpet, horn (also called French horn), euphonium, and tuba, as well as the cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn (alto horn), baritone horn, sousaphone, and the mellophone. As valved instruments are predominant among the brasses today, a more thorough discussion of ...
Many notable French horn musicians struck out in smaller groups, giving the instrument a headliner role in jazz combos. A good account of the presence of the French horn in jazz is Ronald Sweetman's study, A Preliminary Chronology of the Use of the French Horn in Jazz, Further Rev. 1991 Text, Montréal Vintage Society, 1991, ISBN 1-895002-05-2.
These instruments were designed to simply be an octave lower than their soprano counterparts. Often built from bass trumpet and concert French horn parts, these small bore, small bell instruments had difficult intonation and a very poorly balanced tone. Instrument manufacturers eventually replaced these small baritones with the Bass Baritone bugle.