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) created the "Inventionshorn". It was first developed around 1750, and was refined and carried to much of Europe by the influential Giovanni Punto. This offered more possibilities for playing notes not on the harmonic series. By the early classical period, the horn had become an instrument capable of much melodic playing. A notable example of this are the four Mozart Horn Concerti and Concert Rondo (K. 412, 417, 477, 495, 371), wherein melodic chromatic tones are used, owing to the growing prevalence of hand-stopping and other newly emerging techniques. In 1818 rotary valves were introduced by Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich