The Oliveros Interval Studies                                                        Written in 1959

    Through the years in teaching horn I have noticed an almost universal difficulty among students in hearing certain intervals correctly, principally 4th and 5ths, both ascending and descending.  Other intervals are hard to recognize by their unusual appearance, such as augmented 2nds, diminished 4ths and 5ths, etc. Disjunct melodic and contrapuntal lines in contemporary music frequently cause difficulty, so to combine these problems into concentrated studies in which the same intervals and relationships occur again and again on different degrees seemed the obvious way to approach a solution.

    Pauline Oliveros, a brilliant graduate student of composition and horn at San Francisco State College, undertook the composition of these horn interval studies at my request several months ago.  Together we work out an outline of what is needed, we decide what intervals to include, what limits will be placed on range, what the meter and rhythms will be, and place limits upon the general difficulty of the study.  With minimum and maximum limitations known she then proceeds with the composition of a study.

    We felt that the studies must not only contain problems recurring often enough so their solution becomes habitual, but should have recognizable musical form and artistic value.  This I feel she has accomplished in the studies presented here. There is need for more of the same type of material using different interval combinations, and we also recognize that there are gaps in the progression from easy to very difficult studies, both in range and rhythms. More studies are in sketch form, still more in planning stages, and it is hoped that in the near future a complete series of horn interval studies can be published under separate cover.

S. Earl Saxton