# Scoring Six Horns



## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

For those of you who look at a lot of Hollywood scores, can you tell me how they usually split the horns? The convention for a standard classical score is two staves with 1 & 3 and 2 & 4. (Though you can see it done differently.) If I wanted six horns on three staves, how do you usually see this split? 1 & 4, 2 & 5, and 3 & 6?

I am just looking for the conductor's score layout--not information about individual parts.

Thank you.


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## ed buller (Dec 5, 2022)

Most of the scores I Have from Hollywood are 1&2, 3&4 and 5&6..or 1,2,3 & 4,5,6 if two staves






best
e


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

ed buller said:


> Most of the scores I Have from Hollywood are 1&2, 3&4 and 5&6..or 1,2,3 & 4,5,6 if two staves
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks, Ed!


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## mducharme (Dec 5, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> For those of you who look at a lot of Hollywood scores, can you tell me how they usually split the horns? The convention for a standard classical score is two staves with 1 & 3 and 2 & 4. (Though you can see it done differently.) If I wanted six horns on three staves, how do you usually see this split? 1 & 4, 2 & 5, and 3 & 6?


The odd numbered horns are the high-note specialists and the even numbered horns are the low-note specialists. That's why you sometimes see these groupings of 1 & 3, 2 & 4 because if you have a four note chord it will most often be scored top note to bottom note as horn 1, horn 3, horn 2, and horn 4. The equivalent approach with 6 horns would be 1&3,5&2,4&6, and this is sometimes done.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

mducharme said:


> The odd numbered horns are the high-note specialists and the even numbered horns are the low-note specialists. That's why you sometimes see these groupings of 1 & 3, 2 & 4 because if you have a four note chord it will most often be scored top note to bottom note as horn 1, horn 3, horn 2, and horn 4. The equivalent approach with 6 horns would be 1&3,5&2,4&6, and this is sometimes done.


Thanks. Yes, I am well aware of this. I assumed this same convention might apply to 5 and 6.


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## bryla (Dec 5, 2022)

5&6 is often treated as yet another pair that is lower than 3&4. They will also be the first to double on Wagner Tuben.


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## mducharme (Dec 5, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Thanks. Yes, I am well aware of this. I assumed this same convention might apply to 5 and 6.


Yes it does, so in classical scores with 6 horns you will more often see 1&3, 5&2, 4&6 as the staff labels. A bit less common in film scores only because the differentiation between high and low note specialists is less pronounced, with the proficiency of session musicians being higher than your average performer in an average professional orchestra.

There are good arguments against doing this 1&3, 2&4 split even in contemporary classical scores. 1&2 and 3&4 are still "pairs" in terms of working closely together in partnership, and so often this pairing is more important and can override the "normal order" of scoring the harmony top to bottom with the odd horns first and the even horns second. Also the conductor may look in the wrong spot for a specific horn in the score if they aren't in the usual order of 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, etc.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Yes it does, so in classical scores with 6 horns you will more often see 1&3, 5&2, 4&6 as the staff labels. A bit less common in film scores only because the differentiation between high and low note specialists is less pronounced, with the proficiency of session musicians being higher than your average performer in an average professional orchestra.
> 
> There are good arguments against doing this 1&3, 2&4 split even in contemporary classical scores. 1&2 and 3&4 are still "pairs" in terms of working closely together in partnership, and so often this pairing is more important and can override the "normal order" of scoring the harmony top to bottom with the odd horns first and the even horns second. Also the conductor may look in the wrong spot for a specific horn in the score if they aren't in the usual order of 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, etc.


I think I like that division, and that's what I am going to use. I usually create parts so that the players can see everything and divide it differently if they so choose.


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## mducharme (Dec 5, 2022)

Wind and brass performers generally only want to see their own part and not other performers parts. Each horn should have their own part that doesn't show the other horns, apart from cues etc where appropriate.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Wind and brass performers generally only want to see their own part and not other performers parts. Each horn should have their own part that doesn't show the other horns, apart from cues etc where appropriate.


That sounds like the advice of someone who has never been in a recording studio, where time is money. Anne-Kathrin Dern would beg to differ with you, and from my experience in a recording session, where I adjust parts on the fly, I would never do this. In the concert hall, after you know that everything works exactly as you have planned, sure go for it. But when you do this, you have eliminated all flexibility.


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## mducharme (Dec 5, 2022)

I've been in a recording studio, but was never personally involved in the preparation of a score and parts for something done in a recording studio aside from my own score/parts. Several times I have been in score/part preparation for concert orchestral works. So, it could be that there is some practice in film music recording that I am unfamiliar with. But I've seen images of parts in film scoring sessions before and never saw a horn part that had all 6 horns on it just in case changes were needed on the fly. That strikes me as something that would make the part way too big and introduce way too many page turns - in the old days they would have players write in last minute changes to the score with pencil, but that might not work as well in the modern day with nice professional printed parts.


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## José Herring (Dec 5, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> That sounds like the advice of someone who has never been in a recording studio, where time is money. Anne-Kathrin Dern would beg to differ with you, and from my experience in a recording session, where I adjust parts on the fly, I would never do this. In the concert hall, after you know that everything works exactly as you have planned, sure go for it. But when you do this, you have eliminated all flexibility.


I've been in lots of recording studios and I can say without a doubt that it is better to give each player their own part. It's not like having other parts isn't a money saver because it is, but on the high end budget allowing it is way better to give people individual parts. If your parts are at all involved, having other players parts on your part is a distraction.

Studio players in major cities though are so good that they will adapt to any situation and pull it off admirably, but they really shouldn't have to.

As far as correcting parts that's really easy to do no matter what from the podium so I can't really understand why this would be a problem.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

mducharme said:


> I've been in a recording studio, but was never personally involved in the preparation of a score and parts for something done in a recording studio aside from my own score/parts. Several times I have been in score/part preparation for concert orchestral works. So, it could be that there is some practice in film music recording that I am unfamiliar with. But I've seen images of parts in film scoring sessions before and never saw a horn part that had all 6 horns on it just in case changes were needed on the fly. That strikes me as something that would make the part way too big and introduce way too many page turns - in the old days they would have players write in last minute changes to the score with pencil, but that might not work as well in the modern day with nice professional printed parts.


I concur, six parts would be rather unwieldy. I've never written for six horns before, hence this thread. I have, however, put four horns on a part, and it paid off because in a couple of places, the conductor turned to me up in the booth and said, "I think that you need more horns on this part." I also tend to do this with woodwinds, especially flutes, because they sometimes want to dovetail things differently than I imagined.

In the end, it is just CYA.


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## mducharme (Dec 5, 2022)

In cases where you might want more of something but aren't sure, one practice there (which goes back a LONG time) is to write it in with some kind of "play if cued" indication, and I've seen this in quite a few film scores. That way the performers already have the notes in their part and they won't play them unless requested, and that allows for rapid changes on the scoring stage, while still allowing for a part for each woodwind/brass player.


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## Daryl (Dec 5, 2022)

There are many ways to skin this particular cat, and it all depends on the client.

For me, I usually have three staves for 6 horns; 1&2, 3&4, 5&6

I only ever put both parts on the same part if there is no time to split them up, and I am using Sibelius. These days, as I'm mostly in Dorico, I never put anything other than one part on each players' score. However, if there is the possibility that some parts might need everyone to play the same line, I cue it in, and tell them to play it, if requested.

Historically the odd players were the high horns, and the even players were the low horns. Whilst I play lip service to this convention, all 6 horn players need to be prepared to play both the high notes, and the low notes, particularly when they are all in unison.


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## bryla (Dec 5, 2022)

More parts on a part creates higher risk for misreading, so "time is money" is at a disadvantage there and the most sensible thing is to cue as much as possible for recording sessions.

Splitting out parts takes a bit of time but accidentals and articulations are much harder to sight read. Parts for recording are generally laid out so a lot can be written in by the player.

I also don't follow " In the concert hall, after you know that everything works exactly as you have planned, sure go for it." For concert performances there is very little rehearsal time allotted to performing new or even film music. Nothing is 'rewritten' on the rehearsal stage as I understand this sentence.

Also for score layout: The 'new' way is to split it 1&3 2&4 etc. The traditional way is to think in pairs and not 'from high to low'.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

I am glad I pursued this. Facilitating this with cues hadn't really occurred to me. Last time I recorded in Europe--the year before they killed Jesus--cues were a nightmare in Finale. Those seem to be standard fare these days, however. Thanks, guys!



bryla said:


> I also don't follow " In the concert hall, after you know that everything works exactly as you have planned, sure go for it." For concert performances there is very little rehearsal time allotted to performing new or even film music. Nothing is 'rewritten' on the rehearsal stage as I understand this sentence.


The piece you are missing is that these days, you usually wind up going to the recording session with virgin music. Once you know that everything works 100% and are sending tried and true parts to an orchestra, you aren't expecting them to make any changes.


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## bryla (Dec 5, 2022)

The thing you're missing (to borrow your terms) is that new music performed in concert halls is also mostly 'virgin music'. You make changes in between performances by different orchestras in many cases based on what has been pencilled in.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

bryla said:


> The thing you're missing (to borrow your terms) is that new music performed in concert halls is also mostly 'virgin music'. You make changes in between performances by different orchestras in many cases based on what has been pencilled in.


This sounds like a very European perspective. I wouldn't make one change penciled in by an American orchestra because top orchestras don't play new music. Any changes made by an American orchestra are likely to make up for their own shortcomings, and the conductor calling for those changes likely isn't Furtwangler.


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## JJP (Dec 5, 2022)

To confirm what others have said, with studio musicians you are not dealing with specialists like a classical orchestra. Just number them 1-6, high to low, on the score. The players prefer single-line parts. This makes things simple for everyone.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 5, 2022)

Thank you. Numbering 1-6 seems to be the accepted norm, so that’s what I’ll do. Next time I go to record, if ever I do, I hope that they have staff who prepare parts. This has not been the case in Eastern Europe, but it seems to be common in London, or so I hear.


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## Dave Connor (Dec 5, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I concur, six parts would be rather unwieldy. I've never written for six horns before, hence this thread. I have, however, put four horns on a part, and it paid off because in a couple of places, the conductor turned to me up in the booth and said, "I think that you need more horns on this part." I also tend to do this with woodwinds, especially flutes, because they sometimes want to dovetail things differently than I imagined.
> 
> In the end, it is just CYA.


Six horns is essentially for equaling Trumpets and Trombones at higher volumes so the Horns have a 2>1 ratio on a standard triad against Trpts/Bones.


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## R.G. (Dec 6, 2022)

mducharme said:


> ...so in classical scores with 6 horns you will more often see 1&3, 5&2, 4&6 as the staff labels.



I think I may be misunderstanding that statement, because I don't know where one would see that in a score, but it would be an outlier. Whether for the concert stage or scoring stage, for 6 horns you will ordinarily see sequential ordering, as most here have said, matching the seating from the inside out: 

1/2 (stave 1)
3/4 (stave 2)
5/6 (stave 3)

...and/or

1/2/3 (stave 1)
4/5/6 (stave 2)

...depending on the voicings at any given moment and/or the composer's dominant treatment of the horns, if there is one.

Some common routines (with concert pitch Fma triad as an example):

For two-part voicings with three per, it (ordinarily) works best for intonation and ensemble to score it as three adjacent 2-horn groups, sequentially:

1 — C5
2 — F4

3 — C5
4 — F4

5 — C5
6 — F4

For three-part voicings with two per, it (ordinarily) works best for intonation and ensemble to score it as two adjacent 3-horn groups, sequentially:

1 — C5
2 — A4
3 — F4

4 — C5
5 — A4
6 — F4

...or in a three-part polyphonic texture...

1/2 — C5

3/4 — A4

5/6 — F4

For a 6-part chords, from the top down sequentially:

1 — C5
2 — A4
3 — F4
4 — C4
5 — C3
6 — F3

...or with 1—4 allotted traditionally and 5/6 as the lowest two pitches (mentioned by @bryla)...

1 — C5
2 — F4

3 — A4
4 — C4

5 — A3
6 — F3

But ultimately the distribution of the voicing should provide the hornists with the best environment for intonation and ensemble while managing the desired weight to each note of the voicing, so other allotments besides these are applicable.

But when you have just four horns, interlocking (1,3,2,4) those middle octave (and thereabouts) voicings always works best from the standpoint of intonation and ensemble, regardless of whether your writing in a high-horn/low-horn context.
__________

As for high-horn vs. low-horn specialists, it is a myth that the low horns are less proficient, since range is hardly the only gauge of proficiency.

It's not about proficiency but about specialty. Hornists in top and middle tier symphony orchestras are all expected to have at least a 4-octave range (which is necessary for some of the above distributions). Comfort and endurance levels vary.

The modern reason, rather than the ancient one, for specialist ranges nowadays is because it _is_ such a large range and the whole of it is used more often in the symphonic repertoire.

And while the top octave (horn's C5—C6) is more taxing on endurance, the low octave (horn's C3—C4) is more difficult for onset, articulation, dexterity, tone, and projection. Plus with the rare exception, hornists have an embouchure break (sometimes more than one). The break is different for every hornist, but passages written in the middle and lower octave are where that break tends to be, and seamlessly integrating that embouchure reset can be a major issue, something like what classically trained females singers have to do.

So with orchestral musicians being required to eke out every last nuance of tone and technique in their playing, specializing is a necessity, but they can still play the full range when need be. Most low horn specialists began as high hornists, because that's how they're raised, and many have played high or low depending on whichever audition they might have won at any given point. Some low hornists get all much or most of their low horn practice done largely at rehearsal, and may spend a disproportionate amount of their private practice time on the higher horn etudes, after which playing them an octave down for low horn practice.


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## Daryl (Dec 6, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Thank you. Numbering 1-6 seems to be the accepted norm, so that’s what I’ll do. Next time I go to record, if ever I do, I hope that they have staff who prepare parts. This has not been the case in Eastern Europe, but it seems to be common in London, or so I hear.


There are staff who do this everywhere. You just have top pick a better contractor. Or get someone to prepare the parts and send over pdf for printing. It's all really easy these days.


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## mducharme (Dec 6, 2022)

R.G. said:


> I think I may be misunderstanding that statement, because I don't know where one would see that in a score, but it would be an outlier.


Mahler's 5th symphony (2nd movement) has this 1/3 5/2 4/6 layout for fairly long period, but in the symphony overall he mostly uses two staves with three horns each, the top one 1,3,5 and the bottom one 2,4,6. Either way, I used to label my staves based on the low/high split (ex. as 1/3 and 2/4 for 4 horns) but I no longer do that and instead group them in the pairs that they play in (so that they are top-down ascending numeral order).


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 6, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Mahler's 5th symphony (2nd movement) has this 1/3 5/2 4/6 layout for fairly long period, but in the symphony overall he mostly uses two staves with three horns each, the top one 1,3,5 and the bottom one 2,4,6. Either way, I used to label my staves based on the low/high split (ex. as 1/3 and 2/4 for 4 horns) but I no longer do that and instead group them in the pairs that they play in (so that they are top-down ascending numeral order).


I should have looked harder. A cursory glance at this symphony only revealed two staves and the numbering. It didn't occur to me that the publisher/Mahler might have changed the layout. However, I was looking for a more modern example anyway.


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## R.G. (Dec 6, 2022)

mducharme said:


> Mahler's 5th symphony (2nd movement) has this 1/3 5/2 4/6 layout for fairly long period, but in the symphony overall he mostly uses two staves with three horns each, the top one 1,3,5 and the bottom one 2,4,6.


I had a quick look just now at Mahler 5, 6, and 8 (6 and 8 use 8 horns) and the publisher is using variable formatting throughout for those large horn sections. They did this for space efficiency, which is why you have horns jumping from stave to stave and sharing a stave with different horns at any given moment.

In addition to the orderings you mentioned, in just the first movement alone you've got:

1
2/4
6
_____
1
3/2/4
_____
1/3
2/4/6
_____

And sometimes Mahler scores using the high-horn/low-horn approach, though in other cases not. In many three-part chords with two horns per, he scores sequentially:

1/2 — top
3/4 — middle
5/6 — bottom

Strauss's publisher did the same thing. For Zarathustra you have,

1/2
3/4
5/6
_____
1/3
2/4
5/6
_____
1
2/3/4
5/6
_____
1/5
3/2
4/6
_____

I wonder if you can do variable formatting in Dorico. I'm still not up to snuff.


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## JJP (Dec 6, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Next time I go to record, if ever I do, I hope that they have staff who prepare parts.


If you're looking for someone in the USA to do this work, feel free to contact me.

Website:
Symbols Of Sound - Music preparation and consulting


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## mducharme (Dec 6, 2022)

R.G. said:


> I wonder if you can do variable formatting in Dorico. I'm still not up to snuff.


Yes, you can. In fact it pretty much does this by default, but you may want to override what it does.


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## A.Dern (Dec 10, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> That sounds like the advice of someone who has never been in a recording studio, where time is money. Anne-Kathrin Dern would beg to differ with you, and from my experience in a recording session, where I adjust parts on the fly, I would never do this. In the concert hall, after you know that everything works exactly as you have planned, sure go for it. But when you do this, you have eliminated all flexibility.


Just to chime in since my name was mentioned: Brass and Woodwinds tend to get only their own parts. It's the violins who normally get both 1st and 2nd printed on the same page so they can rebalance on the fly if something doesn't work on the first take. However, as mentioned by Jose, in the prime recording locations it probably wouldn't throw other players off too much to see more than one part. It's not the norm though.


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## A.Dern (Dec 10, 2022)

As for horns on the scores, I just checked mine and it seems as it is described in this thread. If it's 3 horns they all get their own staff, if it's 6 horns they're doubled up (but the players still get only their own part usually so the copyist has to split out the lines).


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 10, 2022)

A.Dern said:


> As for horns on the scores, I just checked mine and it seems as it is described in this thread. If it's 3 horns they all get their own staff, if it's 6 horns they're doubled up (but the players still get only their own part usually so the copyist has to split out the lines).


Thank you so much for chiming in. I knew that I had heard you mention this in a video, but I didn't have it in me to sift through hours of video to find it. I remember hearing it and thinking, "Okay, that's what I do with horns." Fortunately, there are several professional orchestrators here who have set me straight.

Edit: I see I quoted the wrong post. Should have quoted the first one.


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## Electric Lion (Dec 15, 2022)

This seems like the perfect thread to post this golden nugget of a video (and I never miss an opportunity to share the work of Thomas Goss)



For what it's worth, most of the music I write for orchestra uses an expanded brass section with 8 horns (8442). My approach usually looks like this: 

By default I have them on two staves 1,3,5,7, & 2,4,6,8. I view them almost as two different brass sections, the high horns and low horns. Horn 1 and 2 are the leaders of these two subsections so I like to have them on different staves (as opposed to 1,2,3,4 & 5,6,7,8 or 1,2,5,6 & 3,4,7,8) but horn 1 and 2 are still pairs and trade off frequently with each other for solos and thematic writing. I choose 2 staves for two reasons. One, to moderate the verticality of an otherwise towering score, and two because it shares the traditional look of a 4 horn score which I am used to.

When the music dictates however I will expand things out to 4 staves (which can be ordered differently depending on the function of the parts) or even 8 staves if each part is sufficiently independent. (I have never done this but it's in theory). Also a part with all horns playing an a8 line could be scored on one staff to save space. 

The trick is to be flexible and never try to strictly adhere to one approach. Your best bet is to take things on a page-by-page basis.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 15, 2022)

Electric Lion said:


> This seems like the perfect thread to post this golden nugget of a video (and I never miss an opportunity to share the work of Thomas Goss)


Wow, thanks for posting this. Goss never occurred to me, and I am not sure why. This was super helpful!


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