A Bassoon in the Hand

In Which I Finally Get To Grips With A Bassoon.

So there I was with a bassoon round my neck. I knew that the note you play with 3 fingers of your left hand is C. Not G as it would be on most wind instruments I know. Basically, think of it as a very big, heavy, Treble Recorder with lots of metalwork. And a crook. Right. And your thumb goes on a key that links to a little tit on the metal crook. This is called the crook key, or Whisper Key. And the crook is also called a bocal. How do you say that? BOcal? BuCAHl? No idea.

I blew on the reed, and, surprisingly, a note came out. I tried another. A very strange sound came out. "Multiphonics," said Pete, and left me to it. Sylvia suggested that maybe I was blowing too hard, as we both used to be trumpet players. I agreed, relaxed my embouchure, and tried a few more notes. Pete reappeared. "You look quite comfortable with the bassoon. Some people don't at all.”

Dismantling a bassoon and putting it away in its case is as much of a ritual as assembling the instrument. A ritual, because it has to be done in the correct order.  But I’ll come back to that later because the voice in my head is reminding me that the events I am recounting in this post took place on April 16th, and today is May 28th, so I’d better bring this blog up to date PDQ!

I’d already arranged for Dawn to look the instrument over for approval the following Friday, and she had recommended a tutor, Abracadabra by Jane Sebba. So I paid for that, and took the bassoon it on the understanding that if Dawn said it was no good I would bring it back the following week. Sylvia bought some pencils that change colour with the heat of your hand, and a scarf as a present for her sister Phoebe.

"Welcome", said Pete as we left the shop, "to the wonderful world of reeds."

And then we set off with a bassoon in the back of my car. To look at more cars on the way home.

Road Trip

In Which I Had A Sub-Heading But Deleted It By Mistake And Can't For The Life Of Me Remember What It Said.

Sylvia • 18 Apr, 17:47 Might have to go to Lincoln for a car.
Me • 18 Apr, 17:47 oo when?
Sylvia • 18 Apr, 17:47 wednesday?
Me • 18 Apr, 17:48 I’m going to Nottingham on Wednesday. I suppose Lincoln could be on the way...
Sylvia • 18 Apr, 17:48 ah... well it could be. y u go to notts?
Me • 18 Apr, 17:50 for a bassoon
Sylvia • 18 Apr, 17:50 for a BASSOOONNNNN????
                                    u want a bassoooooonnn???


Following an unfortunate encounter with a St Johns ambulance whose driver dropped his clipboard and while trying to get it out from under the pedals kangarooed into the back of her Peugeot, Sylvia was in need of a new car, or at least a different one. I had promised to go with her for company and support.

I set off the following Wednesday, collected Sylvia in Rotherham, and set my GPS for Derby Road, Nottingham, and places which were more or less on the way. After inspecting various suitable and unsuitable vehicles in Nottinghamshire villages, and after finding out we were going the wrong way on what was probably the wrong Derby Road, we finally reached Windblowers on time.

We were shown into a small room surrounded by various beautiful instruments in glass cases, and Pete brought in the bassoon. He assembled it for me, and explained that it was still a bit flat. “Exactly how flat?” I asked. Pete, after explaining that he wasn’t a bassoonist, proceeded to play it into an auto tuner. The needle swung violently in all directions, so it didn’t really tell me much. He then let me play it.

The whole point of the Grade 1 Challenge is to learn an instrument you’ve never played before. I have actually handled a bassoon. Many years ago (I think I was about 12) when I was learning to play the trumpet, the vicar of our parish church, Horace Dammers, allowed us kids to form a sort of orchestra in the vicarage. I can remember the trombonist, who always managed to play the last note! After “rehearsals” we all tried out each other’s instruments. Chris, the vicar’s son, played the bassoon. I was fascinated by the complicated array of levers, rods and keys, especially the ones with rollers so your finger could slide from one to the other. I certainly had a go on it, although I’m not sure what sort of sound if any I was able to produce, what with the noise of everyone else blowing and scraping unfamiliar instruments. (A few years ago I met Horace Dammers’ widow in Bristol Cathedral. She remembered me, and said how much she had enjoyed the little orchestra in her front room. The instrument swapping, she said, was the best part.)

Bassoon soon!

In Which I Surprise A Bassoonist

Before setting off for Nottingham I decided to get in touch with any bassoon players I knew.  I'd been a member, a founder member in fact, of a West Gallery quire called Bristol Harmony,  and they had a bassoon player. And the leader of  Bristol Harmony, Toby Parker, was on Facebook. I sent him a message telling him what I was doing, and asking for the bassoonist's details. I then sent Jim, for that is his name, an email, asking for any advice he could give me, other than "don't even think about it at your age!”

His reply was encouraging.  "Good luck - the bassoon is a good wind instrument to take up in mid or later life - it's not physically all that taxing.  All you need is a mechanical mind and lots of money!" He is still playing at the age of 80, which made me feel strangely confident.

I called Windblowers and arranged to try the Artia the following Wednesday. I called Dawn and arranged a lesson the Friday after.

em·bou·chure [ɑ̃buʃyʁ]:

In Which I Waffle On About The Internet.

There's quite a lot of information on the internet about bassoons. More than you'd imagine. There’s advice about buying an instrument. [N.B. Bassoon prices range from Small Car to Medium Sized House.] There are fingering charts. Lots of them. But they're not very informative if you haven’t got an instrument in front of you. Or attached to you. There’s also a lot of stuff about embouchure. That’s the shape you have to make with your mouth in order to get a sound out of a wind instrument. (from the French: la bouche: mouth. But you knew that of course.) 

The bassoon has a double reed which you need to support with your lips all round, like the spokes of a wheel. So you put your lips as if you were whistling, or blowing someone a kiss. (Insert obligatory Lauren Bacall reference* here.) And then there’s the overbite. Which you must have. Or must not have. Depending what you read. And that’s where it gets complicated. And where I stopped reading contradictory information on the internet and arranged to GO AND GET A BASSOON!








*(You know how to whistle don’t you, Steve. You just put your lips together and ... blow. From the 1944 film To Have And Have Not directed by Howard Hawks, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Walter Brennan.) 

In business!

In Which I Find Both A Teacher And An Instrument.

On 24th March I had an email from Judith at Making Music asking me if I'd found a teacher and an instrument. I replied that I was still looking for both. Judith then came back with the name and phone number of a teacher in my area, Dawn Allenby, and the name of a music shop in Sheffield. How exciting!

I rang Dawn. She sounded very nice and lively, and told me what makes of bassoon I should consider. She also told me about a musical instrument shop in Nottingham which she thought might be able to help. So I phoned them. They are called Windblowers and they were expecting me. They had an Artia, which they had had in their workshop for some time, and had very nearly managed to bring up to concert pitch. They could let me have it for £600, and I could take it away and let Dawn check it over. I was in business!

The challenge

In Which I Entertain The Notion Of Learning The Bassoon

Take up an instrument you've never played before and learn it to Grade 1 before the end of the year. That was Making Music’s Grade 1 Challenge.  I chose the bassoon. I’d had a thing about the bassoon for a while. You’ve got to love a bassoon. It’s the, well, woody sound. Organic. And so human. 
The bassoon is the clown of the orchestra: the grumpy grandfather in Peter and the Wolf, Charles Laughton staggering back from the pub and falling down the cellar in Hobson's Choice, Tony Hancock's sig. tune of course. No, that’s a tuba. But it's also the sinister unstoppable broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the cavorting trolls in the Hall of the Mountain King. And there's always a bassoon solo in Midsomer Murders - just before somebody turns round, smiles, and says "Oh it's you..." and then it's the adverts and you know they're going to be a squidgy mess when you come back after the break.
Perhaps at the back of my mind was the thought that I wouldn't be able to find an affordable instrument, and that no teacher would take me on at my age. (I'm 65. I know; I don't look it, but thank you for saying so.) I'd played the trumpet at school, and various folk instruments since, and I sing in a choir, so I can read and understand music, and the concept of blowing into one end of something and getting music out of the other end is not foreign to me. Also I read bass clef. Because I’m a bass. It’s what I sing.  I replied to the email on the 8th of January and expected nothing to happen.