Bassoon Crisis!!!!

[A Lark Ascending]

"A virtuoso bassoonist has warned that the divisive woodwind instrument "could be as endangered as the panda" and is calling for more people to pick one up."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-bassoon-is-facing-extinction-10434345.html

Not sure why it is thought divisive.

David Cameron needs to call for a 'big conversation'. This is as civilisation threatening as seagull attacks.

Always liked the bassoon - I blame Lindsay Cooper and Henry Cow.  

 

[MomsMobley]

the great Robert Ronnes in Jolivet

+ one of Ronnes own compositions, everything comes up bassoon!

 

[JSngry]

As long as there are gigs, there will be players. If the gigs remain and the talent pool shrinks, the talent pool can then demand more money, which after a while, gets more people playing, to get those gigs. And then...lather rinse repeat.

But - it's harder than hell, that double reed thing is a bitch (both physically and practically), and the fingering system...the instrument would not be invented today, let's put it that way. People understand shortcuts and acoustics far more than they did them. I checked one out one summer while a youth, and it got to be one of things where the difficulty became both annoying and challenging, just to get the major scales happening without struggle was a triumph afaic, and that was when I turned it back in.

Great instrument, though, very flexible, and very expressive, and right in that range where it can sing and honk as the need be. Overplayed or underplayed, though, it's crap. So...hard work, imagination, and good taste, not exactly qualities in abundance these days, so maybe it is doomed after all.

[BFrank]

I've met a couple of bassoon players for the SF Symphony. Interesting characters.

[A Lark Ascending]

I often wonder how people end up playing instruments like the bassoon. If there is a bassoon player in the family it makes sense. But is it generally anything more than 'OK, you'd like to join the school orchestra, well we need someone on bassoon'? Or do people move across from oboe? 

Great instrument - like the bass clarinet it has a very distinct sound within an orchestra but it's not something that immediately jumps out.   

Edited September 5, 2015 by A Lark Ascending