by Félix Dervaux
Félix Dervaux is a horn player from France. He is the former solo horn of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He currently enjoys a solo and chamber music career, and lives in Vienna, Austria. I interviewed him about his upbringing as a horn player and his advice to students. The essay below puts Félix’s words into a narrative flow about horn playing and pedagogy. This is the first of a two-part article.
--Daniel Grabois
I grew up in the north of France, 200 km north of Paris, where there are many municipal bands and orchestras. That’s where I started playing; wind bands are an important social tradition in northern France, with origins in the working classes. I went to college at the CNSMD (Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse) in Lyon, studying with David Guerrier and Michel Molinaro. David is an excellent horn and trumpet player: he had won first prize in the Munich Competition on trumpet, but then played principal horn in the Orchestre National de France before starting a solo career, and then coming back to play principal trumpet in the orchestra of Radio France a couple of years ago.
He had many different points of view because of his playing career. I was a good but not excellent player when I entered music school, and Guerrier explained that I had to fix all the parts of my playing that were not excellent. He was demanding, especially concerning my low register, which I had trouble with at that time. Both of my teachers were very strict with me about that. They insisted that I should not only aim to be a good high horn player but, rather, to be good in all possible registers, and therefore assigning me all kinds of low register pieces. I could not even play the Till Eulenspiegel opening call at the time. The solution I found to get better in all registers was to teach myself to be a low horn player and then "attach" my high register to the low register since the high register came naturally to me. The contrary is probably also true: for players who are naturally comfortable in the low range, they should work carefully on their high register first and "attach" their low register to that. I played many of the Neuling Etudes—which I liked because they are not only technical but also musical, which helps prevent one from getting bored too quickly. (If you are continually bored when you practice, “boring” becomes a part of your playing.) That hard work has proven to be effective for me. I even had to play the Till Eulenspiegel solo in the first round of my Concertgebouw audition, so there is always some hope!
I kept (and still keep) myself enthusiastic and motivated by inventing challenges for myself. I always try to map out little steps. Everybody’s little steps will be different, but once you put yourself on that path and it actually works, you stay motivated. To build my technical background, I practiced a comprehensive and thorough one-hour routine every day. I usually went through it right after I woke up, because if I didn’t do it then, I couldn't find the motivation to do it later in the day.
If you want to be a good teacher, you need to really know your students. Everyone reacts differently to teaching. You must be a coach and a psychologist at the same time. I believe there are different steps in a horn player's life toward learning the instrument. First, when you are young, you just play to have a good time. It’s fun and a good social experience. You do that for a couple of years, and it starts your learning process. Then, the next step is to correct mistakes and bad habits as soon as possible. You go to music school, and you start making your playing right. You should aim for great horn playing, but you should not be frightened, because the horn has become something fun in your life. You must correct bad habits at this time. A great example is making sure your embouchure is correct: the mouthpiece is placed at the right spot on the lips with the angle of the mouthpiece coming out from your mouth also correct. These things become harder and harder to correct later (I had to correct my mouthpiece placement while at the university, so I know how hard this is). When I changed my playing, I spent a few months just working with the new mouthpiece placement, especially in the low register.
Some tips: when you are a music student, devote a huge amount of your time to music. It is not just the practicing: think and talk about horn and music, listen to music, listen to great horn players in recordings, and go to concerts. Listening is absolutely crucial: listen all the time! I especially recommend finding a horn player you love, who, ideally has a large discography, and listen to that player’s recordings of different repertoire. How does that player attack, sustain, and so on? Once you have found a player you like, make a playlist, and listen over and over. You will improve just by doing this.
I also spent a lot of time learning to play the accompaniments of horn pieces on the piano. It is yet another way to learn the repertoire without over-practicing. You can also practice visualization, or work by heart while singing. These are just a few ways of practicing away from the horn. People don’t like to say this, but it is possible to practice the horn too much. Many fail at auditions because they play too much. Immerse yourself in music, but don’t over-practice, and don’t hurt yourself. Find a balance.
