How to set up French Horn?

There is no easy way to tell you how much air to use, that comes from practice. It does take ALOT though :) Good air support comes from low, (your stomach area) not from high (your upper chest). Some good exercises to try are

1. sit in a chair bend forward and grab your ankles and breath in. If you do it right you should feel your stomach expand. Do this for a minute or two every day, always trying to get more expansion.

2. Take a piece of paper, stand at arms length from the wall, hold the paper to the wall and blow. Try to keep the paper "glued" to the wall using only your breathe. Do this for a minute or two as well.

For your hand it is much easer to explain. Keep your fingers together and your hand flat. Place the back of your hand against the far side of the bell and put your hand as far into the bell as it will go without crunching your fingers on top of each other, or having to move your thumb over your palm. This is a very good guideline. It may need some slight tweaking but not much. Then you can hinge your palm at your knuckles very slightly to make minor changes in sound/intonation. Some people may tell you this is too far in, but if you do it right your hand won't go too far into a small student horn. It becomes very useful on more advanced instruments which have larger bells, such as ones you are likely to see in high school if you keep up with music.

Your air speed should be a good steady stream for all central notes. The higher you go you will need to use more air and faster air. The lower you go you will need to use more air but it will be very slow.

as for the hand, there many different ways people put their hand and each is "correct" your bet bet is to be sure it isn't too far out and not too far in, also always have your palm facing away from the bell never up against it. From there where even is comfortable.

Your hand should be flat, and perpendicular to the floor. It's placed in the bell on the side opposite your body.

see:

http://valerietan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/f...