I had a little discussion recently with a horn player about using Bb horn fingerings for certain parts of the the lower register. He had never heard of using Bb horn in the lower register. If you're just learning the double horn for the first time, and you don't have an instructor to introduce these preferred fingerings, you might find this youtube clip helpful:
It's a little confusing at first because he starts on the G one and a half octaves below middle C and works up chromatically. It goes by pretty quickly so I had to watch it several times to follow exactly what he was doing. He starts the low G on F horn with fingerings 13 then switches to Bb horn (with the trigger)from the C# through F, then switches back to F horn on F#.
The low register notes he plays on Bb horn are: Low C# is T23, D is T12, Eb is T1, E is T2, F is T0. [T means trigger.]
He stays on F horn through second space G, then switches to Bb horn G# and above to high C.
These are the basic begining fingerings I teach all my students. They are the fingerings taught to me when I studied Horn.
For my more advanced students I teach other alternate fingerings for the purpose of blending with the section leader. I also teach special Bb fingerings for some notes on stopped horn (it speaks so much better on the Bb Horn - but you have to use creative fingerings).
There is a well known Horn professor at a major University's School of Music who teaches an almost 100% Bb horn fingering system. We tease his students about wearing out their Bb side of their instrument and yet the F horn is still in new condition. (ha ha).
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