Hey, so I have been playing the french horn for about 5 months now, and I can play it fairly well. But I was wondering, how do you make a "gliss", or where you start at a low note, and quickly hit a bunch of notes in a scale and go up to a high note.

Thanks for the help!

-Rachel

Honestly the easiest way to makea gliss going upwards is to hit a lot of keys and bend the note up while doing it and ending on the note you want (with that notes keys of course). Going up usually I hit the 3rd valve key, then the 2nd, then the 1st, and then I end on the note I want. Say if the note is from middle g to high G I would play my middle G hit the 3rd, then 2nd, then 1st, then end on my trigger open (or just plain open if you`re not playing a double horn). For notes ending with two fingers (like a middle D or high A) you could just start on your note hit the 3rd and and on the first and second. Really it`s just a point of finding what is best for you, but you want to make sure you`re bending all the notes higher and higher as you`re going along for an upwards gliss (for a downwards gliss I suggest letting the note fall [bend it down] and reverse the keys: hit 1st then 2nd then 3rd and end on your last note. Usually glisses are so fast it won`t matter what keys you hit because you won`t be worried about a key. Not for a really slow gliss I suggest you try to stick to the scale (usually you won`t have them because it would be a written pattern or suggested grace notes). Just experiment with that and tell me how it works. Remember, glisses are generally fast and are before the note, like grace notes. Make sure you start and end on the RIGHT NOTES! As for what you do inbetween just experiment. There are hardly ever right or wrongs.

Let me know if this helps please. Good luck with horn playing! If you need anything else, email me.

Why wasn`t this posted in the horn forum?