French Horn Church
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Mark Swofford stumbled upon this church in Taipei:
The Chinese part of the sign reads:
fàguó hào língliáng táng
法國號靈糧堂
"French Horn Hall of Spiritual Food"
This may be a branch of Táiběi língliáng táng 台北靈糧堂, which calls itself "Bread of Life Christian Church in Taipei" and has a history that goes back to 1948-1958 in Shanghai. Another translation of "língliáng 靈糧" is "manna".
The next time I'm in Taipei I will go visit this church because the French horn has special meaning for me. I played it from the time I was in high school, including professionally in the Canton Orchestra and various bands. I even trekked it up into the mountains of Nepal where I was a Peace Corps volunteer for two years and people from valleys far away could hear me playing it.
The French horn is notorious for being the most difficult instrument to play since it is prone to burble (I think that's because of the tight, twisted acoustics of all that tubing), but I love the rich, smooth sound it produces when you control your embouchure perfectly. That takes a lot of practice, but when I was good at it, I could play melodies with my lips alone. I am grateful to my high school band director, Donald M. Kennedy, for guiding me to the French horn and helping get one of my own when I was a freshman.
By the way, you're no longer supposed to call the brass instrument under discussion a "French horn". It's supposed to be just a "horn". I don't know who decided that and why, but it's now the politically correct thing to do. It doesn't make sense to me, because there are so many other kinds of horns out there. Much as I am partial to it, why should this one alone be the horn? I still call it a French horn, but if someone made a good case (historical, musicological, or otherwise) for calling it a "German horn", I'd be open to such a proposal.
Selected readings
- "Les Baguettes à Pékin" (7/2/12)
- "Names and Systems of Naming" (4/18/08)
Guy Plunkett said,
September 13, 2024 @ 9:25 pm
I beg to differ — based on comments when I (a cornet player) was in high school band, the oboe was "the most difficult instrument to play."
Gregory Kusnick said,
September 13, 2024 @ 11:34 pm
Fans of Iain M. Banks know that the most difficult instrument is the Antagonistic Undecagonstring.
Chris Partridge said,
September 14, 2024 @ 1:51 am
As Flanders and Swann said : "not to be confused with the cor Anglais"
John Swindle said,
September 14, 2024 @ 2:02 am
I wonder what the Biblical significance of the French horn is. The Bread of Life Christian Church website does list both that one in Taipei and a "南崁法國號靈糧堂 Nankan Frenchhorn Bread Of Life Christian Church" in Taoyuan among its many branches. https://www.bol.org.tw/site/all_church?t=T
AntC said,
September 14, 2024 @ 6:09 am
I wonder what the Biblical significance of the French horn is.
I'd suspect some mix-up with 'cornucopia'.
I beg to differ …
Now I'm getting suspicious there was a school music-teacher conspiracy: I, too, was told I was studying the most difficult instrument – violin, by my violin teacher. And piano, by the piano teacher. Clearly the reason for the alleged difficulty is specious: it's to make the student feel superior and stick to their practice.
Victor Mair said,
September 14, 2024 @ 6:21 am
cor anglais, or English horn
Are we also supposed to call it just "horn" too?
BTW, being a double reed woodwind instrument, the cor anglais / English horn doesn't even seem like a "horn" to me.
Victor Mair said,
September 14, 2024 @ 6:49 am
The o.p. talks about how easy it is to burble the French horn, and I've heard other musicians who are not French hornists mockingly make fun of French hornists for having the highest rate of alcoholism among instrumentalists. Purely apocryphal, of course; no empirical evidence. But I have heard it said of French hornists, sometimes commiseratingly.
Julian said,
September 14, 2024 @ 7:13 am
Brass instruments: easy to make a noise, quite hard to make the noise you want at the time you want it.
AntC said,
September 14, 2024 @ 7:31 am
… reed woodwind instrument, the cor anglais / English horn doesn't even seem like a "horn" to me.
Jazz/Rock/Blues terminology embraces all sorts in the 'Horn section'. Saxophone is also a Reed instrument. I think the defining characteristic is the bell/flare.
Victor Mair said,
September 14, 2024 @ 9:20 am
Wikipedia on the name of the instrument under discussion:
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The name "French horn" first came into use in the late 17th century. At that time, French makers were preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns and were credited with creating the now-familiar, circular "hoop" shape of the instrument. As a result, these instruments were often called, even in English, by their French names: trompe de chasse or cor de chasse (the clear modern distinction between trompes [trumpets] and cors [horns] did not exist at that time).
German makers first devised crooks to make such horns playable in different keys—so musicians came to use "French" and "German" to distinguish the simple hunting horn from the newer horn with crooks, which in England was also called the Italian name corno cromatico (chromatic horn).
More recently, "French horn" is often used colloquially, though the adjective has normally been avoided when referring to the European orchestral horn, ever since the German horn began replacing the French-style instrument in British orchestras around 1930. The International Horn Society has recommended since 1971 that the instrument be simply called the horn.
There is also a more specific use of "French horn" to describe a particular horn type, differentiated from the German horn and Vienna horn. In this sense, "French horn" refers to a narrow-bore instrument (10.8–11.0 mm [0.43–0.43 in]) with three Périnet (piston) valves. It retains the narrow bell-throat and mouthpipe crooks of the orchestral hand horn of the late 18th century, and most often has an "ascending" third valve. This is a whole-tone valve arranged so that with the valve in the "up" position the valve loop is engaged, but when the valve is pressed the loop is cut out, raising the pitch by a whole tone.
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The Wikipedia quotation comes by way of Don Kennedy, son of my high school band director.
From Alice Kennedy Mendelsohn, graduate of Curtis Institute of Music, professional orchestral French / German / Italian hornist her whole life, and daughter of my high school band director:
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I was told many years ago that the French were the first to move the horn from outdoors and hunting to indoor concerts. However it happened, music has benefited gloriously. Vive le Cor!
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VHM: I think that henceforth privately I will call it a "German horn". Historically and physically "French horn" is a misnomer. And I don't want to call it just a "horn" because that opens it up to confusion with the "English horn" and all the other horns / "horns" out there.
J.W. Brewer said,
September 14, 2024 @ 12:37 pm
See also "French harp" as a synonym/euphemism for harmonica.
Barbara Phillips Long said,
September 14, 2024 @ 5:44 pm
@John Swindle and AntC —
There's this description of the uses of the shofar, referred to in Jewish and Christian biblical texts (which includes the phrase "horn of plenty," which is not discussed in the actual article):
https://www.thejc.com/judaism/the-shofar-the-horn-of-plenty-fn6e691s
Cornucopias are indeed confused with horns that make sounds, and AntC's suspicions are correct. I've seen songs and texts over the years that mentioned sounding or blowing the "horn of plenty." These days, a cornucopia is most often pictured as a horn-shaped basket with produce spilling out of it, but older images of the cornucopia depicted an actual horn with various foods. I guess there are reasons misunderstanding "horn of plenty," but the mix-ups never fail to annoy me.
Jonathan Smith said,
September 14, 2024 @ 8:20 pm
FWIW the origins section of the church's website explains that they inherited their original premises from a "Frenchhorn Music PUB" thus the name.
John Swindle said,
September 15, 2024 @ 2:17 am
Jonathan Smith, AntC, Barbara Phillips Long: Thanks! Mystery solved. And the PUB (by which they do mean pub) had itself been a Christian missionary effort, leaving open the possibility that they had indeed conflated the cornucopia with the French horn.
Humans may be the only mammals that toot their own horns.
Aardvark Cheeselog said,
September 17, 2024 @ 10:34 am
I will concur that the title "most difficult wind instrument to get a musical tone from" would go to some double-reed, probably the oboe. But horn definitely tops the list among the brass.
FWIW I have looked at a lot of sheet music from 100+ years ago up to the present (I was my band's librarian for a while) and the horn parts are always just "F Horn" or "E♭ Horn." "French horn" is never asked for.
> but when I was good at it, I could play melodies with my lips alone
As was the OG way of doing it.