Links
Bassoon Links
Over a period of time wandering the World Wide Web I have stumbled across or have been sent some wild and wonderful bassoon related links. Some of the most useful are listed below. Please email me if you have found other exciting links as this will help all things bassoon related work their way up the search engines. As Google is busy indexing pages all the time it is also good to search on "bassoon" for yourself and delve into the results. "bassoon reeds weather change effect" was a very fruitful search for me recently. Sadly the UK bassoon world is somewhat behind in putting information on the web so many of these links take you off over the pond and to Europe. Hopefully this will be rectified over the next year as more UK players realise the value of the Internet in connecting people. Leitzinger Bassoons and Bocals Stephan Leitzinger makes the most useful and flexible crooks I have ever come across. Once sitting in the orchestra and needing to play from ppp to fff in tune and evenly across four octaves I have found out for myself exactly what he has achieved. These bassoon "bocals" give you the freedom to shape the sound and a control over dynamics (especially disappearing to pp) that I have not found even in my favourite Heckel crooks. Though these have been known about in Europe and the USA for some time few UK players have heard about them. However, his success at the IDRS convention in Birmingham has changed this and word is spreading fast. Check out the details at www.leitzinger.de/en/ins_nav_02a.html I invited Stephan Leitzinger to come to the Big Double Reed Day at the Guildhall in November and he brought plenty of crooks as well as two of his bassoons. It was a busy day with lots of people trying these and finding crooks to suit their instruments. But also it was an exciting day for me as I got to try both the bassoons and see just how flexible they are. They are the closest thing to a pre war Heckel that I have found but without the problems of tuning and lack of high notes! A beautiful sound. I will be posting more about this on my blog soon. Play with a Pro A fabulous resource for master classes with top international musicians. It has some clips so you can get the feel for what will be the most use to you (as well as more clips on Youtube) and the full videos (which play in their own dedicated programme) are available at a reasonable price. See the free download on Breathing which is fabulous! As are the masterclasses with Gustavo Nunez. International Double Reed Society Have a question about bassoons, oboes, reeds? The most comprehensive resource and forum we have. Join in! British Double Reed Society Our own UK double reed help. There is a new website just launched! CHRISTIAN DAVIDSSON'S site Christian Davidsson's site (bassoonist in Royal Opera Stockholm) contains one of the most sensible articles I have seen on reed adjusting and also a set of midi files of bassoon repertoire. The midi files sound horrible if just played through Sibelius or similar, but I have been editing them in Logic Pro and Reason 3 to get a nice piano sound and some dynamics and rubato. This could make a very useful "music minus one" CD if I can find the time to do this! Also his site links to lots of other useful resources for bassoon. Barrick Stees, Bassoon Very useful site with detailed reed making tips from Barrick Stees, Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. I have followed his reed making methods for a year and have found his advice not only very useful but also to contain tips that I have not seen anywhere else. In fact the reeds I made following his methods to the letter (rather than later ones where I watered it all down and took shortcuts) have lasted me many months. Howarth of London At the centre of the wind player's galaxy for London is of course Howarth in Chiltern Street. Now with its own dedicated bassoon showroom. Their repairman Neil Allen who works from the Howarth Factory in Worthing (where the tenoroons and mini bassoons come from as well as Howarth oboes) is the most on the ball bassoon playing repair man in the UK and consistently turns out very fine work. Bassoon Resource Site Fantastic collection of music, fingerings, information for the bassoonist collected and and compiled by Icel A. Kendrick, professional bassoonist for 30 years Max Vera - cane and bassoons Holland The Amsterdam Bassoon Centre: |
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