Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 French horn’s range is a key aspect of the instrument’s appeal, versatility and expressive power. With a range that spans four octaves, the French horn can produce such a wide variety of tones and colours that it can be played in many musical genres.
An overview of the French horn range, including what is possible, what is typically comfortable, and differences found between single and double horns.
The French horn has the widest tonal range of all brass instruments. Its extremely rich, soft timbre gives it a special quality somewhere between brass and woodwinds, enabling it to blend well with the sound of many other instruments.
With three control valves, the basic range of a French horn is from the bass F note three octaves below Middle C to the alto F note one octave above. Some types of horns are made to accept an attachment called crooks — extra lengths of brass tubing — to change its factory-tuned key.
The “heart” of the horn range, where it is most agile, flexible and horn-like, is around the octave written from C4 to C5, sounding F3 to F4. The fifth or sixth above this region (up to around written A5, sounding D5) is more brilliant, robust and heroic, and more difficult to play quietly.
Modern French horns have three valves which lower the pitch a semitone, a tone, and three semitones (minor third). The valves of a horn are typically rotary valves . By the end of the 19th century, the horn in F had become standard.
The typical playing range of a horn differs from its written range by a fifth, and extends from the G below the treble clef to the F above the treble clef. Although this is the standard range found in classical repertoire, some players can play many notes beyond this range, both lower and higher.
Figure 2: The Range of the French Horn. The modern horn is a transposing instrument; music for horn is in F, written a perfect fifth higher than it sounds. The mellophone is a brass instrument closely related to the French horn.
The basic range of a French horn with three control valves is from the bass F note three octaves below Middle C to the alto F note one octave above. Some horns are designed to accept crooks, which are extra lengths of brass tubing that can be used to change the factory-tuned key.