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Topic: Bassoon family  (Read 3286 times)

Offline Cecin_Koot

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Bassoon family
on: January 16, 2005, 08:36:21 AM
I have one instrument left in the woodwind family to learn about, then i will move into brass, i already know about strings and percusion, but i don't know much on the bassoon or the bassoon family. 

I know there is the regular bassoon and it is pitched low, and i know there is a contrabassoon and it is lower, and i know there is a latain name for bassoon whcih means pile of sticks.  I have heard that there is an instrument called Quart Bassoon, and one called Quint Bassoon, but i aren't sure.  Can anyone please tell me about the bassoon family

Offline Cecin_Koot

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #1 on: January 18, 2005, 12:18:48 AM
I didn't think so

come on please anyone?

there must be someone out there who knows about the bassoon family

Offline DarkWind

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #2 on: January 18, 2005, 06:07:26 AM
Well, what exactly do you want to know about the Bassoon? It's a fairly versatile instrument, can play rather fast passages, sounds great in the mid lower range. Stravinsky uses it's high range for the famous opening motif Le Sacre du Printemps, this alone scaring away a muttering Saint-Saens rambling about how a bassoon shouldn't play so high. The contrabassoon is a slow, heavy instrument, and it takes awhile for the notes to play. Not ideal for a solo instrument in the presto of a final movement of a symphony. Ravel uses it wisely to introduce the first melody in his Left Hand Piano Concerto. Also, there is a popular quote by Sir Thomas Beecham that goes something like this:

"Mr. contrabassoon, may I trouble you to play your lowest note?"
"Ppthhhh" obliged the contrabassoon player.
"And a semitone higher, please, if you would be so kind."
"Ppthhhh."
"Thank you, If I may trouble you just once more, a further semitone higher."
"Ppthhhh."
"I see. Well, just play any notes you like."

:). As you can see, the contrabasoon has a pretty booming, low, register. I remember reading that some of the lowest notes on a bass clarinet and contrabassoon can cause the air around it to disrupt. Anyways, the contrabassoon is good for deep, slow, heavy, lumbering passages. A light, joyous, scherzo, for instance, would not benefit from the tone of a contrabassoon.

Offline pianodoc

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #3 on: January 20, 2005, 08:14:24 PM

Offline Cecin_Koot

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #4 on: January 26, 2005, 08:16:30 AM
thanks guys, well that helps me with the bassoon and contrabassoon but no one has heard of the Quint and Quart Bassoons

Offline theodopolis

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #5 on: January 26, 2005, 12:21:52 PM
Just as the oboe has the Heckelphone as it's bass equivalent, what is the Bassoon's treble equivalent?
Does anyone else here think the opening of Liszt's 'Orage' (AdP - Suisse No.5) sounds like the Gymnopedie from Hell?

Offline Cecin_Koot

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #6 on: February 06, 2005, 05:35:18 AM
Just as the oboe has the Heckelphone as it's bass equivalent, what is the Bassoon's treble equivalent?


the Quint and Quart Bassoons?

Offline alzado

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #7 on: February 27, 2006, 11:41:24 PM
I didn't imagine there would be a bassoon family, so much as the woodwind family.  Within the woodwind family, the bassoon and its cousins would be included among the double reed instruments.

This group is best known today for the bassoon, of course; the cor anglais, or English Horn; and the oboe.  There are some historic instruments such as the oboe d'amore that were popular during Bach's time and are occasionally seen today, usually -- when needed -- played by the oboist. 

Hope you go ahead and learn one of the double-reed instruments.  They have interesting richness and character.

Offline pianolist

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #8 on: February 28, 2006, 12:30:05 AM
Nice story about Beecham, but then they all are! Bassoons and contras can be insidiously humorous. I went to a bassoonist friend's birthday party yesterday, and he had a CD of the Caliban Bassoon Quartet, who managed to bring a certain pizazz to Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. Long ago I used to play Scott Joplin arrangements with four other bassoonists.

Rumour has it that Stravinsky wrote for the high register of the bassoon because he didn't want the start of the Rite to be too easy to play, so that a certain nervousness would communicate itself to the audience. Nowadays, of course, even high school bassoonists take it in their stride.

I was at a performance of the Rite in 2004 at the Proms in London. The Berlin Philharmonic was playing, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Rattle had raised his hand at the start, and the bassoon had just started playing. All of a sudden, an appallingly loud mobile phone started ringing - didi da da didi da da didi da da da - you know the tune. Everyone in the Royal Albert Hall froze. Rattle calmly put his hand up like a traffic policeman, and stopped the poor bassoonist in his tracks.

After a short pause, they started again, but the whole audience was on the edge of its seats. I shouldn't want such a thing to happen on a regular basis, but it certainly restored the nervousness to the situation. Apparently the bassoonist received a bumper postbag of mail the next day, from Proms enthusiasts apologising for the unthoughtfulness of one of their number.
Yes, it's the 10,000th member ...

Offline clef

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #9 on: April 09, 2006, 03:08:01 AM
The head of Wind at our school can do some hilerious things with a bassoon.  Once he put a glove on the top of it and played into the glove...  he's a joke...

Offline jlh

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Re: Bassoon family
Reply #10 on: April 09, 2006, 07:35:26 AM
I know that the bassoon is also called a fagott, meaning "bundle of sticks" in German, and fagotto in Italian -- both come from the word fagot (also spelled faggot).  More info can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassoon
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