Just two weeks before submitting my research, I got the opportunity to experiment with my material and ideas together with student Alexander (the original name has been changed to Alexander for privacy reasons) who was very eager to try the horn. With his mother's permission, I was allowed to record and use his first lesson for my research. Of course, drawing conclusions based on just one student is not really feasible, as the test group is too small, but i am pleasantly surprised by the results nonetheless. It gives me hope that young horn players can achieve good results by initially skipping the reading of staff notation.
This lesson was very different from my 'normal' trial lesson that i have given so many times over the years. My focus was on practicing blowing, building confidence on the instrument, and experiencing a well-motivated feeling due to success. It feels like we succeeded in this. My approach was as following:
Lesson 1
I started by briefly mentioning that the French horn is a challenging instrument but that we will try our best.
Then we started by clearly articulating the phrase ''mijn tante drinkt graag thee'' (''my aunt likes to drink tea''). The focus here was on the tongue position when pronouncing the 'T'. ''Mijn TanTe DrinkT graag Thee.''
I asked my student to pay close attention to what happens with their tongue while pronouncing these words. The tongue should tick against the roof of their mouth or the back of their front teeth when saying ''T''. This is the same tongue position as when you play a note on the horn.
Next, I explained how sound is produced on the piano (since this student has been playing piano for 3 years) and how this works on the French horn. I explained that our lips vibrate when we press them together and blow through them. As an example, I suggested thinking about the sensation of spitting out a grain of rice. In this action, your tongue taps against the roof of your mouth in the same way as with ''mijn tante drinkt graag thee''
In this manner, we buzzed through various rhythms that I had written down in graphical notation. The method of notation did not require much explanation; Alexander immediately understood how it worked. He even managed to notate his own rhythm in this way and buzz through it successfully.
Then, we buzzed through the same rhythms, but this time using the mouthpiece. Alexander did really well with this
Afterwards, I explained that while we have been buzzing rhythms on the mouthpiece, it is also possible to produce different pitches.
I had drawn various figures that resemble hills. I asked Alexander if he had an idea of how to play these, and he was able to explain it well.
We played through all the different exercises, with tips and tricks along the way.
Meanwhile, I focused on posture and breathing techniques.
I made a comparison to swimming lessons, where you always take a deep breath before diving underwater. We briefly practiced low and deep breathing.
Then we were ready to start playing on the French horn. Alexander played on a junior-sized horn. I explained that it resembles my horn but is smaller and coiled differently so he can hold it more comfortably. I let him insert his mouthpiece himself and asked him to twist it a quarter turn. Then, I helped him to sit in the correct posture, and we played through the various rhythms we had practiced earlier on the mouthpiece together. It was noticeable that Alexander automatically played the C instead of the F. I expected this; it seems to be the most accessible note for a beginner to start with, although there are exceptions.
Next, we did various exercises with call and response playing on the beat. I explained that the beat is the heartbeat of the music. I played first, and Alexander played after me. Then, we switched roles. I explained that we do this to become familiar with blowing.
(This is an exercise I also do weekly with my IKEI classes. When call and response playing goes well, I add a playful element to it. For instance, with the rhythm quarter-quarter-eighth-quarter, instead of playing it, the children do not imitate me but say in rhythm, "De-ze speel je niet'' which means ''This one you do not play.")
Then, we did call and response playing again, but this time with the first valve pressed. I paid close attention to whether the pitch (we played a C) would go down to a Bb or up to an Eb. It went down to the Bb.
Then, just to be sure, I asked him to try out which note felt easier to play. He appeared to be able to play both of them already. I asked him to explain to me how he experienced the difference between the high and low notes. This way, he was encouraged to think for himself about what makes the difference for him.
Then it was time to play our first song, Mary had a little lamb.
For Alexander, I have notated it in fingerings (relative notation) instead of traditional notation. I wrote it in a way that the intervals would remain consistent regardless of which note he started on. In this way, the song would be correct, regardless of which note he would start on.
Without explanation, Alexander immediately understood which fingers to press and the rhythms seemed clear to him as well. Probably because he knew how it should sound; he was familiar with the song. After practicing a few times, he was able to play the song with piano accompaniment. We played it with various accompaniments, so he could get used to the horn and experience how the result sounded different each time.
(See an example of the actual notation below)
When I wanted to finish the lesson, Alexander said that he was having fun and wanted to play another song. So, I said we could quickly try it. I chose Clair de lune, he did not know it. I played it once, and then he wanted to try it himself. What surprised me was that he started on the high note, even though I played the low version. I had also written this piece for him in relative notation, so fortunately, this was not a problem. Below you see the notation of how Alexander played this.
Alexander played the version starting on Db, but the notation on the right side (that starts on Ab) could also have been a possible outcome, as the fingerings are exactly the same.
It was remarkable to me that Alexander could suddenly play the highest note (the F, which many children struggle with!) at the end of the lesson. I am not sure to what extent this is a result of a different approach or simply his natural talent. To determine that, I would need to test the material with more students.
The entire first lesson you can hear below.
Lesson 2
We started by warming up with buzzing exercises on the mouthpiece. We played together the buzz exercises from last week in a pretty fast tempo. Then I asked Alexander which one he would like to choose to practice more.
He said he wanted to practice the first one because he was not so good at going from low to high. Letting him choose for himself is actually new to me, but according to the interview with Susan Williams, having a choice is very important, even if it is something small. It was good to see that Alexander also made a conscious choice in this regard: "I want to do this one and here is the reason," rather than just pointing to one randomly. We practiced first with a low tone that gradually became higher. I asked Alexander what could help him to play this better. He did not know, but I did: Better breathing. After this, the exercise went better. I told Alexander that these exercises are good to keep repeating.
Then Alexander got to imitate me on a beat. I started with simple rhythms and asked him to repeat what I was playing.
This went well. Then I added a game element. When I played the rhythm below, he had to say '' deze speel je niet'' (which means "you do not play this one") instead of imitating it.
I played various rhythms with sometimes the "deze speel je niet". Then we reversed roles, Alexander got to play first and I repeated what he played.
This exercise had several goals: Having fun with the game element, as Williams emphasizes is very important (see interview), listening and imitating, coming up with something on your own, and feeling the beat. Meanwhile, we were also practicing blowing and getting familiar with the instrument in a playful way.
Then I told Alexander that today I would like to repeat the two practiced songs and try something new. I asked Alexander to choose with which song he would like to start. This is to give him some choice, which is also important according to Williams.
Alexander chose "Mieke heeft een lammetje." This went quite good, just the articulation was a bit lacking, so we repeated the phrase "mijn tante drinkt graag thee" to feel the right position of the tongue again.
I asked him to play the song with a bit more space between the notes. This had a good result.
Alexander knew a different version of "Mieke heeft een lammetje" than I did, one with a higher note in it. We adjusted this note on the paper, but this note was a bit tricky; sometimes it started to crack.
We did some quick exercises to improve this. I am not sure if I would have started with these exercises normally, but Alexander wanted to play the high note himself, so I went along with it.
Then we played the whole song from the beginning, paying attention to the newly practiced things.
After we played the song together with the piano. I played a simple accompaniment. The first time went really well, so we tried it with a different accompaniment, and it went quite well too.
With different accompaniments, I try to make Alexander familiar with the song while it sounds different each time and therefore is somewhat 'new'.
Gap in recording. (See explanation later)
After I played another new accompaniment and we did the song one more time.
After this, I wanted to try the new material, but Alexander wanted to play "Clair de Lune" first.
The pitches and rhythms were good, articulation could be better again. We buzzed briefly without the mouthpiece, aiming to separate the notes a bit more and make the attack more clear.
During this song, I noticed that Alexander played the low version the first time and the high one the second time.
The high version was more difficult. I asked Alexander if he could point out which note was the hardest and what made this note the most difficult. Alexander indicated that it felt like this note was too low. I gave tips to improve this note. It went better then. We also tried this with the piano, and it went well, I thought it was impressive.
Then I told Alexander that I had written something new, and that I hoped what I wrote down was clear. I let him look at it briefly and asked if it was clear what he had to do. I checked this by asking which finger he should start with, whether it was a long or short note, and how long it lasted. This was clear: do not press any fingers and a note lasting 4 counts. Then Alexander got to play it. I asked him to find out which note felt most comfortable for him to start with. It turned out to be C, but I did not tell him "this is a C". (The pitch did not matter for now either, as the piece was also written in relative notation. If he had started on a different pitch, it would have still worked; I would have had to play a different accompaniment, but I was prepared for that by having various sequences of chords ready on my piano.)
We played the piece together. The first time, I counted out loud and gave instructions like "we are going to the 1st finger now", "fingers off and blow twice", "now a long note". This all went very well, so afterwards I asked him to do it again, but without me giving instructions. This went really well too, so we also played with piano accompaniments.
The beginning went very well, but then we started over because Alexander forgot the rest, so it did not match the piano anymore. We started again and then it went really well!
As I mentioned earlier (in lesson 1), you can not draw real conclusions based on one test person. However, during this lesson, I noticed that there were a lot of moments of success. Many things went well, and that was nice to see. I think the lesson had a fairly fast pace; we did many different things in a short amount of time, but all of them were successful! I believe this lesson material can provide beginner horn players with a nice, solid start where they become familiar with the instrument. The follow-up material still needs to be developed. There is not enough time during this research to create a whole method, but I have confidence that this approach could work well. From here, I can move forward. The next step will likely be in collaboration with an experienced french horn composer. The idea is to provide digital recordings in various keys for this initial phase, as well as to provide a chord chart for teachers who want to accompany themselves, because I also believe that live playing together also adds value.