Bassoon
Bassoon in C
The image above is what the Bassoonist sees, and
here (31K) is what someone standing in front
of the Bassoonist sees.
"The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma,
like the days when everything used to sound like that.
Some people crave baseball . . . I find this unfathomable,
but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about
playing the bassoon."
Frank Zappa
Reeds
Here (1K) is an outline drawing of a Bassoon reed.
You might think a Bassoonist is part mechanic if you look at some
of the tools that are used to make reeds.
The raw cane is gouged
and then cut with a profiler (66K)
which removes the bulk of the unwanted bark and cane to get
close to the desired profile.
While working on the reed, it is common to check the thickness of
the blades by using a dial indicator (28K)
which gently presses down on the reed with a spring-loaded arm,
connected to a dial which reads the thickness
in fractions of an Inch or Millimeter.
Music
Bassoonists are sometimes called upon to play solo passages that seem
impossible at first... Here are some:
The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart K492
The opening phrase (6K)
(repeated other places also)
would not be much of a problem except for the speed
(usually over 90 bpm to the HALF-note), and the dynamic.
It is fast enough that there is a
special fingering sequence
for it at the IDRS site.
Of course, it has to seem effortless...
Bolero, Ravel
The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky
Another Bassoon page (with links to many other pages):
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~tipler/bassoon.html
Check here for other instruments in
the double-reed family.
Last updated February 9, 1999.
John D. Balogh
