Part of our guide to transposing a song to any key.
You have a melody, a lead sheet, or a recording, and you want a French horn to play it. Hand the player a concert-pitch part and it will come out a perfect fifth too low, because the horn is a transposing instrument. The modern French horn is a horn in F, and getting a part it can read means moving the music up by a specific interval. This guide explains what that interval is, why it differs from the trumpet and the saxophone, the range you have to respect, and the fastest way to produce a part the player can read straight off the stand.
The horn in F reads a fifth high
The standard modern French horn is a horn in F, which means the music written for it is notated a perfect fifth above concert pitch. Put another way, when the player reads a written G, the pitch you actually hear is a concert C, a perfect fifth lower. That gap is the whole reason a concert-pitch part does not work: read as written, it sounds a perfect fifth too low on the horn, so the part has to be raised to compensate. This is a different interval from the B-flat instruments such as the trumpet and clarinet, and different again from the E-flat instruments such as the alto sax. The horn sits in its own spot. If you have read about transposing instruments in general in what transposition actually means, the horn is one of the clearest cases of why the written page and the sounding pitch are not the same thing.
One historical wrinkle is worth knowing. Older orchestral horn parts were not always written in F. Before valves, players swapped in different lengths of tubing, called crooks, to put the instrument in the key of the piece, so a part might be written for horn in D, horn in E-flat, or several others, and the transposition for that part follows whichever crook the composer specified. That is why historical horn notation looks inconsistent from one score to the next. For anything you are writing today, the convention is simple: write for horn in F, a perfect fifth above concert.
How to transpose the part
The mechanical step is to move the concert-pitch music up a perfect fifth. A concert C becomes a written G for the horn, a concert F becomes a written C, a concert G becomes a written D, and so on for every note. The key signature shifts the same way: a piece in concert C major is written in G major for the horn, which adds one sharp. Do this consistently across the whole part and the player, reading their transposed page, produces the concert pitches you intended.
Range is the part you cannot ignore. Raising everything a perfect fifth pushes the top of a melody higher, and the horn's comfortable range, especially for an amateur or a student, is not unlimited. The high register on the horn is demanding, so a line that sat comfortably in the middle of a piano part can land uncomfortably high once it is written up a fifth. Before you call a part finished, look at the highest and lowest written notes and ask whether the specific player can handle them. If the top is too high, transposing the original down an octave first, or picking a lower-lying section of the melody, keeps the written part in a humane range. Because the same melody can suit different players, the broader mechanics of moving music between keys are covered in our guide to transposing a song to any key.
Why a fifth, not a whole step
It is reasonable to wonder why the horn moves by a perfect fifth when the trumpet moves by only a whole step. The answer is that every transposing instrument is named for the concert pitch it sounds when its player reads a written C, and that pitch is different for each one. A B-flat trumpet sounds a concert B-flat on a written C, which is a whole step down, so its part is written a whole step up. The modern horn in F sounds a concert F on a written C, which is a perfect fifth down, so its part is written a perfect fifth up. The interval is not arbitrary; it falls straight out of the instrument's fundamental key. The same logic explains the E-flat instruments: an alto sax sounds a concert E-flat on a written C, which is why its transposition is different again, as covered in transposing a song for alto or tenor sax. Once you think of each instrument as named by the note it sounds on a written C, the horn's perfect fifth stops looking strange.
Get the part from a recording
If what you actually have is a recording rather than written music, you can still produce a horn part without doing the arithmetic by hand. Songscription listens to the audio and writes out the notes as an editable score at concert pitch. From there you set the horn's reading key to F, which transposes the music up a perfect fifth for you, check the written range against the player, and export the part. You get a part written for the exact player and range in front of you, which a fixed published part cannot always offer. The work that used to mean note-by-note rewriting becomes setting one key and reading off the result.
Get a French horn part you can read off the stand
Upload a recording and get an editable score, then set the horn's reading key to F and export the transposed part. The free tier is enough to try it on one song.
Frequently Asked Questions
What key does a French horn read in?
The standard modern French horn is a horn in F, which means it reads a perfect fifth above concert pitch. When a horn player reads a written G, the note that sounds is a concert C, a perfect fifth lower. Older orchestral parts were written for horns built in other keys, using different crooks, which is why historical horn notation varies from one piece to the next, but modern practice writes the part in F.
How do I transpose a song for French horn?
To turn concert-pitch music into a horn in F part, move every note up a perfect fifth. A concert C becomes a written G for the horn, a concert F becomes a written C, and the key signature gains the same upward shift. If you hand a horn player a concert-pitch part, it will sound a perfect fifth too low. With Songscription you transcribe the recording to an editable score, set the horn's reading key to F, and export the part already transposed.
Why is the horn a perfect fifth and not a whole step like trumpet?
Transposing instruments are named for the concert pitch they sound when they play a written C, and that interval differs by instrument. A B-flat trumpet sounds a B-flat below its written C, a whole step down, so its part is written a whole step up from concert. The modern horn in F sounds an F below its written C, a perfect fifth down, so its part is written a perfect fifth up. The horn is simply built around a different fundamental than the B-flat instruments like trumpet and clarinet or the E-flat instruments like alto sax, so it has its own transposition interval.
Can I get a French horn part from a recording?
Yes. Upload the recording to Songscription and it writes out the notes as an editable score at concert pitch. From there you set the horn's reading key to F, which transposes the music up a perfect fifth, mind the playable range, and export a part the player can read directly, written for the exact range in front of you.
The fastest way to start is on the song you actually want the horn to play. Upload a recording with Songscription, set the reading key to F, and export the transposed horn part.
