Review

Fergus McWilliam
Blow Your Own Horn! Horn Heresies:

Cheektowaga, NY, United States
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Date of Publication: 2013

Paperback. 159 pages.

Primary Genre: Study Material - book

This book is about how music is made on brass instruments. While the author is a horn player, this book is useful, informative and inspirational for any brass player. It also takes an in-depth look at brass pedagogy today. Much teaching today remains mired in the 19th century. It was not until Arnold Jacobs began to drag it into the 20th that progress began to be made. That process is not yet complete and McWilliam’s excellent book moves this work forward. 

Calling on his long experience as a teacher and performer (Berlin Philharmonic) he examines the student-teacher relationship. The teacher should be a resource to facilitate learning and, hopefully, an inspiration, not a “guru” or cult leader. Independence is to be encouraged throughout. Often misconceptions or non-productive activities have been presented as “received wisdom.” Progress is thus stymied. The student’s goal should be to play beautifully, not “correctly.” Technique is most effectively acquired through musical inspiration, not the other way around. 

On a practical level, there are excellent chapters on breathing and embouchure and the relationship between the two. Embouchure is often blamed for every defect in execution because of the extreme sensitivity of the mouth. The most perfect appearing embouchure is useless without air in motion to make it vibrate. McWilliam forbids the use of the mirror. One cannot hear with the eyes. He uses the term “Horn-deaf” to describe the plight of the student whose embouchure is perfect, hand position perfect, posture perfect, who is so distracted by “correctness” that he cannot hear the music coming out of the bell. Another subject dealt with non-traditionally is warm-up. Lengthy, rigidly structured warm up routines, devoid of any musical content or interest, are considered useless. The musical imagination and awareness are what need to be awakened. This cannot be done through mindless long tones performed while thinking of something (anything!) else. The chapter on auditions in both Europe and America is quite useful, as is an excellent consideration of performance anxiety and its causes. Throughout the book McWilliam returns to the idea that music itself must be the motivation in the search for perfect technique. His approach to both playing and teaching is described perfectly in the subtitle of the book: ...an anti-horn method horn method.   

-Richard Erb
Louisiana Philharmonic (ret.)/ National Youth Orchestra Canada Faculty (ret.)