Thoughts on bassooning

Much is learned through the brute force of years of experience, but much can still be mentioned for others to learn, or just listed for a future reminder if necessary.

Keeping the instrument more upright takes weight off the left hand and helps technique, as well as avoiding fatigue.

Likewise keeping the head straight and upright as part of good posture will improve playing.

Reeds-- about as much attention to cane condition must be paid as to balancing when finishing a reed.  By this I mean how much the reed has been worked on at one sitting, and how long it's been resting without being worked on or played.  One must become sensitive to a new reed getting waterlogged and unresponsive due to lots of scraping, and not confuse it with it being unresponsive due to being unbalanced or just too heavy.  Ideally one will allow a reed to rest several days between scrapings, though that may not always be possible if new reeds are needed to perform.  Sometimes a new reed that doesn't seem to have much promise will come around after an extended period of rest, like a month or more.  This could also be due to a change in the weather, going from one season to the next, which some pieces of cane seem to need.  However, when a well rested new reed responds well, it often becomes harder fairly quickly, indicating that it needs to be broken in gradually by playing it several times.  A reed will come to work about as much by playing it in as by scraping and balancing.  The more a reed is scraped at one sitting, the more it will need to rest before being worked on again.

Balancing a reed to be of equal thickness on either side of the spine on each blade yields good response.  Each blade must be balanced by itself for the reed to work, so that each blade will vibrate evenly.  Balancing this way removes impediments to vibration, which should go evenly from the tip to the back.

5/5/08

Non-sequitur alert-- if you ever have the urge to go back and look at your old photos, resist it.  Trust me.

When performing, you just have to know that you can do whatever it is that is needed-- soft control, technique, intonation, etc.  It's the head game-- any self doubt will mess you up.  

Being well and thoroughly warmed up is a great aid to performing well.  All the various needed skills must be worked on and maintained, like technique, intonation, support, even rhythm, tone quality, vibrato, double tonguing, dynamics, etc.