so ds has just told us he wants to play french horn. help!

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Ds is nearly 8 and still has his baby teeth at the top. I have said that when his adult teeth come through he can have lessons in a brass or woodwind instrument of his choice. At the moment he plays violin and recorder and he is quite a musical kid.

For ages he'd been saying he wanted to take up the clarinet. Then he heard a fantastic horn solo at a concert and fell in love! I play clarinet myself so I know what's possible at what age and how hard it is. I know nothing about brass instruments and don't know if an 8 year old can pick up a horn - he'll be 8.5 when his teeth are through, or how hard it is or even the basics of horn embouchure.

Can anyone provide some advice on what's possible at this age or whether he should start on a different instrument?

8 is a fine age to take up brass. Different people find that their mouths suit different instruments though (difference in mouthpieces) so you may find that he prefers trombone to trumpet or french horn in terms of ease. (Although it tends to be that when you master one you can try your hand at any- especially with the valved instruments.)

If he reads music already he has a great head start. I would approach teacher and see if they have some instruments that he can try just to check his aptitude for it and then take it from there.

HI. Great choice!!!! Such a beautiful instrument and very rewarding to play.

So is ds going into year 4 in sept? I teach lots of year 4 dc french horn. At that age they usually start on a small size horn. The open/natural notes are pitched close together, so this makes it harder to control than other brass instruments.
I would strongly recommend insisting on a specialist french horn teacher from the outset, or a VERY experienced other brass teacher.

Re teeth - your call really. Give it a go and see how he feels.

Progress is usually slightly slower at the beginning, but as long as ds knows what to expect, then I don't find this a problem.

A common alternate instrument to start on is the Eb Tenor Horn, and then swap to french horn later on. This is an easy instrument to play from the beginning.

Happy music making!!

Thanks for the advice - two questions:do the smaller horns have different fingering and is it a hassle to change? Also, ds has absolute pitch - does this make the horn harder? I realise we'd have had that issue with clarinet too. We'll go for a specialist horn teacher as we are lucky to have a music centre nearby that has a french horn teacher - I know they have a few horn students.

I don't think ds will be bothered too much with initial slow progress as he started out on violin in year one and it took a while. He can read music well and I make him keep his theory going at the same level as his practical stuff so at least that's one hurdle out of the way

hmmm, the perfect pitch issue is interesting. It is so rare I've never had a pupil with it! I would imagine it would be very confusing!!!!! To have relative pitch is incredibly helpful, but perfect.....I honestly don't know. Give him a go and see what he thinks!!!!

Re small horns - not a problem. It is all the same, just smaller/lighter to hold.

Tenor horns and other brass instrument use different fingerings, but it never seems to be a problem adapting. Kids are amazing things!!!

One more thing re the perfect pitch - as he progresses on the horn, he will be transposing the music into many different keys at sight. (Let me know if you want me to explain that!)

My DS has relative pitch ... it's useful and doesn't cause the problems that perfect pitch sometimes can. Generally, a good sense of pitch just makes them a better musician, ie, they correct themselves instinctively.

Transposing into many different keys at sight? How does that work then???

ha ha!

It means you play a different note to what's on the music - depending on which transposition you are doing at the time. So if the music went C C D D G G C, you might play G G A A D D G for one transposition, or D D E E A A D for a different transposition. So if you had perfect pitch, you could be in a situation where you look at a C, play a D, but hear a G!!!!!

This is an essential skill that is generally starts to be used around grade 4/5 onwards.

It sounds complicated, but you get used to doing it and normally doesn't cause too many problems. As a horn player, you would be expected to use a number of different transpositions during a symphony, so as soon as playing in a traditional orchestra is introduced, some transposition needs to be ok.

Please don't let this put you off though! It's just part of playing the best instrument ever!!!! You get some great parts to play!

Let me know how he gets on re the pitching issue please, I'd be really interested to know.

Trumpet is much easier - you have to hear the note in your head to play the horn well - basically you press down one of 3 buttons and you can get lots and lots of notes - you need to know which is the right one. I found it much easier to hit the right note with a trumpet (as a horn player)!

Orchestras are boring for horns though, endless counting bars to play 2 notes! You need access to a good youth concert or brass band to enjoy playing as part of a group - imo!

hmmm, don't agree with the group playing comment I'm afraid feelthis.

Each instrument has it's own difficulties, and the music written for the instrument usually reflects this. So a horn plays far fewer notes than say the violin.

Yes but a concert band is so much more fun for brass - a lot less sitting there waiting to come in - you often even get a bit of the tune as you don't have any strings to pinch it!!

But orchestral horn parts can be gorgeous ... and I think horn players are usually cool and intelligent!

It's personal preference isn't it.
My favourite type of playing is classical chamber orchestral music.
But playing big modern orchestral repertoire I find fun too. Most youth orchestras include film or show music nowadays too. These generally have loads of horn bits in them!!
I have a colleague who plays Jazz horn which is not my thing at all, and quite unusual, but he loves it.
I like your description of horn players Moomin!! I think horn players have to be quite brave people and be prepared to take a risk!!! And intelligent of course!!!!

Thanks for all the advice. Ds likes orchestral stuff but he might want like concert band music - we'll have to see when he gets there.

I did try a not very scientific experiment with transposition: I gave him some music I knew he'd be able to sight read and asked him to play it one fifth below (on his violin so it was all one string down). He did it, and said it made his brain hurt but he could get used to it. He says that he doesn't hear C in his head when he sees C in music but when he hears C he thinks "C" so when he played the "wrong" notes to what he was reading it was just weird.

Good experiment crumpled. If you are confident enough you could try retuning his violin down a tone and then get him to play normally. That would be a closer experiment to playing a transposing instrument.

So I reckon he'd be ok. As was said up-thread somewhere, you do have to be able to kind of 'hear' the pitch of the note in your head, but this comes with practice and playing lots. He may well just associate one pitch with one instrument and a different pitch with another.

I am told DS2 (10.5) has perfect pitch, and he plays trombone, clarinet and piano. Several music teachers told me they thought he did, but the Master of the Music confirmed it to me last year when he became a Cathedral Chorister.

When I've been choir chaperoning I have sometimes seen DS being asked to give the note for the choir.

So far he has not had a problem so far with trombone or clarinet, although a brass teacher friend told me that it can be an issue.

He got Distinction at Grade 3 for trombone last year, after learning for less than a year (but it was his third instrument.

DS1 started on trumpet and got to Grade 5, but ultimately his embouchure was better suited to trombone and tuba, which he no plays). DS 2 also started on trumpet, it was quickly apparent it wasn't right for him and he switched to trombone and flew.

We love brass in our house, though I'm not sure about the neighbours.

Sorry meant to say he is now working towards Grade 5 on trombone, when I believe and still seems OK.

Trombone - if he reads bass clef and piano are 'at pitch', but interesting that he copes ok with the clarinet. This topic interests me.

Raspberry - does he ever mention anything about the pitch not sounding right when he plays the clarinet?

Let's hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as Flanders & Swann's French horn

Rusty - a classic - I never get bored of it

No, but I didn't realise until this thread that clarinet was also an issue. I'm not musical myself. I will listen to his comments more in future. Also, the clarinet has taken a back seat since he started Choir, he just plays in the school woodwind ensemble.

Its only recently I knew about the trombone potentially being an issue - and it wasn't his own teacher that mentioned it but a friend who overheard him naming a piano note and asked if he had perfect pitch and then told me it was sometimes a problem.

Is it possible that as he has started fairly young (7.5 for clarinet and 8.5 for trombone) and no-one has told him it is a problem that he just gets on with it and adjusts?

I didn't realise it was so unusual to have perfect pitch.

ds is 17 now having played horn from I think year 5 after a year of cornet.

he loves it.

two things to think about ( and I bet this US why he was swapped from cornet .....) it's very heavy when you are small (ds has always been tall and strong) and the other thing-start a horn fund, birthdays from generous relatives etc. we have a lot of instruments and the horn Iisthe most expensive- we made him get to grade 4 on the battered school one then got one thatshould him as far as he wants to go.

Raspberry - I reckon he just accepts it and gets on with it, as I guess the OP's ds will do.

Mini/small/junior/double wrap horns are good to start on. Much more suitable in size for the average year 4,5 sometimes year 6 to hold.

Trombone can be taught in bass clef (proper pitch) or treble clef (down a tone) so it depends on how he has been taught it.

My pupils usually end up spending between £1000 - £3000 by the time they are grade 8/off to university.

Yes I think you are right, so OP, don't over think it and let him play what he wants!

DS has been taught in bass clef.

And yes to funds for the 'good' instrument.

As it happens I'm right now going through this process for my daughter, who is quite accomplished on the piano and wants to take up horn. She's only seven though.

Opinions about starting age seem to vary a lot, from people who don't recommend it before about 10 to those who say it's no problem from very young. The front teeth thing does seem universally agreed though - and they should be not just through but properly settled and strong so problems aren't cause by the child pushing the instrument against them.

The horn is harder in some ways than other brass instruments, but your DC having already done the other stuff - particularly with the violin - will help a lot. Horn players need to have a keen sense of internal hearing, because each fingering positions generates more pitches, closer together, than on the trumpet or trombone, and the player has to distinguish clearly between them and control them with the embouchure.

There is a common belief that having absolute pitch makes it hard to transpose. I don't really subscribe to it, personally. I think transposing is just hard generally and people need to learn how to do it. Maybe some people with absolute pitch think they should be able to do it easily, and are surprised when they can't, I don't know. But the best musicians with absolute pitch I've known have had no problem moving from absolute to relative strategies and back again as needed.

DD started the horn at 9, but her teacher also began to teach a girl 2 years younger at the same time. This girl's older sister also played the horn which is how she knew about and was interested. Both started on a kinder horn, which is a perfectly decent scaled down instrument. DD is now just 16 and the other girl is 13 (14 in November) and both have just done grade 6. Other girl has a place at junior Academy. It can be done, you just need a kinder horn for him. DD kept hers until she was 14 (but she was quite small) before moving to a full-size double.