A Singing Approach to Horn Playing: Pitch, Rhythm, and Harmony Training for Horn

In A Singing Approach to Horn Playing, author and renowned teacher-musician Natalie Douglass Grana develops the fundamental sense of pitch that is essential to play the horn. The book begins with simple songs to sing on solfège, buzz on the mouthpiece, and play on the horn, followed by inner hearing, transposition, and polyphonic exercises. Readers learn to fluidly hear the notes on the page before playing them, through sequential exercises with songs, improvisation, stick notation, and duets. Training continues with progressively challenging melodies, including canons as well as vocal etudes (solfeggi) like those of Giuseppe Concone. Finally, hornists apply their musicianship skills to standard etude, solo, and orchestral horn repertoire. Horn parts are provided with important lines from the orchestra or accompaniment, transposed to also be sung and played on the horn. Accompanying rhythmic and harmonic exercises enable performers to learn to hear the parts together as they play. Through a wide-ranging synthesis of theory, practical advice, and exercises, Douglass Grana puts forth a crucial guide for a new generation of horn players and burgeoning musicians seeking to improve and perfect their sense of pitch.

Table of Contents:
Reviews Acknowledgements Introduction Song and Exercises by Tone Set Canons, Solfeggi, and Horn Literature Advanced Horn Literature Further Study Song Sources

About the Author :
Natalie Douglass Grana is a hornist and educator based in Chicago, IL. Her integrative approach to teaching horn through singing and inner hearing has garnered international recognition, and she has worked with hundreds of students to develop fluency as hornists and complete musicians. Dr. Grana is currently on faculty at Lake Forest College and DePaul University in Chicago, and holds a D.M.A. in Horn Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and an M.M. in Horn Performance and B.M.E. in Instrumental Music Education from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Review :
This beautifully formulated book, specifically designed with the horn player in mind, is a training manual for fine-tuning your inner ear, tightening your rhythm, and improving your pitching skills—all elements in which every horn player should excel. Through a series of specially developed exercises using solfège, singing, harmony, and pulse, Dr. Douglass Grana gives you all the materials you'll need to develop the skills absolutely fundamental to any aspiring musician. With the incorporation of many examples taken from the standard horn repertoire, this book should be on the shelf of every horn studio. This book is incredible! I have opera singers for parents and wife, so I've benefitted from a LOT of vocal influences in my life. This book bridges the gap between brass playing and singing in simple, compelling, and wonderfully incremental ways. Dr. Douglass Grana has used the Concone vocal exercises and more to open us brass players up to our deeply creative and wildly freeing connection to singing. Quite simply: In my experience I have never heard a single successful hornist who could not also sing in time and in tune. Singing is a fundamental building block, indeed the necessary DNA, not only for the healthy development of the ear but also for technique, and most importantly for the growth of essential musical language ability. As such Dr. Douglass Grana's very welcome book goes a long way to fill what has long been a gaping hole in much horn pedagogy. Indeed, the positive ramifications of her work will surely resonate with students and teachers of all instruments. Highly recommended.