Exercise 7

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Exercise 7 is a trilling and control exercise.

To play this exercise

• Make sure the eighth notes are very cleanly tongued and short
• Hit the lower notes of the trills hard so they have the same volume and color as the higher notes
• Start by using a hard breath accent to get the notes to change then back off as you get control 

Use the F horn fingerings as indicated. Go slowly at first. When you are proficient you can begin working upwards starting on C#, using Bb horn fingerings.

Exercise 4

Exercise 4 is our basic arpeggio exercise.

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It is imperative that you 

• Begin with a clean tongue
• Do not let the notes go sharp as you go up or flat as you go down
• Do not football (get louder in the middle) of the notes
• Make the change between notes as quickly as possible, with no hints before the change, using a sudden blast of air
• Make the last note good
• Take a breath whenever necessary and use lots of air

We want brick shaped notes with the fastest change of notes possible.

One of the most common mistakes when arpeggiating is changing the shape of the mouth or the tension of the lips before the air changes. To get this to work you must breath from Place #6 and blast the air.

Controlling the air higher than Place #6 will cause your throat to tense up making it almost impossible to get the blast of air necessary to get you to the next note.

Articles related to this exercise

Understanding Note Clusters
Air Based vs Face Based
What is The System?
Chop Management
Strength and Efficiency

Exercise 3

Exercise 3 is our introduction to trilling and an exercise that teaches your mouth the most efficient position to be in.

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To learn to trill we begin by using very hard  accents. You cannot overdo it! Really blast air all of a sudden by pushing really hard from Place #6. If you can't do that go back and read the articles on breathing and do the exercises. When you can make the clean slurs with hard accents then put them on every note. By the end of this the muscles in Place #6 should be tired.

Without the extremely hard breath accents this is just another bunch of trills. With it it can improve your playing immensely in a short time.

The hard accents blow your mouth into the right shape. It takes decades of practice with good instruction to find the shape, but if you use the air properly here you can experience it in two seconds. You know it happens when the notes are brick shaped and change suddenly from one to the other with a pop. That pop is the sound wave breaking or joining and we love to hear it. It means things are working efficiently.

It is imperative that the lower note be just as loud and have the same tone color as the first note. After we have mastered the trill a bit we back off on some of the accents and play the ones that are written.

For beginning students have them trill between lower notes, perhaps bottom line E and the G above it. For advanced players practice as written and higher and lower.

Make the last note very long and decrescendo as much as possible without changing tone color to make sure you are controlling the air from  Place #6.

Exercise 2

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This exercise trains you to use the minimum movement inside your mouth when changing notes.

There are two elements of this exercise; repeated notes alternating with technical figures.

Play all on the D horn. That is your F horn with the first and second valves depressed. You can use normal fingerings on the scale if you wish or use it as hand horn training, but play everything else in the exercise on one fingering.

Make the repeated A as simple and brick shaped as possible.

Play the repeated notes with very clean tonguing and a very slight separation.  We want to keep our mouth still so if there is too much separation the mouth will tend to move. Keep it still!

Don't use a D tongue here. Use a hard, clean T.

It helps at first to blast, and we mean blast the air when you are changing notes both up and down. You want to blast the air suddenly, as if you knew you were going to get hit in the gut and you suddenly and violently tighten the muscles around your belly button. Do it hard and suddenly and violently! There is no advantage to being subtle here.

Don't breath right before the figures. If you need a breath right before one play some more of the repeated notes.

The repeated note teaches your mouth what shape to be in. Try to keep that shape while playing the technical figures. You know you are doing it right if all the notes of the figures have the same tone color. If they get quieter or darker or thin or wobbly then you are probably moving your mouth or more likely the back of your tongue too much.

User lots of air, especially on the lower notes and the glissando.

If the glissando is a problem, just go up a couple of partials and come back down. The important thing is that you go up using a blast of air and keep the blast going while you come down. Keep a good, bright tone color. Don't aim up!

When you can comfortably play the exercise you can back off the accents and start to transpose up by half steps. If you do back off the accents be careful not to fall back in the trap of easing off the support and using too much face.

The fingering pattern going up is:

• F horn 12 (as the exercise is written)
• F horn 1
• F horn 2
• F horn 0
• Bb horn 23
• Bb horn 12
• Bb horn 1
• Bb horn 2
• Bb horn 0 (top line F)

You can replace the technical elements with anything you are working on. For example if you want practice double tonguing or playing stopped or really loud or really quiet you can just write in your own drills.