Music Composition DUMmIES

To hear Write

CD

C#/D% D#/E%

DE

D#/E% F

EF#/G%

FG

F#/G% G#/A%

GA

G#/A% A#/B%

AB

A#/B% C

BC#/D%

French horn.........................................................................................

French horns are just plain beautiful to look at, and just about everyone who

writes for a horn section in a composition wants to use a French horn at

sometime or another, probably because the visual idea of throwing one of

those pretty instruments — which has more twists and turns than a bucket

of brass spaghetti — into live arrangement is too tempting to resist.

Another nice thing about the French horn is, thanks to all those twists and

turns in the piping, its ability to smoothly play music through over three

octaves, whereas most brass instruments have not much more than a two-

octave range.

However, although it’s possible to play lots more notes on the French horn

than on other horns, it’s not an instrument built for speed. When writing

music for the French horn, try not to use a lot of fancy ornamentation or

quick parts for the player.

&

w

flugelhorn

concert range

wb

Most effective range

Practical range

w w

w

w very high

Figure 14-6:

The

flugelhorn

range,

transposed

to concert

pitch.

172 Part IV: Orchestration and Arrangement