Pip Eastop – Hornplayer

baroque and classical period performance, contemporary, chamber music, symphonic, commercial sessions, jazz improvisation and free improvisation.

hornplaying

Thoughts, ideas, and ramblings about hornplaying

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How to plaice your embouchure…

August 15th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, photos

We can all learn from the humble plaice…

Harry Johnstone

August 4th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, photos

Here is my hornplaying friend and colleague, Harry Johnstone, of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I caught this shot of Harry during a moment of quiet contemplation during the recording sessions for Mozart’s Divertimento, K 334 The recording was for Linn Records. The divertimento features two horns in D and a string quartet with double bass [...]

Where is your diaphragm?

July 29th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, hornteaching

I know where mine is – and it’s nowhere near my belly. It goes above my stomach and my liver (they both tuck up under it, where it looks dark in the 2nd drawing) and my heart sits right on top of it, almost in the middle (the dotted line is the heart’s outline). Surprised? [...]

Impropera (improvised opera!) in Dorset

July 27th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in events, hornplaying, photos

I’ll be playing with Impropera at the Serenata Music Festival in Dorset. I’ve been working with Impropera for a year or two now. The singers are extraordinarily talented performers and the shows are hilarious and bizarre. It’s a wonderful sendup of opera and a great night out for anyone who likes to laugh until it [...]

My wonderful Dad – instrument technician

July 24th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

In response to my previous post here, about Gale Lawson, my Mum sent me a photo of my Dad doing similar things in his similar workshop. So, here he is – my wonderful Dad, Peter Eastop – back in 1998, healing a bassoon in his workshop. Soon after this his Parkinson’s got so bad that [...]

The evolution of the bicycle

July 24th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, photos

Gale Lawson – instrument technician

July 23rd, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, jazzlearning

Here is Gale Lawson, a wizard with horns (and also a halo, if you look carefully). The valves of my Phatterboy Eb Flugelhorn had been sticking and no amount of cleaning or drowning in valve oil seemed to free them up. Also, the main tuning slide and the first valve slide were too free-moving. The [...]

Cycling to work

July 9th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

I’m always delighted to find yet another studio in London that I didn’t previously know about. There seem to be hundreds, tucked away in all sorts of hidden corners and I’m lucky enough to live within cycling distance of a good many of them. I went to Sphere Studio for the first time yesterday.  It’s [...]

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Iván Fischer

April 2nd, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

This photo was taken after our final rehearsal in New York when Iván Fischer arranged for his two orchestras to meet each other. Members of the Budapest Festival Orchestra who had been attending our rehearsal came up onto the stage to mingle, shake hands and pose with us for photographs taken from the back of [...]

Royal Albert Hall

April 2nd, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, photos

I love the Royal Albert Hall. It’s beautiful to look at whether you’re inside it or outside. Here’s an unusual view of it:

Letter from London Chamber Orchestra management.

April 1st, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

Dear LCO Musicians You will undoubtedly hear this from the MU shortly. We have been made aware of a new EU Directive of payments made to unskilled workers. It says that fees paid to orchestral players should be calculated on the number of notes played per concert. As wind and brass players play fewer notes [...]

Carl Geyer – Chicago – July 9th, 1961

March 31st, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in OLDperformances, hornplaying

I have a beautiful new horn. It was made by Carl Geyer in 1961. I’m told that the number shows the date of its completion, thus: month (July), day (9th) year (’61) If you know anything interesting about Geyer’s wonderful horns I’d be very happy to hear about it. I’m extremely grateful to Tony Halstead [...]

“After hearing the OAE’s brass, I never want to go back to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”

March 29th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

The quote is from another review of the first OAE concert in New York. ……If it requires period instruments to render Beethoven like this, then by all means let’s all buy some 18th century flutes. But I don’t think it does. The attention to detail and precision came out of an ensemble which has re-evaluated all of [...]

Horn section all named in New York Times review

March 29th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

“And the ensemble’s three hornists — Phillip Eastop, Martin Lawrence and Gavin Edwards — played with an impressive unity and spot-on intonation.” Read the whole review here:

Fleet and frothy in New York

March 29th, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

It’s so nice to get a good review, particularly when it’s somewhere culturally significant – New York, for example: “One of the highlights for me tonight was the truly magnificent work by the horns, who played both with incredible accuracy and wonderful fullness of tone. In the hunting episodes of the “Eroica’s” scherzo they were [...]

Sir Charles Mackerras and The Philharmonia Orchestra

March 23rd, 2010  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying

I was recently (December 2009) very fortunate to spend a week working with the Philharmonia Orchestra as their guest principal horn. The conductor was Sir Charles Mackerras and we played two concerts the Royal Festival Hall. Concert 1: Wagner night: Overture & Venusberg Music Tannhäuser Prelude & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde Götterdämmerung (excerpts). Concert [...]

Teaching a beginner

December 3rd, 2009  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, hornteaching

This blog entry is quite a large one. It’s taken from a much earlier version of my website (8 years ago) and I’m re-publishing it here because lots of people have requested to read it again since it disappeared a year or two ago in the re-write and re-design of my website. Teaching my first [...]

The starts of notes

December 2nd, 2009  |  by Pippington  |  published in hornplaying, hornteaching

I’d like to try to explain why the quality of the starts of notes is so important and I’ll start off by saying something which may sound surprising, or even silly: After you start the note, nobody is listening any more. They are still hearing you – but they’re not hearing what you are playing [...]

Lulu – performance 1

June 5th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

Congratulations to everyone in last night’s performance of Lulu! (I have to exclude all those I couldn’t hear from where I was sitting – celli, violas, basses, brass, singers) Hell, no, congratulations to everyone! It really was quite something. Antonio Pappano (conductor) is pretty frightening guy – I’ve never known anyone with such apparently limitless [...]

Eviction!!!!

June 4th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

(Please note: this has nothing whatever to do with hornplaying…..) Well, almost eviction. I had a narrow escape. I live in a very nice flat in West Norwood. I’ve been here for about 15 months and I’ve been really quite happy with it. Imagine my consternation when an eviction notice was delivered through the letterbox. [...]

Lulu at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

June 4th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

I’ve been working at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for some weeks now. At first it was Donizetti’s awful, “L’Elisir d’Amour”. Why awful? Because the first horn part is unremitting torture and is UTTERLY boring. I really resent horn parts which will only get you noticed if you make a mistake. I hated playing [...]

Luggage: You can’t take it with you…

March 26th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

The worst thing about this particular trip is the travel. Today, for example, we had to get from Krakow to Budapest. We did this by means of two flights: Krakow to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Budapest. To put this into perspective, try to imagine flying from Manchester to London with a short stop-over in the [...]

S.C.O. Scotland and Eastern Europe tour

March 25th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

I’m away again with Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this time for concerts in Perth (Scotland), Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bydgoszcz and Krakow (Poland), Budapest (Hungary) and Istanbul (Turkey). The best thing about this trip is the music. All seven concerts are of the same program, which includes two of Mozart’s greatest piano concertos, in C minor and Bb [...]

Terminator Salvation

March 15th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

This is a view from the balcony of Air Lyndhurst Studio of the horn section for “Terminator Salvation“.  The players are: Back row, left to right:  Richard Berry – Lawrence Davies – Myself – Martin Owen.  Front row, left to right: Richard Clewes – Jim Rattigan – Nigel Black – Richard Bissill – David Pyatt [...]

Accentuate The Positive

March 5th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

(Photo by Martin Owen) Here’s the excellent Andy Wood with me this afternoon at Angel Studios, Islington, London. Andy is normally a trombonist but here he is playing the baritone, a fine and noble instrument, sadly much maligned for its resemblance to an anorexic euphonium.  We were adding a bit of brass band flavour to [...]

Kolkata (Calcutta)

February 11th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

“Kolkata”, sounds like the name of an opera by Janacek. I much prefer “Calcutta”, with its whiff of Gilbert & Sullivan and afternoon tea. After the hotel welcoming rituals of melon juice, flowers and a friendly bullet through the forehead, the first thing that happened was that my horn broke (see “my (other) horn broke“). [...]

Mumbai

February 8th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

The first city of our tour was Mumbai. I’ve no idea why its name has been altered and de-romanticised. I much prefer the old name, Bombay, and I don’t think the Indian film industry would do well to change its name to “Mumbywood”. On arriving in the rather comfortable Trident Hotel hotel at Nariman Point [...]

Six Indian Cities with Scottish Chamber Orchestra

February 6th, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

It is my very good fortune to be invited along on a tour of India with Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Over a period of two weeks we will play concerts in six cities: Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Delhi.

My horn broke

January 3rd, 2009  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

I went with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, to Budapest to play a New Year’s Day concert of Haydn’s Creation.  My horn went ahead of me in the orchestra’s truck, in a nice big padded crate, along with the basses, timps etc. When I got my horn out for the rehearsal – this was New Year’s Eve – [...]

Christmas picture

December 25th, 2008  |  by admin  |  published in hornplaying

Any excuse to get a photo in here…. Strictly speaking, this has nothing to do with playing the horn, but at least it was taken from the back of one of the three London Philharmonic Orchestra coaches. We were on our way to the concert hall to play a concert.  It’s not really my cup [...]

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