I was just reading the aural thread in GMF, when I read a post from kenm about playing chords on the horn/trombone.

I've never heard of being able to do this : just out of interest, how can you do that?

Basically it is singing one note whilst playing another through the instrument. It can sound fantastic

I believe that to achieve this you play one note and "hum" another - but I'm sure someone with more specialist knowledge will be along soon with a full explanation.

OK, I see. Similar to what can be done on flute, then. Thanks Juniper!

You get four notes; the played note, the hummed note, and I am told: the sum and the difference. I don't know the maths of it.

If anyone wants a recorded example, this recording (Hermann Baumann playing the Gliere horn concerto- cadenza in first movement) is excellent. http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album....album_id=142621

Not all brass players can do this- I think only men can (and not all men at that) because the sung note has to be quite low. I don't know the maths of that either. I can't do it (i'm a female ex-horn player).

Welcome to the forums, corenfa!

What made you give up your horn? You sounded so happy with it when you posted in another thread. Have you taken up something new?

Thanks for the welcome!

I gave up horn because I moved to London, and lost my network of music connections. It was hard to do at the time, but I had also burnt out a bit from practicing too much for five years.

I miss playing in orchestra, but I don't miss music any more because- I am now re-learning the piano- I had piano lessons as a child but didn't take them seriously. Now that I've played in orchestras and studied music properly and played a wind instrument, piano playing is a lot "richer". I think I understand music better now and I am interested to see what I can do with the piano now. I was also lucky enough to have a really good horn teacher who taught me how to practice, and that ought to be applicable.

Of course I am also many years out of practice with piano, so actually getting back technically is proving to be... interesting. I'm also trying to do it myself without a teacher because I don't know if I can commit to regular lessons. We'll see how far I get. It is frustrating though when I play something that I know I played when I was doing grade 8, and I know I could technically do it, and now I can't get my fingers to move the right way.

Oops.. sorry I derailed this topic a bit

I'm sure I've heard somewhere (possibly from my piano teacher who also teaches brass) that you can play 2 notes at the same time by vibrating both lips at different speeds. I'm not sure whether this is true or not.

They're called multiphonics and there are loads of examples on YouTube.
There's no reason why women can't do it just as effectively as men.