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Performer Guides: Bassoon

Use this guide to find resources for music performance, including LC call number browsing ranges for repertoire, books, and journals..

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Finding Repertoire for the Bassoon:

If you're looking for new repertoire to perform, it is often helpful to browse the Music Library's scores. The following call number ranges are for bassoon music; individual works within these numbers are arranged alphabetically by composer.

  • M75-79, Solo bassoon
  • M253-254, Bassoon and piano
  • M288-289, Bassoon duets
  • M357.2, Woodwind trios
  • M557-559, Woodwind Quintets
  • M1026, Bassoon with orchestra (full score)
  • M1027, Bassoon with orchestra (piano reduction)
  • M1126, Bassoon with string orchestra (full score)
  • M1127, Bassoon with string orchestra (piano reduction)

Excerpts, etudes, and instructional materials are classified in the MT range and housed in the same location as books about music (MLs):

  • MT402, General works
  • MT405, Systems and methods
  • MT406, Studies and exercises
  • MT408, Orchestral studies (excerpts)

Digital Score Apps:

The Wilson Music Library provides Blair students, faculty, and staff with free access to nkoda and Henle through our subscription. Follow the instructions below to start using these popular apps today.

Selected Books on the Bassoon and Bassoonists:

The Way of Cane: The Science, Craft, and Art of Bassoon Reed Making

In The Way of Cane, Arbiter demystifies this process for bassoonists of all levels of experience. Drawing from his decades-long experience as both musician and reed-maker, Arbiter provides a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the craft, from the differing sound qualities produced by changing the dimensions of the reed's blades to the changes in the reed's behaviors as it passes through cycles of wetting and drying during production. Small changes in each of these variables, Arbiter explains, contribute to the ultimate goal of producing a bassoonist's ideal sound. With step-by-step instructions, detailed photos that further illuminate the reed-making process, and a companion website featuring the author's own recordings. The Way of Cane emphasizes the importance of the reed to the bassoon's sound, as well as the harmony between reed and musician.

Spirited Wind Playing: The Performance Dimension

Peppered with tips, helpful hints, and personal anecdotes to illustrate real-life application, this performance guide is essential for any wind player interested in taking his or her virtuosity to the next level. Internationally renowned bassoonist Kim Walker has compiled into one book the teachings and exercises that have made her known as an expert on bassoon performance, practice, and instruction. From basics like posture, breathing techniques, and articulation to a survey of the performance practices of key woodwind and brass masters, Walker includes an analysis of each technique along with images and exercises that present the mechanics of each method.

Bassoon Reed Making: A Pedagogic History

Withheld by leading pedagogues in an effort to control competition, the art of reed making in the early 20th century has been shrouded in secrecy, producing a generation of performers without reed making fluency. While tenets of past decades remain in modern pedagogy, Christin Schillinger details the historical pedagogical trends of bassoon reed making to examine the impact different methods have had on the practice of reed making and performance today. Schillinger traces the pedagogy of reed making from the earliest known publication addressing bassoon pedagogy in 1687 through the publication of Julius Weissenborn's Praktische Fagott-Schule and concludes with an in-depth look at contemporary methodologies developed by Louis Skinner, Don Christlieb, Norman Herzberg, and Lewis Hugh Cooper. Aimed at practitioners and pedagogues of the bassoon, this book provides a deeper understanding of the history and technique surrounding reed-making craft and instruction.

Contemporary Techniques for the Bassoon: Multiphonics

Italian bassoonist Sergio Penazzi was the first instrumentalist to introduce multiphonics to Bruno Bartolozzi, which lead the latter to publish the revolutionary book New Sounds for Woodwind. Since then, however, bassoonists have fallen behind in the development of their contemporary sound. While researching materials for Contemporary Techniques for the Bassoon: Multiphonics, twenty bassoonists, who range in age, experience, and specialty, were brought together to test over 350 multiphonic fingerings. This resource includes: - a summary of the distinction between monovalent and polyvalent fingerings - notation suggestions - pitch content for each of the 271 reliable multiphonic fingerings - embouchure suggestions - a table of multiphonic fingerings categorized by prominent pitch - a list of selected compositions that include bassoon multiphonics.

The Bassoon

This welcome volume encompasses the entire history of the bassoon, from its origins five centuries ago to its place in twenty-first-century music. James Kopp draws on new archival research and many years’ experience playing the instrument to provide an up-to-date and lively portrait of today’s bassoon and its intriguing predecessors. He discusses the bassoon’s makers, its players, its repertory, its myths, and its audiences, all in unprecedented detail.   The bassoon was invented in Italy in response to the need for a bass-register double-reed woodwind suitable for processionals and marching. Composers were quick to exploit its agility and unique timbre. Later, during the reign of Louis XIV, the instrument underwent a major redesign, giving voice to its tenor register. In the early 1800s new scientific precepts propelled a wave of invention and design modifications. In the twentieth century, the multiplicity of competing bassoon designs narrowed to a German (or Heckel) type and a French type, the latter now nearly extinct. The author examines the acoustical consequences of these various redesigns. He also offers new coverage of the bassoon’s social history, including its roles in the military and church and its global use during the European Colonial period. Separate historical chapters devoted to contrabassoons and smaller bassoons complete the volume.

Sound in Motion: A Performer's Guide to Greater Musical Expression

David McGill has assembled an exhaustive study that uses the musical concepts of the legendary Marcel Tabuteau as a starting point from which to develop musical thought. McGill methodically explains the frequently misunderstood "Tabuteau number system" and its relationship to note grouping-the lifeblood of music. The controversial issue of baroque performance practice is also addressed. Instrumentalists and vocalists alike will find that many of the ideas presented in this book will help develop their musicianship as well as their understanding of what makes a performance "musical."