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Anyone who has seen the cartoon "Totoro" will like the clumsy and kind-hearted big totoro cat, whose appearance is always accompanied by a deep and thick music, which is a horn.
The horn, also known as the French horn, consists of three parts, the trumpet mouth, the trumpet body and the horn mouth.
The name of the horn first derives from its body shape. Its body looks like a coil of mosquito coils, and a copper tube is rolled up and stacked in layers, in the shape of a turbine, like a disc.
Another origin of the horn name is related to its timbre. Although the horn is made of copper, which is a brass instrument, it appears in the woodwind quintet of chamber music.
Among the quintet instruments, although the flute is bronze, the early ones are also wooden like the oboe, clarinet and tuba, except for the horn, which is copper.
Because the sound of the horn is round, soft and full, which matches the sound emitted by the woodwind instrument very well, and the sound of the woodwind instrument can be well integrated, it is arranged by the composer to play with the woodwind, and it becomes a woodwind quintet.
In the symphony orchestra, the horn because the sound is round, inclusive, can not only integrate the sharp sound of the trumpet, but also can well match the sound of the wood pipe group, so that the wood pipe group and the brass group two groups with a large difference in timbre, well integrated together, has the role of carrying on the upper and lower, so in the symphony band, occupies an important position.
In symphony orchestras, 4 horns are usually used. There are 6 or 8 large pieces.
The history of the horn is even older than the trumpet, and it has its origins in the "hunting horn" during the early hunting.
Hundreds of years ago, Switzerland had an Alpine horn for hunting and celebrations, it was very long, up to 4 meters long, and was later used for performances, but it was too long and carrying was a problem.
At the beginning of the 17th century, a "natural horn" appeared, which was bent in a circle with brass pipes, also as a hunting horn. It has no buttons and can blow simple pitches and scales.
Some people say that this circular horn is like taking an Alpine horn up to four meters long, pressing it down, and rolling it up again.
In fact, this is really the evolutionary history of the horn.
This natural horn has a single tonality, which was widely used in religious, royal, and military activities at that time, but to play music of different tonalities, it was necessary to replace the horn of different tonalities.
The emergence of the modern horn is due to the emergence of the valve of the Industrial Revolution. Pressing the horn on the valve, the pitch long tone, all become precisely controlled. Pitch, scale, and timbre can be expressed accurately.
The horn has four keys, one of which controls the tonality and the other is responsible for the pitch scale. The resulting airflow is blocked through a valve, producing a sound, while the valve controls the pitch and timbre of the sound. The brass pipe is very long, the horn is fed by the breath, and the air flow has to pass through a few meters long channel, so the horn is the most difficult to play of all brass instruments.
Moreover, the horn has a special method of playing, and it is this method that increases the difficulty of playing.
Those who have a heart will notice that in the band playing, the horn player has a very special movement, that is, he will often put his hand into the horn. Compared to other instruments, this is a special method of color playing the horn. The player's right hand into the horn is a kind of weak tone device, which can block the air flow, produce a blocked tone or occlusive tone, change the timbre and pitch of the horn, and express different emotions according to the needs of the work, making the horn more of a mournful mood.
Anyone familiar with symphonic instruments knows that in a symphony orchestra, different instruments can have different emotional expressions. The rounded and soft sound of the horn makes it possible to anthropomorphize expression and subtly simulate the behavior of humans and animals. In "Peter and the Wolf", the wolf is portrayed with three horns, please see the video above.
The horn is majestic and thick, can show a kind of heroism, the anime movie Romance of the Three Kingdoms began to song "Dawn of heroes", the song opened with a horn, creating a momentum of swallowing mountains and rivers, pointing out the background of the music, bringing people to the distant Three Kingdoms period more than 1,800 years ago, although the history is long, but the sound is lingering.
For example, in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (Fate), there are four heavier notes at the beginning, that is, the four tones that knock on the door of destiny, which are played by the horn.
The horn is also widely used in military bands, and its bright, high-pitched, brilliant and solemn characteristics are very suitable for the expression of majestic momentum.
Remarks: This article is a micro-visual text version of the Symphony Knowledge Series. 25 episodes.
Next "Seasonings for Symphony".
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