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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.
A musician who plays the French horn, like the players of the German and Vienna horns (confusingly also sometimes called French horns), is called a horn player (or less frequently, a hornist). Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, which is tuned to F or less commonly B ♭. Although double French horns do exist, they are rare.
The mellophone is a brass instrument used in marching bands and drum and bugle corps in place of French horns.It is a middle-voiced instrument, typically pitched in the key of F, though models in E ♭, D, C, and G (as a bugle) have also historically existed.
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.