 The Doublers BBoard
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Author: ClariTone
Date: 2006-06-13 20:26
Hello
Just saw something weird in a music magazine...a Bassoon Mouthpiece!!! Two different styles - Clarinet and Saxophone. May be popular for pit musicians or doublers...but I can't help but wonder if the sound is in some way different (seeing as there is only a single reed vibrating instead of the intended double reed). Anyone know anything about these??? Ever played or heard one in action???
Clayton
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-07-12 02:08
The sound is about the same (for the Runyon version, at least) but you can note a difference in the articulation if you pay attention.
I've tried one, but I can manage a bassoon reed well enough, so it's not vital for my purposes. With the oboe, it's another matter: the single reed mouthpiece is the only way that I can manage the oboe.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: ClariTone
Date: 2006-07-12 14:00
What about vibrato and intonation???
Do you use the clarinet/sax vibrato technique then when playing the mouthpiece, or did you still play it double lip??? Would using the clarinet/sax vibrato change the overall sound since oboe/bassoon use diaphragmatic (???) vibrato???.
I'd also imagine you would lose some of that flexibility if using a mouthpiece??? Was this the case, or was the intonation somewhat easier???
Thanks!!!
Clayton
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Author: Jaysne
Date: 2006-08-09 03:03
I don't know why anyone would mess around with these things. It's not like no one never learned how to play on a bassoon reed before! Kids in grade school can do it.
There must be some really lazy single-reed players out there. Imagine--laying out the bread for a bassoon, and then not wanting to learn how to blow on a bassoon reed?
I've played bassoon, and it took me maybe a few days at most to learn how to navigate the reed. It gives a sweet, sweet sound, feels great in the mouth, and is actually extremely easy to blow once you get the hang of it (much, much easier than oboe).
No matter how good these mouthpieces may purport to be, they will never give a sound like a real bassoon. And I could not even imagine telling a bassoon player that I play that horn and then showing up with a *gasp* mouthpiece.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-08-16 14:59
Playing the bassoon alone is not a problem for someone who has spent some time with the instrument. However, keeping a bassoon reed manageable and ready to go in a pit orchestra situation, where you may be playing bassoon, bass sax, alto sax and clarinet, is another thing entirely.
I did that corny 1920's show (the one where "Tea For Two" gets run through about six hundred times a night) that had a bass clarinet, baritone sax, bassoon book. Although the bassoon part wasn't that hard, keeping the reed ready for the horn changed (which sometimes occurred twice in a number) certainly was. Getting it out of the water, onto the bocal, and into the mouth is not an easy task to accomplish in two bars of 2/2 time.
This same problem is present in Bernstein, where the bassoon player in Wonderful Town has a number of "To Bass Sax" changes. Not one that I'd want to make on a regular basis, and certainly not the other way...
I think that that's the main reason that Runyon and others have offered the single reed bassoon mouthpiece: not the difficulty of playing on a double reed but rather the practical difficulties of playing on one intermittently as is done in pit orchestra work.
Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago I was watching one of the very first Kinescope recordings of Lawrence Welk's television show (very early 1950's), and his Tenor 2 player was doubling bassoon on a couple of numbers. It didn't last...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
Post Edited (2006-08-16 15:01)
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Author: BTBob
Date: 2006-08-16 15:29
Terry: does Runyon make the bassoon piece? And do they also make an oboe piece? If not Runyon -who???
TIA...
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-08-17 02:27
They list the bassoon mouthpiece in their catalog, and as they make other mouthpieces, I am surmising that they also turn out the bassoon one.
I don't recall that they offer an oboe mouthpiece. The one that I have is a tiny little one on a staple that was produced by the Chedeville firm. Cute as a bug, but certainly not my idea of a fun ride on the oboe. It didn't have the tonal quality of an oboe when used with an oboe, whereas the bassoon mouthpiece was quite similar to a normal bassoon sound (save only the articulation; you could tell the difference there).
It came in the nicest little wooden box, with a sliding top and dovetailed side joints. Included were the mouthpiece, the ligature, a tiny little mouthpiece cap, and (I think) twenty reeds. My grandfather (a long time reed player and AFM member since the early 1920's) bought it when I was having trouble with managing a borrowed oboe, picking it up at Hunleth Music on Broadway in Saint Louis.
And no, it's not for sale...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: nickles8189
Date: 2006-09-02 16:26
a single-reed style mouthpiece for bassoon?! that negates the whole purpose! why not just switch instruments! bassoons are only meant for those that can handle a double reed. if you can't handle the cane, go play brass. this is like, taking away a bassoon's identity as a double-reed! this makes me rather mad, that someone would make something like this and advertise it as a "bassoon mouthpiece." there is no such thing. you've got the bocal and the reed. end of story.
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