Half-stopped horn tone
A horn tone with the hand only partly closing the bell — half-stopped.
What it means
The half-stopped tone is a horn technique in which the right hand only partly, not fully, closes the bell. The resulting sound is more muted than an open tone but less sharp and metallic than a fully stopped tone.
Musical use
While a fully stopped tone almost completely closes the hand opening, producing a knife-edged, often nasal sound roughly a semitone sharper, the half-stopped technique leaves a small gap open, giving a softer, muted color without the characteristic pitch shift. This intermediate color is used when composers want a muted but non-cutting sound; it requires the player to gauge the exact degree of hand closure carefully to reach the desired color reliably. It differs both from the fully stopped tone and from a mute, which is a separate object inserted into the bell and produces yet another, usually brighter sound.
Performance practice
Practise the half-stopped tone by varying the hand position in the bell in small steps, listening closely for the point where the sound tips into its characteristic muted color without a noticeable pitch shift.