The Balanced Embouchure for Horn: Horn Players, Beware!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Horn Players, Beware!

Doug, a trombone player, decided to take up French horn 4+ years ago. New to BE, he's coming on strong, so horn players beware! With Doug's permission, I'm sharing an email I received from him yesterday.

Valerie,

What I'm noticing is that everything feels better. This is how it used to feel when I was playing all the time, chops in great shape, and fearless about going for notes. Kamakazi horn if you will. I've been inspired by Bruno (what a great name for a horn player) and got out the Mozart Horn quintet. The last time I attempted it, it was pure struggle, today it was approachable. The thing that just made me set my horn down in awe, was that eight bars from the end there is a high C eighth note approached from a C an octave lower and followed by eighth note D a seventh lower. That sucker popped out like I'd been doing it all my life. It was so much fun I did it five more times.

I used to belong to a new age church that taught us to visualize and believe in what we wanted to do, before it manifested itself. So sometimes I'm a dreamer. My dream is to sit amongst four strings, in my tux, forty pounds lighter, and blow everyone away with my definitive rendition of the Mozart Horn quintet. What do you think? Well, OK. Like I said, I'm a dreamer.

OH. GOOD HEAVENS! You are going to laugh at me. I just realized that this piece is for Horn in Eb. I've been playing it in F! I'm going to have to turn in my IHS membership card as they paint a yellow stripe down my back and drum me out of the corps and confiscate my 8D! Later. I have to go try this again.

Doug

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Welcome to The Balanced Embouchure For Horn

Hello and thanks for stopping by. I’m Valerie Wells, a horn player starting this blog to share my success using The Balanced Embouchure (BE) and to provide a place for other horn players to share their positive experiences with BE. The Balanced Embouchure is an embouchure development system originally written for trumpet by Jeff Smiley. BE is now helping an ever growing number of horn players improve their embouchures, too. To learn how I came to BE, see this. There is only one BE book. The same book is used for both horn and trumpet.

For additional information about BE in general, please see the following links:

Jeff Smiley’s website
http://www.trumpetteacher.net/
The Balanced Embouchure Forum http://www.trumpetherald.com/
Michael Camilleri’s website
http://users.actrix.co.nz/mcamilleri/BE/BEFAQ.htm
Bert Loch’s website
http://bertlochs.com/

Ko de Rooj's website (Netherlands)

www.balanced-embouchure.eu

Skype lessons available

Bruce Lee: teatro333 "at" gmail "dot"com

Valerie Wells: ValerieW78 "at" gmail "dot" com

Common Misconceptions about BE

For various reasons that seem inherent in our approach to the instrument, French horn players (self included) often develop misconceptions about The Balanced Embouchure that can potentially impede progress.

Misconception #1: BE is written for trumpet, therefore much of it will not apply to French horn.
Some exercises need transposition or adaptation for French horn, but the principles and techniques taught in this book are as applicable to French horn as they are to trumpet. (I learned this lesson the hard way.)

Misconception #2: BE is all about rolling the lips in and out.
Lip rolling is only part of BE. There are tonguing exercises, snaps, zips, breathing exercises, etc. All these elements combine to form a development system that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Misconception #3: Roll-Out exercises are for developing the low register. Therefore a horn player with a secure low register, need not practice Roll-Out exercises.
Roll-Out exercises are designed to develop tone, flexibility, endurance and balance in all the registers, not just the low. A balanced embouchure has elements of roll-out in every note of every register.

Misconception #4: Roll-In exercises are for developing the upper register.
Roll-In exercises are designed to develop tone, flexibility, endurance and balance in all the registers, not just the high. A balanced embouchure has elements of roll-in in every note of every register.

Misconception #5: “Doing BE” means rolling out for low notes and rolling in for high notes.
“Doing BE” means practicing the BE exercises and following the program as designed. Directly applying lip rolling to your regular embouchure is not BE and will be of limited value.

Misconception #6: The correct BE embouchure has a bunched chin and puffed cheeks.
There is no, one correct “BE embouchure.” The balanced embouchure you develop following the BE system will be unique to you. There is no way to predict what your final embouchure will look like. Horn players need to avoid preconceived ideas of what their balanced embouchures will look like.

Bert Lochs has taken the above #6 misconceptions and elaborated upon them for trumpet players.