Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
Here I am at nearly 74 and I have just joined the local hunting horn group. I was as a 13y/o in the Coventry School of Music playing a trumpet but what remains in my head time will tell. They were very welcoming to me and the pub that they do it in is a hunters paradise, the walls are dripping with trophies as the pub owner now in his 80s was the local hunter. The horn I will be using is a Fürst -Pless that I bought new 20 years ago.
Blowing the hunting horn with its hunting guidance and dead signals is a part of hunting customs. Hunting horn signals can be heard from far away in forests and fields and are still used today for communication, for example during group hunts. With the help of hunting signals, for example, the beginning and end of a hunt are announced, the beaters are encouraged and the hunters, beaters and dogs are called together. With the dead signal for a hunted piece of game, the hunter pays homage to the hunted game and thanks its creator for the hunting success. In addition, hunting horn signals shape many hunters' events in the hunting and private sectors.
Blowing hunting horns is an old cultural asset that is still maintained today and used in practical hunting operations.
People recognized early on that dull sounds could be produced with the buffalo or ox horn. For this purpose, the tip of the animal horn was sawn off and drilled out to the bell. The hunting horn was used to communicate among hunters on the hunt and to pass on information. With the help of animal horns, a limited number of tones (1-2 tones) of different heights could be produced. The hunting signals of prehistoric times consisted of a limited number of tones of different durations and pitches right up to the High Middle Ages.
The animal horn was used by hunters until the beginning of the 19th century.
The metal horns eventually replaced the animal horns. Since then, attempts have been made to achieve an optimal combination of practicality (handiness) and sound quality. The development of hunting horns and their external design shows a constant balance between handiness and therefore compactness on the one hand and the expansion of musical possibilities on the other, which in the past was always associated with lengthening the tube.
The short signal horn has been preserved to this day in the so-called Fürst-Pleßhorn. It got its name after the Kaisers chief hunter, Prince von Pleß, who made a significant contribution to its spread. With a range of 5 tones, it offers the layperson the opportunity to create a simple but memorable melody.
In addition to this handy hunting horn, a larger horn, the so-called Parforce horn, also became popular, which was adopted by the French in the 17th and 18th centuries. This horn was mainly used for equestrian hunting, which is why less emphasis was placed on the handiness and more on the sound quality.
With the longer length of the tube (approx. 4.50 m), larger sections of the natural note series could also be blown at the same time.
From the 19th century onwards, the Parforcehorn was pushed out of hunting and ordinary hunters preferred the Fürst-Plesshorn for practical reasons.
The parforce horn only became popular among hunters in Germany again after 1970, as hunting music became more and more important at that time.
Today's hunters in Germany and the German-speaking neighboring countries blow the Pleßhorn in B ("in B" means: the written note C sounds from the tube as the note B), the so-called Parforcehorn in B and the Parforcehorn in E flat (also switchable to B/Es).
As the number of active hunting horn blowers increased, so did the need to blow the horn outside of actual hunting, usually in organized groups. Today there are so-called brass groups at all levels of the hunting association structure (hunting association/hunting ring level), in which concert hunting music is primarily presented.
Blowing the hunting horn with its hunting guidance and dead signals is a part of hunting customs. Hunting horn signals can be heard from far away in forests and fields and are still used today for communication, for example during group hunts. With the help of hunting signals, for example, the beginning and end of a hunt are announced, the beaters are encouraged and the hunters, beaters and dogs are called together. With the dead signal for a hunted piece of game, the hunter pays homage to the hunted game and thanks its creator for the hunting success. In addition, hunting horn signals shape many hunters' events in the hunting and private sectors.
Blowing hunting horns is an old cultural asset that is still maintained today and used in practical hunting operations.
People recognized early on that dull sounds could be produced with the buffalo or ox horn. For this purpose, the tip of the animal horn was sawn off and drilled out to the bell. The hunting horn was used to communicate among hunters on the hunt and to pass on information. With the help of animal horns, a limited number of tones (1-2 tones) of different heights could be produced. The hunting signals of prehistoric times consisted of a limited number of tones of different durations and pitches right up to the High Middle Ages.
The animal horn was used by hunters until the beginning of the 19th century.
The metal horns eventually replaced the animal horns. Since then, attempts have been made to achieve an optimal combination of practicality (handiness) and sound quality. The development of hunting horns and their external design shows a constant balance between handiness and therefore compactness on the one hand and the expansion of musical possibilities on the other, which in the past was always associated with lengthening the tube.
The short signal horn has been preserved to this day in the so-called Fürst-Pleßhorn. It got its name after the Kaisers chief hunter, Prince von Pleß, who made a significant contribution to its spread. With a range of 5 tones, it offers the layperson the opportunity to create a simple but memorable melody.
In addition to this handy hunting horn, a larger horn, the so-called Parforce horn, also became popular, which was adopted by the French in the 17th and 18th centuries. This horn was mainly used for equestrian hunting, which is why less emphasis was placed on the handiness and more on the sound quality.
With the longer length of the tube (approx. 4.50 m), larger sections of the natural note series could also be blown at the same time.
From the 19th century onwards, the Parforcehorn was pushed out of hunting and ordinary hunters preferred the Fürst-Plesshorn for practical reasons.
The parforce horn only became popular among hunters in Germany again after 1970, as hunting music became more and more important at that time.
Today's hunters in Germany and the German-speaking neighboring countries blow the Pleßhorn in B ("in B" means: the written note C sounds from the tube as the note B), the so-called Parforcehorn in B and the Parforcehorn in E flat (also switchable to B/Es).
As the number of active hunting horn blowers increased, so did the need to blow the horn outside of actual hunting, usually in organized groups. Today there are so-called brass groups at all levels of the hunting association structure (hunting association/hunting ring level), in which concert hunting music is primarily presented.
