Reply To: Starting on horn in 4th grade–yea or nay?

[nafmeadmin]

I had a few beginners play french horn years ago with no success. I am a flute player, and while I did well on the french horn in my undergrad training, it was not enough for me to teach others. Even my trumpet playing co-worker had little success. It would have been a different story if the kid had been a trumpet player I think. If you can find a real french horn player, or are a very competent player yourself, you might give it a try on one student to start. Also, be aware that there are different kinds of horns that look very similar. One student could only get the desired pitch by fingering a different way, and then I found out that there is a second way of fingering the french horn? Perhaps a horn player can explain this. At that point, we were done.