Mouthpiece pressing force for pitch and loudness control in playing the French horn

Abstract

Using a force-sensing French horn mouthpiece developed by the present authors, lip pressing force was examined during pre-attack and post-attack phases of 2-sec sustained tone production at varied pitches (87, 174, 349, 466, and 698 Hz) and dynamics (95, 100, 105, 110, and 115 dB) performed by 12 highly trained horn players. Dependent variables examined were: force at the onset of sound, a peak of the force rate before the sound onset, and mean and SD forces during steady state tone production. All of these force variables increased nearly linearly with pitch. They also increased lightly with louder dynamics. The pitch-related and dynamic-related increase of the force varied largely among the players. These findings indicate that skilled horn performances are supported by pre-attacking the mouthpiece pressure properly to prepare for a target pitch at target dynamics. The notable inter-player difference in force production in skilled players suggests a proper level of mouthpiece pressures witch differs among players due possibly to congenital physical properties of their lips.