I'm playing through the vivaldi bassoon concerto in E minor for fun and it says to trill E. The only trill fingering I've found online is the normal E fingering + trill the high Eb key. Is there any better fingering?

provide links please

I’m not completely new to bassoon but I’m pretty new and so I need a couple pointers, anything helps! Thanks!

im specifically looking for anywhere that has weissenborn etude no.22 or if anyone has just like the music in general?

hello guys! i want to ask something and i dont have better place to ask haha. Anyone here was in the Oacademy? Its worth it? bc its 2k, so its a little bit of money. Anyone hear some experiencies? Its really helpfull to know whatever you have to say, so help me pls. Thanks

I was kinda arguing with my private teacher (we're chill like that and she doesn't take it to be disrespect from me) about this and I wanted yalls opinions. When I flick my A, I play the 4th left thumb key (so 2nd from the top) while my teacher tells me to use the 3rd left thumb key (middle). I think that 3 generally makes it a worse quality sound so the tone sounds off while flicking with 4 produces a tone similar to G and similar to playing A without any flick keys while using 3 generally gives it a harsher sound (in my opinion). I was wondering, for those of you who flick/vent your A's, do you use 4 or 3 (or something else)?

I’ve noticed as a rehearsal goes on, the crow in my reed becomes weaker and weaker compared to when I’m warming up.
I’ve played on many makes and shapes of reeds, different instruments and bocals I’ve used over the years, as I also don’t make my own reeds right now and it seems to be consistent issue, with me at least.
This makes low note passages fairly weak, and poorly attacked as this progresses.

Does anyone know why this happens? Is the reed closing slowly as I play on it?
Sometimes a reed is too open and I close it very slightly at the start of the night and undo it as the night goes on to make up for some of this weakness.
Overall, maybe I’m scraping something wrong for it to be a common issue across a variety of reeds. Or is this just normal and we are supposed to switch reeds at intermission?

Hello all! I’m currently in my second year of playing and am on a loaner Linton with a beat up case, was wondering what case I should look into to both offer more protection and storage, and to customize with stickers and what not. I see string players in youth orchestra with their stickers on case and would love to have something like that! Any recommendations are appreciated greatly! (Also will be traveling, potentially internationally so safe for planes and whatnot!)

Tldr: What are your experiences with Nexus woodwind shapers?
Hi fellow bassoonists,
wanting to try new shapes, is something that I assume most bassonists want. I make my own reeds and really wanted to try the Herzberg shape. I saw that there was a copy by a company called Nexus Woodwinds and the well known copy from Bell, that was more than double the price. I ended up getting the one from Bell, because I didn't want to buy twice.
Has anyone experience with the Nexus shapers? I saw a Christlied Narrow copy for 120 USD - don't know what Fox charges, but I assume 300+
Is it worth getting the Fox, or would you go with the Nexus or even just a Rieger straight shaper copy? The latter are the easiest for me to get, since I am located in Germany.

i've been playing for a little over two months and i have made very very fast progress apparently (my band director said i was but i refuse to believe it because of the g) and ever since i started playing i could do my b flat scale well except the G i hate it! its the only note i recognize in less then a second because i hate it so much! i play any other note clearly except G and i have no idea why, can someone please help

Im kinda new to bassoon, stared in september, and in my case i noticed there are 2 bocals called c2 and c3 i think is what they say. I was just eondering what the diffrence between the two are and which one would be better to play.

Hi sorry if its been asked but i was just wondering how else I can improve on fast passages (mainly its two chromatic scales going up) other than slowly going faster on the metronome bc ive spent abt 30 mins on two small bars and im not seeing much progress

For context im practicing Elgars romance (op62) and Webers concerto in F major (1st movt) for my grade 8

Also if anyone has specific advice for those two pieces I would love to know

Thanks!

Has anyone played Aires Tropicales by Paquito D’Rivera? I’m having the worst time with the solo in the second movement, Son. When playing it with a metronome I have zero issues but when playing it in context with the horn playing the groove I can’t do it. The groove sounds like it’s on the downbeat but it’s not and it throws me off. I’ve recorded the groove and tried practicing with it with and without a metronome and I still can’t feel it. Any advice?

I was super into bassoon growing up, through high school. I also went kind of all in with reed making, had all the tools, even a profiler! However, I found the reed making process really stressful and exhausting, since I'd invest all this time, like my whole Sunday, and then the reeds don't come out good, and never knowing what to do to get them to play as I want. If memory serves, "reed anxiety" if you will, also cast a dark shadow of anxiety over many performances to the point where I was more worried if I'd have a good reed on the day than any issues about my technical ability. I think that probably was the biggest contributor to me deciding to completely abandon the instrument after high school.

It's 15 years later now, and after some time away from playing, I have a bit of a renewed interest in the instrument, at least as a listener, and maybe even playing at an amateur level (with local adult amateur orchestras/ensembles/etc). But I also have family, a career, and other time commitments which means I can't (and don't want to) invest in reed making as it's just not fun for me.

So I was wondering, if I were to get back into playing, is it feasible to get by completely on buying high quality reeds from people online? And putting very little to nearly no effort at all into learning to modify the reeds that I get? Because if I can, then I might take up the instrument again, but if not then there's really no point. I never actually bought reeds before, always made my own, so have no idea how "finished" they are, or how consistent/well they play.

I've been reading Thore Catalogues and I've came accross a feature of their bassoons which is called Eb Vent Key. Does anybody have an idea of what this could be? If someone can send a picture of the specific key and inform of it's purpose it'd be very much appreciated.

Best regards.

 For some context I’m in a high school band and I’ve been a tenor sax up until this point. I’ve been given the chance to play bassoon but I don’t have anyone to teach me since I’ll be the only one in my band program and there is not a teacher anywhere close. I’ve been saving up to get online lessons but I’ve still got a long ways to go. 
 Concert season has officially started and I’m now on bassoon but I’ve quickly found out my self teaching has a lot of issues because quite frankly I suck and have no idea what I’m doing. My band director has also been saying I should just switch back to sax but I really want to give bassoon a fair chance because I really love the sound of it and I want to play bassoon in an orchestra when I graduate. 
 Ive been using the Jones Double Reed bassoon fingering chart and watching Building a Bassoonist but I feel like there really isn’t much free resources out there. 

Here are some more specific questions you can probably answer: *How to adjust/work on tuning *How to work on having that classic bassoon tone *How to work on upper register for bass clef *Advice for awkward fingerings like: -High F to high A -low G to low ledger line D *How to control air and dynamics

 Honestly just give me advice in general. I know I should really get lessons but right now I just can’t afford it but if you have any resources or any habits I should avoid you should comment.
 Also if you want to look at the music I’m playing and talk about it I’d be more than happy to show you.
  Thank you so much to the people who comment and give me advice y’all are real for that anyway I’ll conclude my post now.

Hey everyone! A few weeks ago, I asked for some testers to try out my reed-organizing app, and now it’s officially live on the Google Play Store!

So if you want to check it out now, here’s the Play Store link. And if you have any ideas or feedback, feel free to write me a message!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ReedOrganizer.reedorganizerv00

For one reason or another my tuning is VERY bad; it has come to my attention that it is not my bocal or instrument's fault (a professional bassoonist checked it.)

Now, yeah, my reed definitely has something to do with it. But I don't believe that my OPEN F can be 35 cents flat and my Bb (sitting on top of the staff) can be almost 50 CENTS SHARP.

So yeah, is there anything I can do? Sorry for the lackk of into I'm kinda new to doing this stouff

My region auditions are in 30 days and while I don’t care if I don’t make a band I do care if I’m even able to play the music. So far I can only play three lines of the first etude which is two pages and I still have two other etudes that for some reason I can’t learn. Does anyone have any tips especially from someone playing the same etude or has learned the same one

Etudes 1, 9, and 21 from Fifty Concert Studies Opus 26, L. Milde

A few years ago I moved to a school district that didn't have an orchestra so I started off with string bass and I'm learning bass clarinet this year.

I still play cello outside of school and I enjoy it the most out of the other instruments I play but I also admire the timbre and the amount of opportunities you get with the bassoon. Cello, like all bowed string instruments is very hard, and bassoon from what I've been told is even harder than.

It seems like in band they almost never make use of the upper ranges of bass clarinet or string bass, unlike cello in orchestra where they use the full range of the instrument, which is another thing I like about bassoon, that they use much more of its range compared to bass clarinet. I'm just worried that by trying to become good at two extremely hard instruments I'll never become good at either. I don't want to give up cello to play bassoon. So I'm wondering if I should stick to bass clarinet in band or if it's worth it to start learning bassoon next year.

Played bassoon from 6th-10th grade for 5 school years but stopped playing due to quitting my Highschool bands. I was the #1 bassoonist in my district when I played in Highschool and often was playing with my instructors city orchestra at a decently high level. Looking to get back into playing as a recent inspiration has sparked me and a army recruiter reached out to me about the army band. Currently just going through my old theory books starting from the beginning and working through, still remember all the fingering and basic techniques but my embouchure is crap and overall playing quality is not the best. Any advice on how to kinda pick up where I left off so to speak haha.

Hi all. So I live in Canada, and we don't have a store that stocks dozens of bocals to test. Cross-border shipping would be a problem due to duties and taxes.

I'm an intermediate Bassoonist playing on a 1 year old Fox 240 with T2 and T3 bocals. My dream is a bocal that will make my instrument speak at all dynamics, articulations and play all notes in tune (plus make my coffee and clean my apartment).

Is it worth buying a Heckel or Trofimov bocal sight unseen? Or am I better off just keeping my current bocals?

I’ve come across some very helpful fingering suggestions here, so I was hoping someone could help. My Bflat 4 is usually flat. Is there an alternative fingering that would help?

I use left hand- two keys above whisper, 1,2,3. Right hand 1,2 and pancake. I learned it with left hand pinky on top key, but that lowers the pitch even more so I’m trying to unlearn that.

Hey! I've been playing for about 6.5 years now, and I have always had this problem. When I play, I always bring my fingers out so far especially on higher notes. It's never really been a problem for me but now that I'm playing faster/harder music, my private lesson teacher said I should keep my fingers closer.

How do I work on fixing this??

Hey y'all,

I'm graduating from high school this year and looking to get an upgrade from my personal un-marked bassoon for university. I currently play on my school's Fox 220 with all the niceties like high E and D keys and even my no name has a high D-key.

I'm looking at this 1960's Puchner I saw online located not too far from me. However, it's missing all the higher keys like D and E. I've been doing my research and know that the 6k SN's for puchner are generally nice sounding instruments so that's why I was interested in this instrument but I also know that the importance of D key's are pretty subjective. I play generally difficult pieces that could definitely be aided with a D key but I'm not sure.

I'm planning on test playing it tomorrow afternoon and will hopefully have something to add about the quality of sound, but my main question is: do you think this could be worth it for where I am in my career?

Does anyone have hot to go sheet music for the bassoon?