Google Book Search - How to get there (besides the link given here): Google>More>Books>Advanced Book Search. Put in "French horn" (or just "horn") and click "Full View Only." Then marvel at all the article from years and ages past (scanned articles going back to the early 1800s) that you can either read online or download as pdf files or plain text. What an age we live in!
Ricardo Matosinhos has crafted an online survey that lists type of player (professional/amateur/teacher), type of horn, mouthpiece model for a random and limited but interesting comparison of what players are using these days.
Library of Congress Horn & Brass Literature Call Numbers
This listing tells you where what LOC numbers have what category of music for horns; for example M255-259 is horn and piano; M557 is brass quintets. Go to the stacks of the music library and use these numbers to locate categories and enjoy some musical serendipity in discovering new literature.
Guide to Horn Ensemble Repertoire by Rebecca Boehm Shaffer
Horn Planet
Tom Bacon’s mega-multi-site: Welcome Center, HornPage, St Louis Brass, Opus 90, Hornplanet Store and more. The HornPage contains The CyberHorn Museum, Horn Trivia, The Study Guide, Music, Links, even some tasty-looking recipes!
Hornplayer.net
Robin Moffatt’s extensive site: free horn classifieds, information archive, section listings, teacher database, links.
Dr. John Q. Ericson’s Articles Online
Over 60 articles about the horn, its history, technique, etc. A great resource.
Articles and Dissertations on the Horn - lists by Ricardo Matosinhos
Julia Rose’s Horn page
A gem. Julia Rose (who hails originally from Cedar Rapids!) is the Associate Principal of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. She has assembled a fine web site full of information that is not necessarily duplicated elsewhere, including: an extensive FAQ (information on horn study, equipment, performing, technique, intonation, etc.), notes from various masterclasses she has taken, audition lists (a collection of over 90, plus current US horn auditions), contest lists, horn web site links (manufacturers, mouthpieces & mutes, brass retailers & repair, sheet music, horn cases, articles), and repertoire lists.
The French Horn
Ameerah Morsy has put together a smorgasbord of horn stuff: horn history, guide to horn playing, horn jokes, scales, fingering chart, links, horn graphics.
Horn - Wikibooks - "From Wikibooks, the open-content textsbooks collection". A Wiki project that anyone can edit or add to; this one is pretty new and could use a lot of help and development. General sections of this entry include Introduction, General Information, Playing technique, and Repertoire.
Windsong Press Ltd
Windsong is one of the new breed of micropublishers, having started by publishing Brian Frederisksen’s bio of Arnold Jacobs (Song and Wind). Although Arnold Jacobs was ot a horn player, his teachings have had a lasting influence on all brass players. Available on the site are brief streaming videos of Arnolds Jacobs talking about breathing and the use of breathing devices. Windsong offers for sale a list of books for the brass player, including Farkas’s bio his photographic study of horn embouchures, and his books on the Art of Brass Playing and The Art of Musicianship. Also for sale: breathing devices, CDs, music, mouthpieces (clear plastic for viewing embouchures and/or playing outdoors in cold weather), visualizers, brass teaching texts, and more. Outstanding set of links (dealers, publishers, sheet music, musician’s health, music education, and much more). Last but not least, a valuable feature of this site the many (short) bios of brass players (limited however to famous members of the various brass societies).
Guide to Buying Your First French Horn - link to a discussion on an Australian music store web site of single vs double, compensating horns, wraps, bell flare, bell material, accessories.
Converting a Fixed Bell to a Detachable Bell - Osmun.com article on screw bell conversion - why, how, where, what kind, how much.
Horn-u-copia - Interesting site that aims to amass information about out-of-production brass instruments of all types, such as model names, serial numbers, historical characteristics. Contains a wealth of information and some marvelous photos, such as this one of an Alexander 5 valve horn:
Open forum format brings in a
great deal of valuable commentary by experts. Example:
article by musicologist Edmund Bowles
on "The Impact of Technology on Musical Instruments."
Good set of links, table of trade names, serial number
list, instrument reviews, mouthpieces, workshop
discussions, and huge catalog of horn makes and models
with photos, such as:
How to Hold the Horn
- Chapter 14 from Richard
Merewether's book "The Horn, The Horn"
About the Horn - article by none other than Dennis
Brain!
The Impact of Technology on Musical
Instruments - article by Edmund Bowles. See the
section on "The Venerable Valve"
Digital Online Mozart
Editions
"The purpose of this web
site operated by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum
in cooperation with the Packard Humanities Institute is
to make Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's musical compositions
widely and conveniently accessible to the public, for
personal study and for educational and classroom use.
Wholesale downloading or reuse of the contents of this
website is prohibited under all circumstances, whether
commercial or otherwise. The digitized version offers
the musical text and the critical commentaries of the
entire Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, edited by the Internationale
Stiftung Mozart in cooperation with the Mozart cities of
Augsburg, Salzburg, and Vienna. The printed edition has
been published by Bärenreiter-Verlag (www.mozart-portal.de
and
www.baerenreiter.com).
Some restrictions apply to the reproduction of images of
source materials, particularly in the supplement to the
edition." An ABC News article on this online Mozart catalog
is available here.
The GPO French Horn Tutorial
- by Terry
Dwyer. GPO refers to the "Garritan Orchestral
Libraries." Garritan is a company that offers high
quality samples of instruments for use in computer music
sequencers or to use with notation programs like Finale.
This article from the Garritan web site is a tutorial on
the instrument for composers. Although basic in some
ways, it offers a useful different way of looking at the
instrument and its sound and music from the "outside."
The short recorded example (from Semiramide) gives
comforting evidence that Garritan is a long way from
capturing the sound of the horn as a sample, and that
horns will certainly be one of the last instruments (if
ever) to be successfully replaced in electronic
renditions.
Understanding Your French Horn
- online article by
Catherine Schmidt-Jones "For eighth grade and up, a
series of lessons that can be offered by an instructor
or done as a self-study course, to teach French horn
players more about their instrument." Includes sections
on musical acoustics, orchestral instruments,
transposition, history, repertoire, and information for
composers.
Works with Horn by Female Composers
Lin Foulk, horn professor at Western Michigan University, has compiled "a resource for performers, teachers, scholars and others who are interested in works with horn by female composers." Over 1,000 works are listed in the catalog. Don't miss Lin's CD "Four Elements" with works for horn and piano by female composers.
Brass Reference Pages
Extensive collection of URLs of sites with information on brass instruments, players, playing, associations and groups, manufacturers, and more.
Brass Resources
Bare bones design, but a fascinating and vast assemblage of all manner of websites for all brass, including some hard-to-find sites such as “Photographic Case Studies of Instrument Repairs,” “Wilhelm Furtwängler’s Essay on Brahms” and “How to Build Brass Instruments” [a tour in photos]. He also includes sections on ‘Classical Resources’ and ‘Jazz Resources.’ One caveat: there are a lot of dead links in the huge list; I suspect that he has not updated in quite some time (the copyright is 2001). Still, the counter reports 1,921,386 visitors since December 9, 1999. He should charge a penny a visit and retire. Maybe he has…
Horn Player's Where to Find?
Wonderful, content rich site with History of the Horn, Care & Maintenance, Chamber Music, Methods, Solos, Players, Related Articles, Studios in America, How Horns are Made, Jobs, Links, Midi Files, Mind, Body and Horn, Technique. Needs updating; lots of dead links.
Piano Accompaniments.com
Limited selection for horn, but good idea: mp3 or CD piano accompaniments of solo pieces for horn by Beethoven, Mozart, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Strauss.
Corales Horn Ensemble
A beautifully done site by Thomas ‘Thü’ Hürlimann, who documents how he recorded himself (overdubs) as a quartet with a computer (Mac) and software (Garageband). Hürlimann is by profession a graphic artist and offers (for sale) a number of stock images (photos and graphics) of horns. Hürlimann also has a fascinating set of links, including one to his own Horn Beauty Contest, where, as a professional graphic designer, he discusses the factors that make a horn most esthetically pleasing and then picks the winners of this contest. He also includes a useful link to Horn Music on CD available from Amazon.
Hornmidi
Sharon Zurflieh’s site is a compendium of MIDI accompaniment files of (mostly) famous horn solos, contributed by various people. There is no explanation of how to use them, so you need to learn about how to use MIDI files elsewhere first.
Brass Players in Film Music
Ever wonder who is playing that fantastic horn solo in some movie soundtrack? This site may help you find out.
French Horn Resource Page
Another multi-site, offering: horn mart (instruments, books, music, CDs, accessories, horns on Ebay(!), apparel & gifts), French Horn Information Centre (history, fingering, repertoire, tuning, etc), links, horn teacher’s directory (Asia & Australia).
Hornarama - This Australian site offers sheet music, CDs, accessories, horn news, auditions, horns for sale, concerts & events, and links.
Naturally Horns – Website of Andrew Clark
Natural horn specialist Andrew Clark offers information on the natural horn, “Horn Myths”, a “Horn Quiz”, some audio clips of Baroque and classical horn playing, and an excellent set of links that include English orchestras and concert halls, record companies, horn makers, sheet music, mouthpieces, and more.
Brass Instrument - Wikipedia article.
Natural Horn Businesses - Links on natural horn makers, etc., courtesy of Early Music Chicago.
Horns in Haydn Symphonies
A listing of how many horns in what key in all of F.J. Haydn's symphonies.
A New Horn Concerto: From Concept to Recording: Part 1 - Jonathan Boen commissions Jan Bach to write a concerto for horn.
A New Horn Concerto: From Concept to Recording: Part 2
Horn Swicki - A swicki is a combination search engine and Wikidpedia. The community may add, delete, and improve the results.
Wagner Tuba - a wonderful comprehensive site devoted to that unusual instrument. Includes Bill Melton's superb history of the Wagner Tuba.
Guide to the Orchestra: the French Horn (intro)
Hans Pizka
Worth a look.