Horn and Piano Win Out
Friday, June 30, 2023 by Billy Roberts | Vision
The past few months have helped me to gain a clear picture of where I’m headed moving forward with horn, voice and piano. As the school year came to a close, I envisioned myself spending more and more time with the horn and putting piano on the back burner. However, I really enjoyed the daily routine that I had developed with piano. At the beginning of June I attended a state conference for music teachers that helped to set my course for this month. I determined not to let piano go, even for just the summer. Since then, I’ve enjoyed learning new pieces, helping my kids with their piano lessons, and working with a beginning piano student that I started teaching several weeks ago. It’s also been rewarding to dust off music that I haven’t looked at in years. Nevertheless, I felt that horn should still have a prominent place in my musical pursuits.
As I wrestled over whether horn or piano should be my primary instrument, it became clear that I needed to rethink my approach to singing. For much of the past decade, I’ve felt the need to use vocalises or other daily exercises on a regular basis to keep my voice in shape. However, my thoughts changed a couple of weeks ago after I was asked how I would teach a young, beginning voice student. Simple melodies are the easiest way to get any student started in music, whether they are a vocal or instrumental student. I remembered how I used to sing for fun in the car, doing chores, or other times when I was by myself. I realized that if I could just lighten up on my approach to singing, I could have plenty of teaching opportunities focusing on horn and piano. Those two instruments are a handful in themselves.
Over the next couple of weeks, various appointments and meetings in the afternoon made it impossible to practice horn more than every other day. That was short term, but as I realized that I could be happy with just three full one-hour sessions of horn practice per week, I felt that I should continue keeping piano my primary instrument indefinitely. The horn blog that I wrote two months ago was very helpful for me, because I do use the Warburton Buzzard for ten to twenty minutes every day now, and it definitely keeps me from having to have the extra time warming up that I use to experience when I skipped a day of horn practice. Three sessions per week with the actual horn seems to be enough to keep me at a level I can enjoy it. Consciously limiting my time with the horn enables me to set aside the hours I need for family and other things that are important to me.
I’ve never been successful at consistently practicing more than two instruments at a time, but the most musically productive periods of my life have come when horn and piano were both primary. I’m content to let horn fill the niche that voice used to have in my life. Daily piano practice energizes me, keeps my fingers and arms in shape, and even helps my breathing, body, and mind. I’m finally accepting that, although singing is essential for me, I don’t have to do daily vocal work or make it harder than it has to be. Although the mechanics are a bit different, horn playing provides good breathing exercise and seems to help the body in the same ways that singing does. When all is going well, I feel like I’m singing through the horn and it’s an extension of my body. In the juggle between horn, piano, and voice, one thing is clear to me at this stage of life: horn and piano win out.
