Articles - Houghton Horns

Janet and I have been fortunate to have presented numerous pedagogy clinics at music conferences, universities, international horn symposiums and in-service events together during the past six years, including: Texas...

Those that know me well, or have studied horn with me over the past years, know that I have a fondness for using analogies in my teaching.  Analogies can help...

So you want to start teaching private lessons but aren’t sure what to do? Every teacher and situation is different, so these tips are not meant to be “rules,” just...

Full disclosure: like so many other horn players of my age, my earliest transposition experiences in high school consisted of assignments from the Kopprasch book played in various keys. However,...

When I was growing up, both of my parents maintained private studios for teaching French horn. I can scarcely remember a week passing without students visiting our house for regular...

I have been a private horn teacher for over forty-five years. In fact, my husband Dennis was my first pupil! He was a sophomore and I was a junior at...

After teaching private horn lessons for over forty years (and living to tell about it!) I would like to share some ideas and routines that have helped my young students to...

Are you starting to feel like you might do something drastic to your horn if you have to play the same etude one more time? We hear you. Take a...

These are difficult times. The world as we know it has significantly changed in the past six months and people are learning to adjust in order to navigate through these...

Buying a new instrument for yourself is a ton of fun, but helping someone else choose one can be nerve-wracking. How can a teacher guide a student to find the...

As musicians, we are accustomed to the constant expectations and pressures of practicing our instrument.  We put in the time, but are we getting the most out of our practice sessions? ...

by Karen Houghton As parents, encouraging your child to practice their instrument on a consistent basis can become a battlefield, with parents resorting to offensive strategies such as coercion, attrition...