An old French Horn

After a very long week and a half, we have our repaired and cleaned French Horn back. This year Ryan is joining the school band to play French Horn. I'm very excited for him. I played the French Horn when I was younger. It's such a neat instrument. The thing I loved about it, it always played it's own part. If you are listening to a band or symphony play and you hear that one horn part that is off doing it's own thing - that's the French Horn. It's such a mellow sound. The other reason I am so excited for him to play this is because he is playing the actual horn that I played. But not only did I play this horn as a kid, so did two of my brothers - Warren & Kelly. And each of us have such fond memories of playing this instrument. We were trying to decide how old this horn is and I believe it to be just older than me. My brother Warren still had the horn after all these years and we brought it home from his house a couple weeks ago. After finally talking Ryan into playing it, we took it to a local music store to be sent out for repairs. And we got it back last night. Here are the before and after pictures I took of the our French Horn.

Resting in it's case:

At home after the repairs, it only looks darker in this photo because the picture was taken in a room with less lighting, it is still the same color:

The bell of the horn had quite a few creases in it before:
And after, much smoother:

The bottom of it was pretty dented up:

Look at how smooth they got it:

They even repaired the brace piece here:

Got to love this case! It's the original. When we opened it up in the store to look at the repairs, it smelled exactly as I remember it smelling all those years ago when I would open it up everyday to play and practice.

Of course, the dogs had to smell just about every inch of the horn. I had to take this picture of Sam with the horn. He is such a funny dog. Before we took it in for repairs, we got it out and blew on it a little. Sam just had to "sing" along with it. Sam does not have the best singing voice around. Ryan can't wait to play on it again because he wants to make Sam sing again. I'm sure the neighbors will just love that!