The Single B-flat Horn
Friday, March 25, 2022 by Billy Roberts | French horn
Most of my horn playing through the years has been on a Conn 8D. I went through a brief period as a young adult where I had no money and no horn. After working a little, I bought a no-name single F horn for $200. I only used it for a few months before deciding that I really needed a double horn. I tried out an old Yamaha 561 that was being sold for around $800 and, although it was in excellent condition and played very well, I felt that the sound had no nuance or character. I passed on the horn and wound up buying a used Holton 179 for about $1400. I kept the Holton for nearly a year and found it very easy to play, but again, the sound just didn’t excite me. Then I found someone who was willing to sell me a blemished (but new) Conn 8D for $2200. This was back in the days when a new Conn 8D was under $3000, but still, it was an incredible deal. I performed with the Conn for seven and a half years and never found myself dissatisfied with the sound or tone colors that it could produce. However, as I became more involved with voice, I eventually decided that I just didn’t have the time to practice horn enough to play it the way it deserved to be played. I sold it to an ambitious high school horn player from Texas.
I am currently playing on a Yamaha single B-flat horn. I began playing it after our Windsong Chamber Choir’s 2020-21 season was cancelled due to COVID precautions. I quickly realized that there are many benefits to learning the B-flat horn. Although the F horn does have a slight advantage over the B-flat horn in the lower register, I discovered that most of the intonation and stuffiness issues that students have when playing the B-flat horn are due to a combination of improper embouchure and right-hand technique. There are three registers of the horn (four if you consider the extreme high range a separate register), and failure to properly navigate between the upper register and the mid-low register results in an abrupt change in tone as a player descends from the top to the bottom of the treble clef. This shift is very similar to the vocal break for a singer and is due to an embouchure shift which, for most players, occurs between F and G#. This is why beginners are usually advised to use the F horn exclusively for low notes and switch to the B-flat horn at G# and above.
I will help you discover your sound no matter what make or model of horn you are using and will not push you to change your equipment. Although I’m incredibly grateful to have learned the fundamentals of horn playing on a Conn 8D, this period with the B-flat horn has helped me to reevaluate those fundamentals and better understand how to communicate those concepts with students. I will likely buy a Geyer-style double horn within the next year, not because of any issue with Conns but simply because my concept of the sound that I want has evolved.
