FR bouché wind technique common Support my free tools
How is bouché played?
For ordinary hand stopping, seal the horn bell with the right hand sufficiently to produce the required stopped response; a stop mute may substitute only where the score, ensemble practice or performer decision permits it. Adjust fingering and intonation by ear for the instrument, horn side and register: a semitone compensation is common in parts of the range but is not a universal result of every stopped note. Preserve the written dynamic and articulation. The + sign can mark stopped notes and an open indication can end the passage, but symbols and words are separate notation channels and local legends govern their exact scope.
How does bouché sound?
The same pinched, metallic, brassy snarl as gestopft — veiled when soft, rasping and cutting when loud. Ravel reaches for exactly this hard, glinting horn colour.
In context
Bouché is the French stopped-horn term, related to German gestopft and Italian chiuso. Full stopping, partial covering, echo position, straight mute and stop mute are distinct even when their colours overlap; stopped tone can be compact, metallic or veiled depending on register and dynamic rather than one fixed snarl. Specialist sources write bouché in full and also use the graphic +. No textual candidate had three direct independent expansions of the exact headword, so bouché remains written out and + is not stored as its abbreviation.
Equivalent terms
- IT chiuso
- DE gestopft
- EN stopped