where do other french horn players place their hands in the bell.

your question is quite vague. Clear it up and maybe people will reply to it. We all place it inside the bell.

I play mine towards the top of the bell, where the back of the area between the tip of my fingers and my knuckles is touching the bell. It gives support, and it doesn't block your tone. It is also is to move your hand in or out to sharpen or flatten the tone. You can also stop the horn easier, I believe. It's not really towards the very top of the bell, it's actually all the way to the right of it.

Say if your horn bell was a clock. Your sitting at about 9 o'clock to it, because you're on its left. I put my hand around two o'clock.

I hope this helps.

- Joey

Same for me. It's easy to stop the horn from that position.

I'm lazy. I haven't been putting my hand in the bell lately - I've just been holding it at the rim. But usually I just cup my hand and place it about twenty centimetres in.

Grr. That is one of my biggest pet peeves about horn playing. It can really mess with pitch and tone quality. I get sick of constantly reminding my section to put their hand in the bell and my director, a trumpet player forgets about it all the time so the others think it doesn't matter.

Lol. My teacher occasionally chases me up on the hand-in-bell thing. I do try and remember when playing at concerts etc.

Most players find it more comfortable to place the hand (correctly) in the bell than to hold the rim. Any-one unsure of the position probably needs to look at a picture in a good horn book. Phillip Farkas' book has the line of the knuckles vertical and the horn resting on the first knuckle, the joint at the beginning of the thumb and the ends of the first finger and thumb (which are held together). The only downside of this (standard) position is that it tends to direct the sound towards your body. In loud windband passages it can be useful to rotate the hand anticlockwise to bounce the sound off the floor.

The intonation of a horn will be incorrect if the hand is positioned too far in or too far out. I find that moving the hand to correct tuning can be unreliable if your hand is sweating because it tends to stick. A better technique is to use more of a rotational motion to move just the palm.

I know this post is Quite really old - But, I feel Those who are reading some reply's Might get the wrong end of things!
The Position of your Hand in the Bell, Is Almost, One of the most critical things, for a good sounding Horn.
A tip for positioning:
Put your hand, Flat Just below the top back part of your head so its in a Position, where you can feel your head go in [ Its really hard to explain!] Then Keep your hand in the same position, And insert it into the bell, Your Nuckles Should be touching the side.
The reason Hand positioning is important, is you can block of the horn Sound With a Odd position!
Ok, Hope this helped you out a bit more!
x] Steph