The musical instrument natural horn is the ancestor of the modern-day french horn differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:

• Modulating the lip tension as done with modern brass instruments.
• Changing the length of the instrument by switching the crook. This is a rather slow process. Before the advent of the modern valved horn many ideas were attempted to speed up the process of changing the key of the instrument. See The Cyber Horn Museum for more information on this.
• Changing the position of the hand in the bell referred to as handhorn technique .

This instrument was used extensively until the emergence of the valved horn in the early 19th century.