Student Instrumental Course: French Horn Student, Level II: French Horn Book

Ployhar's Level II book picks up where beginners leave off without overwhelming students or jumping to disconnected material. The correlated structure across all instruments means your brass section advances together, making sectional rehearsals efficient and musically satisfying rather than remedial.

The material sits comfortably in the middle register and builds confidence through accessible but genuinely musical content. You're working with phrases that sing rather than exercises that merely drill, so students feel like musicians rather than mechanics.

Intermediate French horn students ready to move past fundamental note-reading and into more lyrical phrasing and varied harmonic textures. This works well in both private lesson settings and full band classes where students benefit from supplementary material aligned with their peers on other instruments.

• Build breath support before tackling the wider intervals typical at this level; have students sustain long tones on single pitches to establish core strength before moving between registers.
• Record sectional run-throughs and play them back immediately; French horn students benefit from hearing how their voice sits within the harmonic context, especially when blend becomes more demanding.
• Anchor all rhythm work to a steady pulse; horn players at this stage are often distracted by the mechanics of hand position and can drift rhythmically without a clear metronome or conducted beat to follow.
• Approach new technical passages as slow studies first, then gradually increase tempo only when accuracy is consistent.

Use this as your core method for second-year horn students, pairing it with standard band repertoire from the same season so students apply what they're learning immediately in concert pieces. The 40-page length makes it manageable to complete across a full school year without rushing or abandoning sections.

• Interval identification and accuracy in wider intervallic jumps
• Breath support and tone control across the middle and upper-middle register
• Reading and executing rhythmic patterns beyond quarter-and-eighth-note combinations
• Harmonic awareness and listening for blend within a section or ensemble
• Introduction to chromatic passages and accidentals
• Fundamental ornamentation and articulation variety