Horn (instrument) a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts. Variations include: As the name indicates, people originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. This original usage survives in the shofar (), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals. The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called ("keren") in Hebrew, "qarnu" in Akkadian, and ("keras") in Greek. The "olifant" or "oliphant" (an abbreviation of the French "cor d'olifant"/"oliphant", "elephant horn") was the name applied in
Horn (instrument) opera "I trionfi del fato" (produced in 1695 in Hanover) also used horns. At about this same time the horn began to appear as a solo instrument. An anonymous "Sonata da caccia con un cornu" from before 1680 found in a manuscript in Kroměříž sets a "cor à plusieurs tours" against two violins, two violas, and basso continuo, and a "Sonata venatoria" from 1684 by Pavel Josef Vejvanovský calls for two "trombae breves", which probably also means spiral horns, though hooped horns are not out of the question. A particularly significant composition is a Concerto à 4 in B by