After my last post, Robin asked me “how did you happen to choose that instrument? I would have said it’s notorious for being a ratbag to play. Why did this particular challenge appeal to you?”

I’ve always enjoyed the sound of the french horn*, but I didn’t start out life as a horn player. Like most of my early musical decisions, this involved my older brother. He was one of my heros growing up**. Anything he did, I wanted to do too. When he decided he was going to learn how to play the trumpet in elementary school, I decided I would be just like him. So four years later, when it was my turn to pick an instrument and join the band, I joyously took my brother’s old trumpet (which was about as big as I was at the time) to the first day of band.

Fast forward another four years. It’s Christmas break, and my siblings and I are just dinking around and talking about random stuff. Out of the blue my brother says, “Midget, you should learn how to play the french horn. That would be cool.” So I went to my band director and asked for a horn. He gave me a horn and a fingering chart and sent me home to figure it out. It honestly never occurred to me that it might be a ratbag to play, or that it was considered a challenging instrument. My brother thought it was cool, so I did it. Simple as that.

And as lucky as that. After teaching myself how to play the horn, I auditioned for and made it into the top symphony orchestra at my high school, and discovered that I had a lot more natural talent as a horn player than a trumpet player.*** It was really fun to suddenly be good at something––I was an adequate trumpet player, nothing special, and while I probably could have worked hard enough to be better than I was, I never really put in the time. By the time that initial flush of talent had worn off and I realized that the horn could be really stupidly hard****, it had already sunk its fangs into me and had no intention of ever letting go.

And like most creative outlets, I have a love-hate relationship with playing my horn. Some days, when you’re limber and focused and everything lines up right, it can be a transcendent experience. But getting the most out of any instrument requires dedication and passion and precision, and there are some days when you’re gray and crumbly and feeling like soggy toast and it’s just one thing too much to play that stupid slur that always cracks one more time. But you keep at it, because it is worth doing even if it sucks sometimes. Music changes lives. Sometimes it’s the music itself, sometimes the making of the music, and sometimes it’s the people you meet along the way.***** But it is powerful and wonderful, even if you’re an amateur horn player who took a blind leap into it because her older brother thought it was cool.

And speaking of blind leaps….

The one thing I droolingly envy about woodwind players† is that when they want to shoot up into the stratosphere of their range, they just press a button. They have an octave key. You poke it and boom, you’ve hit the International Space Station. When I want to go dink around in my high range, I have to do it with my FACE. With an exquisitely controlled raspberry, for goodness sake (because that high up in the harmonic series fingerings are an ephemeral formality and the only reason you bother with them at all is because pressing down a particular button for a particular note helps you correlate what your face is supposed to be doing). I would kill for an octave key.

But no. I am stuck with my face and my raspberries and the lurking fear that every high note I play is going to squawk like a dying duck.

The one thing that helps with the squawking is commitment. It’s kind of like jumping off a cliff. If you hesitate at the last moment, you crash and burn and hit all the rocks on the way down. If you commit to the leap into space, you’re a lot more likely to survive. Or to hit the note you’re aiming for. The bad thing about this is that it’s a lot easier to do if you use lots of air, which pretty much translates to “play loudly”. If you have to come in quietly on a high note††….I’ll bring flowers to your funeral.

However. If that committed leap into space actually works, it’s pretty great. And when you get it really really right and nail that sucker to the wall, life feels pretty amazing.†††

*****

*This is the song that taught me to love the horn: Jupiter, the Bringer of Jolity from The Planets by Gustav Holst (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0b4STz1lo) It’s been my favorite song on earth since the fourth grade, and every time I get to hear it live it makes me cry.

**He is still super awesome, but the hero-worship has died down a bit since we’ve gotten older.

***This was due to personality, the physical conformation of my jaw and lips, and the simple fact that being a former-trumpet-turned-horn player gave me an amazing high range for a while. Since most of the posturing and jockeying for status trumpet players do revolves around how high and fast you can play, I felt like pretty hot stuff for an eeny weeny^ high school student.

^My friends used the top of my head as an arm rest every day while walking to lunch. I attribute my body type to my Danish fore-bearers–short and sturdy.

****I have caromed off of every problem any horn player is likely to have, including having bits of my horn FALL OFF right before a lesson. Send me the problem kids, ’cause I have spades of personal experience in fixing stuff.

*****Have I mentioned that I met my husband in marching band? Speaking of changing lives….

† or strings, or pianists or other percussionists or pretty much anything except vocalists, who suffer from similar problems

††During one band rehearsal we were sightreading a piece which required the first horn to come in on a high A very quietly and hold it for 4 or 5 slow measures. When the note was over, she put her horn down and yelled “Oh my GOSH!” with great feeling. The rest of the horn section felt like that was a very appropriate response. Also that the composer should probably be burnt at the stake^.

^I love John Williams. He writes great music. I also want to kill him on a fairly regular basis when playing the insanity he writes for the horn section (“Why yes, let’s have the low horns hit a high A at the end of a 10 minute piece! That’s a great idea!” Please go die.)

†††There was one concert in which we played a song (American Overture for Band, if anyone’s interested [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esh1gypV_8M]) that required the horns to do lots of high notes and octave jumps, and the entire horn section rocked that performance. I walked around in an euphoric haze for two solid days.