Buying a French Horn

WashDad
Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:39:32 +0000

Hello, music forum people. I have a question that I’ve done a forum search on without any luck.

Tallson (my high school-aged son) has been playing trumpet for five years, guitar for three – rock, jazz and blues – and took up French horn last year. Through a series of fortunate events he already has four pretty good guitars, so that’s not an issue. He also has a decent Bach trumpet that he plays in his high school jazz combo, and the promise of inheriting his grandfather’s Chicago Benge some day. (That is to say, his grandfather may hand down the Benge, not that grandpa is dying any time soon.)

It turns out, though, that he’s a pretty good French horn player and his high school band teacher thinks he could play at the college level. Of course, this is the only one of his instruments that he doesn’t own. He plays a school instrument, which his teacher has said is more or less his until he graduates. At least it’s a problem we don’t have to solve for a couple of years.

There’s lots of stuff on the Web about trumpets, and the world is awash in guitars, but when you ask about how to choose a French horn you can practically hear the crickets start chirping. Any advice on the French horn purchase process? I mean, besides “bring LOTS of money?”