>
> As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the better. Jumping from horn to horn
> and mouthpiece to mouthpiece can be extrememly difficult. Give her the
> benefit and advantage of the good mouthpiece now, and all the time. A poor
> horn/mouthpiece can stifle, if not completely turn a young musician off to
> the whole thing pretty quickly. School horns can be notoriously poor
> instruments, too.
>
Agreed. The quality of the horns are a bit, uh, lacking. Her mouthpiece is
the standard-fare type and when I try to play it, it is nearly impossible
for me to use. Even after 20 years, I can actually get some halfway decent
notes using mine, but not too many as it has that sick cow sound to it. :)
The Neil Sanders mouthpieces were cat's meow in their day--not everybody can
play a wide-rim, though. I see various companies with medium-wide rims
which look to be about the perfect size and shape. It is a very, very
comfortable mouthpiece to use. Kinda the difference between sitting on the
toilet with the seat up and the seat down.
> Most marching applications use mellophones, not French horns. Easier to
> hold and play while marching. Same basic registration etc.
>
My school never had them. Wish they did. It's a miserable life trying to
march with a French horn. For one thing, there is no place to really grab
hold of the horn with the right hand and no body parts to rest the bell on.
Left hand ends up doing everything. Besides, the sound goes backwards...
BTW, my record was 2:51. No tricks.
AG
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