My understanding is that a StroboConn is a type of Tuner. Maybe I was wrong?
We used a StroboConn extensively in our wind classes in college. Donald MacCourt (Bassoon of New York Wind Quintet, forever) had one and really believed in its use. Don always explained it was a tuner. With the premise that if someone takes on the Art of playing the horn, they understand the basic fundamentals of a "characteristic horn expression" then the focus should always be music and making music. With that premise, all this talk about tone/sound is very well and good, but making music and striving for expression is much more important. If one does not have these basic fundamentals at heart, then one could play any instrument and it would not matter, or play any music on the horn, with what ever tone they want, and it WOULD NOT BE HORN music. If I am not explaining that properly, its late and figure it out. Furthermore, one has to evolve their horn playing (and sound) through the proper pacing of learning repertoire. You are not ready to play Strauss 1 until you can grasp (sound, style, pacing) a bit of Mozart. Same goes for orchestral music. Developing the heroic horn ability (and sound) does not come from studying hard and practicing over and over again. If you try to fast track it, you are just performing a type of mental masturbation. On the Subject of sound..... I have heard a big name American orchestra play Gershwin. The horn section sounded like trombones, not horns. The music was not represented properly, and the performance suffered greatly. They might as well had been playing Trombone, because they did not care to blend with the winds or create the proper overtones to help color the strings. They sounded like they were tuning with a piano and they built chords like a computer. The trumpet may set the intonation of a orchestra, but the horns are the soul.... Matthew Scheffelman ____________________________________________________________________________________ Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
