"The bassoon is one of my favourite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sounds like that. Some people crave baseball... I find this unfathomable, but I could easily understand why a person would get excited about playing the bassoon." -Frank Zappa
The origination of the bassoon is similar to that of the oboe. It was first invented in about 1650, and by the 1700's it had approximately 4-8 keys.In the 1800's additional keys were experimented with, but the tone quality began to suffer. The Heckel family from Germany finally created a bassoon with more keys (therefore a greater range) without diminishing the tone. Many professionals today still play the Heckel Company's bassoons.
Being the lowest playing woodwind (other than the contrabassoon, of course), the bassoon can create a wide variety of sound timbres depending on the notes: low, medium, or high. In the low range, the bassoon is immensely powerful and intimidating. The medium range is incredibly loud and does indeed sound a bit like a duck on steroids. The highest range of the bassoon sounds like nothing else, and hardly like it was produced by such a large instrument
From the tip of the bassoon's reed, through the bocal, and twisting around the rest of the instrument from head joint to bell, the air in a bassoon is travelling almost 9 feet! Needless to say, because the bassoon is so large, most players have large hands or long fingers. It is also wise to have played a different instrument before switching to the bassoon [Personally, I played the clarinet for 4 years before moving to the bassoon].
Producing an even lower, more dominating sound, the contrabassoon is almost twice as long as a regular bassoon. It is often called the, "clown of the orchestra" for it's individual shape [picture to be added at a later date].
Zenguin Productions - purchase bassoon merchandise!
Unfinished
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