Hi guys - this is my first post.
I have been playing F horn in a local charity band for a couple of years. Before that I hadn't played since I was at school about 35 years ago. I've sort of picked it up again with a bit of help from the internet. before you say get lessons I can't afford to. what I don't understand is the Bb side. I know I can use it to get easier high notes but why can't I play Bb parts? If I had a Bb horn would I still have to play the F part? It's a really basic question but even other horn players I have met can't explain it.
Thanks

The term "Bb" horn is slightly misleading. Single F horns, single Bb horns, and double horns all read music in the key of F. So yes, if you had a Bb horn you would still have to play the F part. It sounds like you have a double horn, so don't think of it as having a Bb side, just think of it as a single instrument with two sets of fingerings that you can use to your advantage. This chart (http://www.public.asu.edu/~jqerics/HornFingeringChart.pdf) is a good guideline for the standard fingerings on a double horn but of course you can choose whether to use the F fingerings or the "Bb" fingerings for certain notes depending on which is easiest for you personally in certain situations.

Basically, you will almost always read music in the key of F. Occasionally you might see music that you have to transpose from Eb, but that's an entirely different story.

You can play Bb parts with the Bb side of the Horn. The thing is, you learned the Bb side of the horn transposing it into an F Horn.

You can see the transposition if you print out the fingering of the F side and then the fingering of the Bb side and then slide them until the fingerings match.

Or if you have a chart with the double horn fingerings, Just start at F for the F side and Bb for the Bb side and just go up one at a time and note the fingerings are the same.

If you want to play Bb Treble clef music, then you have to quit transposing. Note, it will sound completely wrong to you because you will see a note and want it to sound like it does in F so have a tuner there to convince yourself.

Thanks for your replies.

Transposing is a bit beyond my limited ability but it is great to know as I may get my head round it in the future. Some of the music our band has is quite old and a few of the F horn parts have gone missing which is why I was wondering if there was a way to play a Bb part.

Thanks again for your help

I don't have personal experience with it but there is software that will do the transposing for you. You'd scan in what you have tell it what to do and print out unless you have to move some things an octave or so.

If missing the horn parts, fairly easy to transpose Eb alto sax. One full step. Often the sax part will go so high you have to take that area down an octave. That would be the easiest to transpose on the fly. Or maybe you have an Eb slide for your horn?

When I was in high school every horn came with the Eb slide because it was common to have Eb horn parts.

If the music is old enough and you lost the F horn part, there just might be Eb horn part.