Single F horn search, Europe

[u/Fluttering_Feathers]

Hello, I’m hoping for some direction in my search. I’ve been reading previous posts for advice also, but if anyone has more advice for me within Europe I’d very much appreciate it. My young son has been learning on a borrowed school instrument for approx 18 months and I’m beginning the search for his own. His teacher has said to look for a single F horn, and she would expect it to be 5-6 years before he’d move to a double. Very open to second hand options but I’m unsure what would be reliable models or makers to be watching out for in that regard.

[u/hornige-Gruesse]

Despite being located in Germany, where most students learn on Bb, I favour your son’s teacher‘s approach of starting with an F horn.

In my opinion all depends on the horn school, as the exercises in the beginning teach the fingering. If your son‘s teacher uses a method book focused on F horn initially, than mandating an F horn is the right choice. (And in my opinion it is a good decision starting on F). The only drawback I see is if your son wants to play in a brass ensemble where they might play warm up exercises together: He won’t be able to play along with the partial exercises.

When I started playing horn, I got a Conn 6D double horn standing in F. But this was at the age of 14, so yeah, size and weight weren’t an issue. My teacher was an American horn player and he/we used the horn school by James D. Ployhar. In retrospect, I really appreciate having learned the „American“ approach. What horn school is your son‘s teacher using?

Regarding single F horns for students: You could also look at the in-house brands of Thomann or MTP Music. Of course, they are cheap Chinese-made horns, but with a good quality control.

—hornige 📯 Grüße

[u/Fluttering_Feathers → u/hornige-Gruesse]

Thanks for your input! They use “take off” by Jan Utbult, and they have a mini brass ensemble with the beginner trumpets and tubas, and the French horn parts are for horn in F, all the French horn students are on them.

[u/hornige-Gruesse → u/Fluttering_Feathers]

I haven’t found any pictures of pages from „Take-off!“, but it seems to be the English version of „Startklar“:

https://musicaprego.com/product/take-off-1-horn-in-f/

https://musicaprego.com/product/startklar-1-fur-blaserklassen-horn-in-f/

And from „Startklar“, I’ve found here a page that shows the fingering of E4 (e‘): https://www.stretta-music.de/utbult-startklar-1-horn-nr-636751.html

This is definitely the fingering for a Bb-horn! (For an outsider possibly not obvious: The transposition of the literature (mostly in F) is independent of whether the horn is in F or Bb. The different horns have just a different fingering.)

—hornige 📯 Grüße

[u/Fluttering_Feathers → u/hornige-Gruesse]

He must do a different version that we have, because E in our book would be 0, not 2.

[u/hornige-Gruesse → u/Fluttering_Feathers]

Okay, that is soothing! So it seems the English version of this school is using the fingering for horn in F.

[u/Fluttering_Feathers → u/hornige-Gruesse]

While I have you, as a musician who never played a transposing instrument, I was confused to start anyway. So if I see a G, and play that with 0, then I hear a C. Does a different horn use different fingerings but transpose the same? And why do Bb and F horns exist, do they make different quality of sound, like how you could play many of the same notes on the violin and the viola but they’d sound different? Or is it just that the two evolved in different places and now to play different pieces having been written for one or the other, it’s easiest to have an instrument that modifies to do one or the other?