The Horn

The Horn is part of the class of wind instruments that has a conical opening. The horn usually derives from animal horns or tusks. Horns are sounded by the vibration of the player's lips against a mouthpiece. Animal horns that produce one or two notes when the player blows through a hole are found in many cultures, all over the world. Such horns include medieval hunting horns, royal African ivory horns, the Roman cornu, and the Jewish shofar. Other instruments of animal-horn ancestry include the alphorn, bugle, cornet, and Renaissance cornett, a wooden horn with finger holes.

The French horn was developed in 1650 in France and is a larger version of the smaller horns that had been redesigned with circularly coiled tubing. The French Horn produces about twelve tones of the natural harmonic series. The horn gained greater flexibility in 1750 with the invention of the technique of hand-stopping. Hand-stopping involves placing a hand in the bell of the horn to alter the pitch of the natural notes by as much as a whole tone. The invention of valves in the early 19th century revolutionized the horn, allowing the player to change the length of the tubing by the simple motion of a finger. A horn in the key of F with three valves can produce a chromatic scale over three octaves, running upward from the B below the bass clef.

The modern horn in F has three valves, circular coils of narrow tubing flaring at one end to a wide bell, and a funnel-shaped mouth piece. The double horn in F and B-flat is superseding the F horn. Equipped with an extra valve to switch to the B-flat tubing, it offers certain technical advantages. Most modern orchestras include four horns. The so-called English horn is actually a deep-toned oboe.

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