Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Gunther Schuller's Studies for Unaccompanied Horn: a review

While the book could've simply been called 'etudes for horn,' I believe this is one of the better atonal etude books out there. Each of the 13 etudes are based off of a repeated rhythmic or interval-based pattern. Like other atonal etude books, this one will certainly improve your sense of pitch and your accuracy. But unlike some other atonal studies, each etude to me has a nice easy-to-identify idea, a nice flow, and a real sense of musicality. The first etude for instance is slow and lyrical, and even seems to have antecedent and consequent phrases.

The Schuller etudes are excellent for improving your large-interval slurs! Almost every etude has slurs that span augmented octaves and beyond.

I would highly recommend this book for those of you who are looking for a refreshing type of etude.

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