Preparatory Melodies to Solo Work for B-Flat Cornet, selected from the Famous Schantl Collection (for French horn).

This First Book of Practical Studies for French Horn is designed to develop chord consciousness and to provide additional experience in the fundamental rhythms, key signatures, and articulations and to improve accuracy in reading through the use of interesting and melodic studies. It may be used either to supplement or to follow any beginning method book and will serve as an ideal preparation for the slightly more advanced techniques to be found in the Second Book.

The Second Book of Practical Studies is designed to logically extend the techniques already presented in the First Book and also to introduce and develop new techniques and rhythms that will offer a challenge to the intermediate student. Through the use of slightly more difficult and more extended studies, it is hoped that the material included in this book may more fully develop general musicianship and more feeling for style and interpretation and thus act as a foundation for solo literature.

The Second Book of Practical Studies is designed to logically extend the techniques already presented in the First Book and also to introduce and develop new techniques and rhythms that will offer a challenge to the intermediate student. Through the use of slightly more difficult and more extended studies, it is hoped that the material included in this book may more fully develop general musicianship and more feeling for style and interpretation and thus act as a foundation for solo literature.

First to be published in the series was The Art of French Horn Playing by Philip Farkas, now Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music at Indiana University. In 1956, when Summy-Birchard published Farkas's book, he was a solo horn player for the Chicago Symphony and had held similar positions with other orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Kansas City Conservatory, DePaul University, Northwestern University, and Roosevelt University in Chicago. The Art of French Horn Playing set the pattern, and other books in the series soon followed, offering help to students in learning to master their instruments and achieve their goals.

This book has been compiled to aid teachers and students in the development of the French Horn embouchure, particularly in the important period following elementary development. It is based upon the theory that, mechanically, nearly all of the problems to be met by the player in the orchestra, band, chamber ensemble, etc., can be covered by a comprehensive daily routine of practice. Various drills have been devised, with no claim to originality, to cope with the various mechanical problems of embouchure with which the player is faced in the field.