You take the mouthpiece out of the receptacle and invert it so that the small end is pointing at your lips and the large end is covering the end of the leadpipe (but not touching it). Then you close your lips over the small end of the mouthpiece and blow through it. You basically get the same effect as blowing through the instrument but with much more volume possibility. At soft dynamics it is pretty much the same effect (but with projection), but then you also can bring it up fortissimo.
Speaking about French horns, which is what I play, you could probably get a nice effect by blowing through the instrument normally, provided it is a very small room with an instrumentation like horn and harp. (Or if, as I wonder if Darcy does, the instruments have microphones.) In an orchestra, the sound will never carry past the stage (at least on French horns), unless you invert the mouthpiece. Our principal trumpet has been known to express opinions. What principal trumpet doesn't? But his point was extremely well taken. In an orchestral setting without microphones, simply blowing through the instruments does not project any sound off the stage. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
