Master Class: Learn from the Met Horn Mavens

Julie Landsman, Michelle Baker, Anne Scharer, and Barbara Jostlein, four of the horns from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra presented a Master Class at the IWBC on Thursday, June 29, 2000.

To open the class, the four played Folksong Suite, a quartet. It became immediately obvious that they all share a unified concept of horn playing and think as one. Ms. Landsman, Principal horn at the Met, expressed that she is living a teacher’s dream. She is fortunate enough to play with former students who have moved beyond student status to become colleagues, a fact that she does not take lightly.

Ms. Landsman attributes much of her success to early exposure and continued work on the Caruso method, a technical method focusing on precision timing as the key to muscle coordination.

This method is a physical experience as opposed to a musical exercise and teaches the chops to respond automatically. Once mastered and reinforced daily, this affords the player a reliability of technique that frees them to focus on the music and playing from the heart rather than on the physical aspects of playing.

All four players demonstrated several of the Caruso exercises in unison. While they play remarkably well together, each person focuses on different things while playing the exercises, according to their different needs.

Ms. Scharer demonstrated her own version of a Caruso exercise designed to help her more easily navigate an embouchure break. She focuses on a relaxed air stream and no extra muscle movement in order to balance the chops and smooth out wobbles.

Ms. Baker described and demonstrated a Caruso exercise that she adapted in order to strengthen her low register. Being a second horn player, she works continuously on strengthening and smoothing out the low side of the horn. She advised starting in a comfortable area and gradually working up or down to the problem area.

Ms. Jostlein, the most recent addition to the Met horn section, spoke at length about her audition preparation. She considers that preparation to include three separate but vital components. They are mental preparation, musical preparation, and physical preparation.

The mental and musical aspects are equally important and each affects the other. She described her work with sports psychologist Don Greene, who also presented two lectures at IWBC. She explained the technique of centering to establish a calm focus, and visualizing a difficult experience beforehand to help diminish fear.

Musically, Ms. Jostlein advocated being as thoroughly prepared as possible. This includes playing for as many people as possible to reduce nervousness. She suggested eating healthy food and exercising in order to feel good physically for the audition.

Concluding the class, a student quartet from the Cincinnati Conservatory played two opera excerpts and were offered helpful suggestions from all four players. The comments, echoed by all four, were that in order to play well together a section must all subdivide together, and each player needs to be more aware of the other parts than their own.

Submitted by Nancy Goodearl, Third Horn, Houston Symphony Orchestra