Extremely Brief History of Horn: Hunting Horn

Before starting talking about the horn quartet from my previous post, I would like to take you a bit to horn history first.

Horn probably was one of the very first musical instrument. It was originated form the animal horns. However, there is no evidence of when was horn being developed from animal horns to metal-made horn.

Many of you might wonder why bell of modern horn is facing backward. The reason is, around 15th or 16th century in Europe, horn was being used as a signal for hunting sport. This signal needed to be given to king or royal family backward. This was why horn bell is facing that way. Because of this reason also, horn that was used for this was called 'hunting horn'.

Here are some interesting YouTube videos of hunting horns

More information about horn history can be found from this following links.

1. Horn Planet by Thomas Bacon

2. hornhistory.com by Kayla Nelson

3. Wikipedia 

4. Train Horns Delivered

Welcome!

Hi All! 

Welcome to Horn Ensemble Around the World blog! It's quite exciting to actually start writing a blog for the first time! 

Well, as the name suggests, HEAW (or Horn Ensemble Around the World) will take you to different part of our (now not so) wide world and introduce you to different horn ensemble as well as related stories!

But first, let's be a little serious. 

I believe those of you who visit this blog must have known what horn is. Just to make sure that we have similar understanding. 

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are many definitions for horn. For music related alone, horn could be (those in italic are added by me!)
a :  an animal's horn used as a wind instrument
b :  a brass wind instrument: such as (1) : hunting horn (2) French Hornc :  a wind instrument used in a jazz band  (or even back up band for pop or rock band which usually refer as horn section); especially :  trumpet (and trombone)  d :  a usually electrical device that makes a noise like that of a horn
Of course, this blog will generally talk about the second choice which is French Horn!
Here is definition of Ensemble from Merriam-Webster dictionary. 
a group producing a single effect: such as
a :  concerted music of two or more partsb :  a complete costume of harmonizing or complementary clothing and accessoriesc (1) :  the musicians engaged in the performance of a musical ensemble (2) :  a group of supporting players, singers, or dancers; especially :  corps de ballet 

The first definition is the one that we will talk about with a goal to produce a single effect as a group.

In short, HEAW will mostly talk about ensemble of French Horn that consist of two or more parts!

And Yes! Playing Horn is fun! (as you can see below...)

(picture from https://www.pinterest.com/trikellymck/all-things-music-low-brass/)

Just kidding! It's actually fun! Listen to this and I will talk about them next time!

Lastly, I would like to thank Prof. John Manning and his Advanced Brass Ensemble Literature class for having all of us doing this. I would not have started this if it is not for a class but it is actually quite fun! Let's see how far I can keep it up. 😉 

There are some cool blogs from my fellow classmate which will be slowly added. Please do pay them a visit and say hi!

Till next blog!