A couple of weeks ago I discovered a piccolo French horn--no joke! It's so small. I'm not sure it's very good quality, but it's so weird! It's not too extraneously expensive, so if I ever have $800 dollars to spare, I may just buy myself one just so that I can experiment with it and give it a shot.
I don't play horn, but my sis does... so when I saw the forum about the piccolo french horn I just had to see what it was about. These french horns are SO SO SO CUTE!!!
i really want one, but the only issue is that if the case breaks, where will you get another. After viewing them on ebay, the case is like a nylon lunchbag, and looks a little weak and flimsy. I would love to have one for x-mas, but I don't know if my mom would approve, considering I,ve never held a regular french horn, forget played one (As you can see, I play tenorsaxophone, and am quite skilled, but I want an instrument that I can just keep at home and have a blast on, considering I am aiming to be a ethnomusicologist.
i saw this instrument and was like wow i have to have it! but i have only been able to find them through the guy that sells them on ebay...does anyone know of another place online where i can buy one that isnt sold by him?
Ran across one of these on YouTube, actually. Seemed somewhat appealing... something to take out on the streets and loudly blast Siegfried at people without worrying about fumbling notes. ^^
The piccolo french horn is a B-flat cornet. It is not a very fine instrument but it is cute. I plan to use it in woodwind quintet performances as sort of a gag item. Please don't spend $800+ on it - - - you'd be very disappointed (and rightfully so).
I've been told that these piccolo horns are nothing but glorified flugal horns. It is formed to look like a mini French horn, but is really in the trumpet/cornet/flugal horn family. The mouthpiece can be a horn type mouthpiece as is a flugal horn mouthpiece. Some of these are deeper cup trumpet mouthpieces that mimic a horn mouthpiece (maybe a cross between an alto horn mouthpiece and a true horn mouthpiece cup). The are likely made by Berkelely Wind Instruments out of China. The Chinese guy who owns Berkeley has made some decent horns, but they are scarcely available. Same thing with Eastman out of China.
The guy in the you-tube video does a great job playing it w/ horn styling, though. Horn players would have difficulty playing it that well because we'd have to learn a new technique.
Well, the intonation on shorter brass instruments is often questionable and takes a lot of work to pull off. Also, although people would think it is easier to hit the higher notes, it is not the case and you lose the ability to play lower notes. Although the shorter instrument places teh partials farther apart so it is easier to "hit" the correct note (meaning less chance to hit the neighboring note) you still have to play the same note with your lips that you do on the longer instruments. Not many people play above high c on any horn. very few are able to go up into the next octave much less at a playable quality.
<Not many people play above high c on any horn.> This is true, but a lot of Balanced Embouchure trumperters hit double high C's in jazz playing. I know a professional horn player who also studies Balanced Embouchure because he wants to get up to high C just "for fun." I personally can't imagine playing that high on the horn, but there's a few guys who do it on you-tube. It's not beautiful, but heck, it's THERE! Amazing. Here's a link to one guy w/ a phenomenol range. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XRkCfsiKlY Valerie
searching...
i wonder why not everyone loves piccolo so much...is it because the crazy high notes?