Orchestral Excerpts

Orchestral excerpts are short selections of music taken from actual horn parts that have been chosen based on their difficulty and particular skills they can highlight from a person’s playing. These excerpts cover each of the four standard horn positions and can range from exposed solos to section playing and even sometimes to sections that are not heard over an orchestra. This is the music that most professional ensembles use for auditions. You will see these excerpts popping up your entire career from being a student and taking ensemble auditions through when you are trying to find employment.

As horn players, we are extremely luck to have an online resource that highlights the most common excerpts asked on auditions. Daren Robbins surveyed horn auditions from across the world and created a website that has the music for each of these excerpts, along with several recording for reference. This is an amazing place to start when learning excerpts. You can find it at https://www.hornsociety.org/hornexcerpts-org.

It is important to create a process for yourself when learning new excerpts. I always recommend starting with listening to recordings and getting the context for what type of playing will be required. Watch the music and get an idea of who is performing around you, then you can dive into learning the excerpts on the horn. Start by identifying possible issues such as transposition or weaknesses in your your playing that are highlighted within the excerpt.

Once you feel comfortable with the excerpt, start building into bigger picture ideas. See if the entire part is available on imslp.org so that you can learn how else the composer has incorporated the horn into that particular piece. Also, try finding a score so that you can analyze everything else going on around you at the time. You will often be surprised at what is happening that you will not catch just from listening.

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