Adjusting bassoon reeds

The long awaited Leitzinger contra "bocals" (crooks) arrive and an afternoon of London Leitzinger fun

When I first wrote about my adventures with Leitzinger crooks many years ago Stephan Leitzinger had talked about producing contrabassoon crooks too. Today the information went live on the Leitzinger website! http://www.leitzinger.de/en/ins_nav_02b.html

I have used a variety of crooks on my Mollenhauer contra in search for an even scale and wide dynamic range and have had some success but always with some compromises, so I would often ask him “when can I have a contra bocal?!”. I am sure I was not alone in my nagging, knowing that his bassoon crooks had made my life so much easier on my pre war Mollenhauer, bassoon then on my 13000 series Heckel and now on a Leitzinger bassoon. Of course that usually led me to the question “when are you going to build a Leitzinger contrabassoon?!” but let’s not get ahead of ourselves! (We live in hope).

My http://www.reedrage.co.uk/ colleague Alex were like kids in a toy shop in November when Stephan Leitzinger came with a box of prototype contra crooks. We tried them on our respective instruments and the transformation was so obvious from both player and listener that neither of us would give them back and bought them that day! 

Stephan Leitzinger at work whilst we tried contra crooks

Alex trying Leitzinger contra crook and tuner stays rock solid!

There was one condition though - we couldn’t talk about them until the information went public and live on the Leitzinger site. So here we are in April and I can mention them here.

Me trying a beautiful new Model 1 - now the property of a young and brilliant UK player who tried it after me!

Back in November after doing our Reed Rage set at the Big Double Reed Day on this new crook I came home and tried it no a variety of reeds and there was definitely some adjustments to be made to how I was blowing. I was so used to the infamous tenor register on the older Mollenhauer wanting to croak and go flat that I found I had acquired some interesting embouchure habits up there…it took me a while to realise that I could actually stay “open” and sing and blow as I would want to and that this register is a LOT more stable now. Sure it took some fiddling with reeds as it does when changing crooks on a bassoon, but I was impressed by the dynamic range and the ease in playing.

A few months on and I have now had a chance to play it in a major UK symphony orchestra at the Barbican and find that it does what it says on the tin - the pianissimo moments were not scary and the fortissimo moments could be done on the same crook and reed. Once again it’s not until you really get in the hot seat that you see how it all hangs together. I will be interested to hear the recording when it comes out as I haven’t had a chance to be the listener at a distance yet.

With Alex on her Amati contra this new contra crook created a difference that was even more pronounced than on my instrument. It really expanded the sound and stability of “Bertha” and she has been enjoying compliments from other players where she also has been keeping the Leitzinger contra crook change a secret.

Too late! Alex won't let go of the contra crook.

Hopefully when Stephan Leitzinger comes to UK again the summer he can bring some with him for others to try. 

Leitzinger Bassoon Afternoon 31st March in London

I had hoped Stephan would be able to bring some contra crooks with him when he came at the end of March but there were several important things to attend to first for this visit. The priority was the delivery of a brand new Professional Model 1 to UK player Richard Jacklin. As you can see from the photos both player and maker were very happy with the result and everyone seemed to be in matching blues to fit the Leitzinger brand and website!

Advice on how it all fits together

Richard takes delivery of his new bassoon

After Richard had gone (taking his new bassoon with him) I invited other UK players to come and try his bassoons and crooks. We had a room at the City of London boys school where I teach and this worked well (as the school holiday had already started) and we spread out in the music block for players to come and try new bassoons and find crooks to match their existing instruments. Efforts to make time slots for people didn’t really work as those who came stuck around and others came early until we had five players blowing at the same time.

But it was a great day and those who went home with Leitzinger crooks have emailed to say they are more than happy with their new toys!

If you want to know when the next Leitzinger day in London is then email me via http://www.tomhardybassoon.com/contact.php

Play with a Pro does it again - breathing revelations

Ever since www.playwithapro.com launched I have been singing their praises, as it quickly turned into one of the most valuable teaching resources I have ever used. Also for my own playing it gave me access to teachers who I would never have met and helped me make new progress on the bassoon and contra bassoon. There is one area that I have continued to research which I hadn’t found covered ANYWHERE on the web or in print in a way I could instantly use and that was “breathing”. I had breakthrough moments of course, from different discussions with my Alexander technique teacher Fiona Bryan http://www.mindbodyfreedom.co.uk and with other players of wind and brass instruments. One big breakthrough was talking with one of the trumpet players in the Ulster orchestra about Kristian Steenstrup and the teaching he was doing following on from the teachings of Arnold Jacobs (tuba legend). I had come across http://www.windsongpress.com and more recently read the biography of Arnold Jacobs by Brian Frederiksen. Then thanks to Patrick McCarthy in Belfast blowing on a strange tube with a ping pong ball and cylinder in the green room before an Ulster Orchestra concert I was lead to the book “Teaching Brass” by Kristian Steenstrup. This book filled in so many gaps and gave me fundamentals that made sense and stripped away years of strange ideas of “which muscle shall I contract to blow”. I started using these ideas myself and in my teaching but still felt I needed more practical guidance. I even got some of the devices I saw on the Windsongpress site (found them on   Thomann.de along with their Flow Ball that I have been using in teaching for over a year).

Then a few days ago Adam Simonsen (founder of playwithapro.com) sent me news of these new breathing videos where Steenstrup puts it all into action. I watched them straight away as I hoped they would be the missing key for me. And they are.

In the main video, Adam is taken through the principles of Kristian’s teaching and shown the various aids that he uses (some of which I already have but didn’t quite understand how to USE). Adam asks all the questions and runs into all the confusions of ideas that I myself have had (and am sure other wind players have) so it was a great way to present the information. Then at the end of these videos we are given a whole exercise routine to do with Kristian. Finally each set has a live masterclass with an instrumentalist. You get to choose which bundle you download so that it applies to your instrument but to be honest I have learned as much from watching the brass players and other wind players as I have from the bassoon player. The most striking thing for all of them is the instant improvement in sound and the delight on their faces on how easy it is if you get the breathing right!

Once again there is plenty of time to “try before you buy” as there are clips of all the videos on Youtube (though carefully edited so that you need to see the full video!).

http://www.youtube.com/user/playwithapro

Just in time for Christmas, these videos are too good to miss. Here’s to happy blowing in 2014!

My Leitzinger Bassoon Adventure

Several bassoon players have been emailing me asking me about the new Leitzinger bassoon that I had ordered and that I picked up last week so I thought rather than answer lots of emails and calls I would do a blog post with the story so far! But please feel free to ask questions.

Overview:

For over a year I have been talking about getting a Leitzinger, often to the response "a what?" (and that was from bassoonist friends not string players or bus drivers). Once I had decided and ordered one the waiting began...but  the great day arrived when I flew to Frankfurt to pick up my new bassoon from the workshop of Stephan Leitzinger. The days since then have been full of bassoon revelations so I thought them worth a blog post as in terms of bassoon "news" this is BIG news.

Based on my experiences over the last few years with the crooks and more recently with the bassoons I have decided  that if anyone else wants to find out more then they are welcome to email me with questions. I have accumulated rather a lot of information in the last few years and want to help other UK players find out for themselves. So if you have any questions contact me by email or via the contact page on my main website and meanwhile I will try and find time to make a UK website for this information on Leitzinger bassoons. 

Meanwhile, read on....

Immediate impressions:

Fingerings (the technical bit):

After five concerts on this bassoon I am loving all sorts of unexpected things in addition to the things that I was expecting from my try outs on other Leitzinger bassoons. Top A with left hand only anyone? Adding ring finger right hand doesn't change the pitch enormously just the colour which as a left hander opens up a lot of difficult finger work to simplification! How about leaving off the endless Eb or C sharp LH little finger on all sorts of notes that I used on my old bassoon?  How about top A flat simple fingering (just RH 3) being the same pitch as adding what I needed before (Bb key and RH 2 and 3) to make it sound nice? Even RH Bb and F key which is a nice slur fingering is the same pitch (and not sharp). How about forked Eb being totally fine with just a fork? Yes adding little finger LH changes the colour but it's stable without. And doesn't need RH 1 or 2 with Bb key. Top C with just LH 1 and C speaker key? No problem. Bottom F not sharp, bottom G not flat and bottom Ab not even flatter? Just blow!  Bottom E D and C - not sharp. Just blow! In fact if you start doing strange embouchure changes as needed on most instruments you can make these notes flat on this bassoon - it just doesn't need that change. The list goes on. Basically my main re-learning this week has been to blow lots of lovely warm and open air down the thing and not do any strange fingerings or embouchure manipulations. This makes playing legato and playing MUSIC on it much more fun.

Dynamic Range and Sound:

Then there is the pianissimo. Less air means it goes quieter. Erm obvious I know but most other bassoons I have played or tried clamp up or don't play quietly with little effort. Now when you open up and really tank it the bassoon just gets louder!

I remember seeing the Times review from Richard Morrison who had gone to see the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra perform Beethoven 9 in November 2011 when David Peterson (who plays a Leitzinger) was playing fag 1. The next day's review included "the principle bassoon - with a tone like a chocolate liqueur - was alone worth the price of the ticket". (Ed: found the exact clipping and quote from 7 Nov 11 and corrected this 25.5.13). And although so far I still sound like Tom playing the bassoon rather than anyone else and can't vouch for how much chocolate is coming out I can say that it is a flexible sound yet very warm. And when you blow the thing HARD it doesn't go nasty. It just gives you more sound.

The problems? Erm - keywork in a different place to my old bassoon and a fair amount of operator error. But with the provided left hand rest and right hand rest that you can move into endless different angles with an allen key I am there now and have stopped hitting the wrong keys...the last two concerts have been a joy.

The Story So Far:

If you are in a hurry then here are the bullet points:

• Leitzinger has been making bassoon crooks ("bocals" for those of you outside the UK)  for decades. Somehow the UK didn’t hear about it but they have been big in Europe and the US for some time. They solve all sorts of tuning issues and have a flexibility and dynamic range that makes them a bit of a “once you have tried and liked you will never go back” proposition. He has also been making bassoons for some time and there are over 80 of them out there with many german players going from their favoured makers to Leitzinger. There are quite some stories on this subject!
• I met Stephan Leitzinger at 2009 IDRS in Birmingham and got my first crook from him (a silver thin walled free blowing S2V that really helped my old Mollenhauer pre war bassoon). I tried his bassoons but coming from a pre war Mollenhauer and a day of trying instruments on different stands at the show I didn’t really know which end was which by the end of the day.
• When I got my Heckel a few months later the S2V crook saved my bacon for ages as it worked on the Heckel and enabled me to make the transition from an old pre war instrument to a huge 13000 series 1980s Heckel without too much bloodshed. I then bought an MD1V for nice top notes and sharper pitch at the British Double Reed Day 2010. (the various models can be seen here - Leitzinger Crooks
• 
  

• 

  Saint Saens Bassoon Sonata on Heckel 13000 series with Leitzinger crook

• I carried on getting crooks from him to suit this instrument and converted quite a few other players along the way (“oh you mean the bottom doesn’t HAVE to be sharp, the tenor doesn’t HAVE to be flat and top C can actually be flat enough and not sound like a strangled ostrich” etc.etc.) My rather large collection of crooks (and my maintaining to the other members of Reed Rage that you can NEVER have too many crooks that leads to them mercilessly taking the micky out of me) is now quite impressive, though in reality I have only been using two - a lovely S2F silver for second playing and my M1F platinum described in more detail below.

• The great crook journey led me to invite Stephan Leitzinger over to the Big Double Reed Day 2011 at the Guildhall. I tried the bassoons in earnest and now appreciated that they were much easier to play quietly on as well as loud and seemed really flexible. In fact the main thing I came away with from that day was that I wanted to play MUSIC on these bassoons and not just blow scales up and down. 
• After Big Double Reed Stephan emailed me to suggest I might like to get a Leitzinger bassoon. I emailed back a long hollow laugh concerning my lack of worldly riches…I am not sure how well that  hollow laugh translated at the Frankfurt end of the email but the seed had been sown deep in my bassoon consciousness.
• A year passed rather quickly and I found myself at another Big Double Reed Day but with less classes of fifteen year olds playing bassoon and oboe to conduct and more time to try the bassoons. I decided after really playing a few of the bassoons on the Leitzinger stand that I was going to own a Leitzinger...only to find my fellow Reed Rager Alex Davidson had tried the demonstration model, played it to our colleagues in the hall who had gone "WOW", had fallen in love with it and announced she was buying it! That left me putting in my order knowing I would have months of waiting wondering quite how that all happened! But of course it did give me several more chances to try a Leitzinger for real and some very fruitful duet sessions with Alex where I confirmed my decision was a "sound" one.
• January 2013 came and I was given the task by an Australian player who buys reeds from me  of choosing a Leitzinger from two of them that Stephan had made as she was unable to come to Europe. An ominous task (in her words “don’t screw it up”). I chose well and she has been delighted with her instrument (phew). Her email concerning her experiences made me wish I had kept the one I chose for her! 
• I have been out with the Ulster Orchestra rather a lot in the past few years and got used to playing my Heckel in the Ulster Hall with its special brand of reed idiosyncrasies (read “London reeds don’t work here”…)I decided that once I had the date for picking up my bassoon that I better have the Heckel ready as a back up in case I couldn’t actually play the thing and duly left my old bassoon at my lodgings ready to revert if needed.

The Ulster Hall, Belfast

• I flew to Frankfurt last week, (thanks to my frequent visits to the Ulster Orchestra and the air miles I have collected on BA!) and picked up the new beastie and came to Belfast for some Verdi requiem action for the end of season concerts. The expected carnage of a new instrument in the heat of the moment failed to come - it went well and I found myself much less tired in the embouchure department than usual. It has been a really pleasurable week finding out that this new machine reaches parts that other bassoons don’t reach with a flexibility that I have been searching for for a long time! My old bassoon has not been needed as a back up and I now have the interesting task of getting two bassoons back on Friday on the plane.

Two Leitzingers in conversation.

Other Thoughts and discoveries:

There is no huge Leitzinger factory where these instruments are being churned out. There is a small team with Stephan Leitzinger at the helm with his incredible passion for creating instruments that will be played and enjoyed in orchestras. There is no student model. There are not about to be thousands of these instruments. They are what they are - a superbly hand made German bassoon that takes the tradition of sound and colour and just does it extremely well.

My Leitzinger is darker than yours....

First impressions for those trying a Leitzinger for the first time:

It’s not a total “Marmite’ proposition but there is an element of that in trying these instruments for the first time, mainly because you don’t need to pressurise them into playing loud and soft. It’s more like SINGING down them. Lots of air and an open feeling and off they go! This combined with the fact that they are happy on a lighter reed than most means you can miss the plot when just trying one out with your existing set up.  

The Back Story:

This is the full story for those who have stayed with this post so far....

In 2008 I went out to the Trondheim Symphony orchestra as an extra and did four weeks with them. I had a great time with a lovely bassoon section. The first bassoon (Sarah Warner Vik) is from Perth Australia and has a very fine 12000 series Heckel. When I played with her she was using a Leitzinger crook. “A what?” was my question of course as in the UK this was a name I hadn’t heard from anyone! The second bassoonist, Kia Svare, chimed in with “haven’t you heard of Leitzinger?”. So I thought I had better find out fast as this was obviously a deficiency in what I thought was a reasonably encyclopaedic knowledge of bassoonery!

Trondheim really is a long way north!

A web search later and an email explaining what I was after to Herr Leitzinger led to a short email reply which quite frankly didn’t make a lot of sense. It did say “excuse my English” so I thought the secret was probably to get my rantings translated. Off I went  to solve this breakdown in communication (as my German is non existent!) and duly contacted a friend of mine who is a cellist in the Salzburg Mozarteum orchestra. Susi took my long ramblings about tuning, dodgy notes on my old pre war Mollenhauer, tone and reed tolerance and did a splendid job of translating this into German. I sent it off and within days received NINE Leitzinger bocals of various shapes and sizes in the mail! I was blown away (and realised that it was about time I learned German… a realisation I am still having five years later but haven’t actually actioned yet).  But as I then found out Leitzinger would be exhibiting at the IDRS in Birmingham I held off from buying one of the nine all very different crooks. 

And so on arriving at IDRS I did pretty much make a B line for the Leitzinger stand. Well actually more of a C or D line as I got lost amongst a lot of other stands and was suitably tired and confused by the time I arrived at Stephan’s stand. He remembered me from my email and the translation and handed me an S2V. I tried it. He handed me another. I tried it. “This one is more resonant”. I liked it! “What about all the other numbers and crooks in your boxes?”.  A knowing shake of the head and a simple comment that we had found the right “bocal” (and the fact that I had tried nine that he had sent me in the mail) made me decided to stop messing around. I bought my first Leitzinger bocal. And never looked back? Not entirely true as I tried all sorts of Heckel crooks when I got my Heckel a few months later. But I kept coming back to the Leitzinger as when you actually sat down to play music (rather than tonking out some loud scales) I found I could do so much more on the Leitzinger. Quieter, louder, more in tune. And that statement has applied right through my crook explorations and ultimately with the bassoon exploration. More control, more in tune, easier to play yet more dynamic range (especially pianissimo) than any other bassoon I have tried.

The next development was Leitzinger bringing out his “F” series of bocals. This interested me as he talked about “extraordinary sound”. And plated with platinum. Mmm. So when I was looking for a first bassoon crook which would be a bit sharper than my S2V and with a bit more oomph this sounded like what I was after. I got a bunch more sent over in various shapes and sizes ranging from silver plate to platinum to the top crook M1F. By mean top I also mean the most expensive one! We lined them up at the bar so to speak, and sampled them one by one in the Ulster Hall with Julian Partridge at the helm blowing them one by one and me standing at the back of the hall. I had already done this in my bassoon room and recorded some excerpts but wasn’t’ completely decided as I was hopeful that a silver one might do fine. Ulster were doing Beethoven 1 that week and Julian went through the crooks (including his old Heckel C1) one by one tonking out a phrase from the first movement. One leapt out at me - I was near the back of the hall but it sounded crystal clear. “What’s that?” Julian looked… “um M1… F”.  (“Damn, that’s the expensive one” I thought). And that’s the crook I use every day still for Fag1 and chamber music. When I need to be invisible and creep around I have an S2F silver which on the Heckel is a bit like putting a mute on. Very useful! But the M1F is what sings.

The Bassoon Adventure.

When Stephan had planted the seed at 2011 Big Double Reed for me to think about playing a Leitzinger bassoon I didn’t really have much to go on. Just a few try outs at IDRS and Big Double Reed. So when Dan Emson Jukes announced he had been out to Frankfurt to buy some crooks and ended up buying a Leitzinger bassoon it was too good an opportunity to miss. I drove down to see him with my Heckel and M1F. 

The blind test:

Now the next development is where it gets intriguing and where a lot of people who have tried these bassoons in passing don’t quite connect: Dan and I did duets. We swapped instruments. We swapped crooks and experimented. And I said “hmm the Leitzinger is so lovely to play but just feels under powered compared to my bassoon”. Then came the blind test. I went upstairs and Dan played both instruments one after the other. Same phrase from a Danzi quintet. First one - lovely rich sound. “Ah my Heckel” I thought. Second one - quieter, still a lovely sound but somehow not as present and not as juicy. “Mmm. The Leitzinger”.  Off I trot downstairs to confirm my suspicions. Wrong. 100% wrong way round! The second one was my instrument. I did the same test on Dan and his flautist wife Jemma who had been through all this in Frankfurt but still had the stable idea that the Heckel was going to be louder with more projection. They also got it wrong. The Leitzinger was just more flexible and actually from a distance capable of more SOUND. Not necessarily sounding LOUD but just “more sound”. And that’s the story that comes up again and again when you get in the hall and play on these instruments.

And so I placed an order. A proper order this time and not “yes that would be nice”. The wait began and then a few weeks ago the email arrived inviting me to Frankfurt in May.

The Trip:

Last weekend was quite a trip in bassoon terms! Arriving at Frankfurt airport having come off the early flight and been on an early flight from Belfast to London the morning before wasn't exactly my idea of a rest. And I knew I would be on the early flight back Monday morning to teach at the City of London Boys school.

Frankfurt - a modern city.

I was picked up from the station by Stephan Leitzinger and soon arrived at HQ. Arriving at The Leitzinger workshop I was greeted by two heart warming sights. Firstly my new bassoon!

And then as I was tired and hungry Stephan's wife Martina brought up a snack with some fantastic cheeses!

My day with Stephan Leitzinger was an exploration - could I play this new instrument or not? Reeds, some Weissenborn studies, some excerpts... all seemed to work. It also involved finding two matching crooks for the bassoon, some small adjustments to key work for my huge hands, lots of questions from me, lots of laughter and stories from both of us and Stephan back and forth from his workshop.

During the day Stephan also did some adjustments to Alex's Leitzinger that I had brought with me.  I took hers with me even though this meant I would have to bring TWO Leitzingers back on the plane. And thanks to BA this was no problem.

The parking "pod" back to the car park at Terminal 5 - where I was stuck for 20 minutes - the only breakdown in technology all weekend! Still, my two friends seemed unperturbed.

A day in London teaching and trying out my new bassoon and I was back on a plane to Belfast. The added bonus was that with a Verdi Requiem on the programme meant Alex was also coming out so we got to have TWO Leitzingers in the section. Alex was able to add her many years (well weeks actually) of experience to my “oh what about this note and that note and this fingering” which was a great help. As we were fag3 and 4 it was great to find out how easy it was to play the quiet low passages ppp and in tune!

Leitzinger twins play Verdi

On Monday morning after the weekend of two Verdi performances  I was in the Ulster Hall for rehearsals on the next programme.  Julian Partridge (Ulster Orchestra member for the last ten years and very happy camper on his Leitzinger M1N crook on his old and lovely Fox 201) picked up my new Leitzinger and started blowing.

 I wandered off the stage and it sounded great. But then I started to walk back down the hall. It still sounded great and in fact sounded the SAME. I have done this many times as he has blown on his Fox  and there is a point where most bassoons just gets a bit lost.  I didn't have a chance to hear it without some violins practising and a clarinet and horn as well all twiddling through bits that we were about to play. But there it was  - the bassoon sound. Not LOUD. Just lots of SOUND. Big fat German sound but not heavy. Just singing. It carried all the way to the back of the hall. Which was interesting to me as it confirmed what I had heard when comparing my bassoon to Dan's Leitzinger earlier in the year and what other players had said. In fact the feedback on these instruments from conductors and string players is what makes your bassoon ears stand up and flap in the wind! 

That's probably enough information for one night but not without four final bullet points:

1. The Leitzinger bassoons seem quite happy on simple fingerings. In fact adding keys as I did all over the place  on my old bassoon isn’t needed and interestingly doesn’t change the pitch of many of these notes - just the colour. They play well with just simple Eb, simple tenor fingerings that just work and an even scale. The hardest thing is learning to just blow and NOT compensate when years of muscle memory tries to intervene.
2. They don’t seem to play sharp. I was expecting the instrument to play very sharp for UK and I still have no idea how the continental players get to 444 on a number 1 crook. With the same crook and reed my old bassoon is sharper.
3. The sound character is very dark and they seem very comfortable on a reed that on other instruments would dip on E and C sharp and generally be a nightmare. In fact I went through ten reeds with my old instrument and eight of them dipped and only two were good. I then went through all ten and they ALL worked on the Leitzinger. Other players have commented on this and the fact that they can play on lighter reeds.
4. The instruments seem to be quite  chameleon. Alex commented that since getting her Leitzinger she has played in many different situations and found she could blend well - one with a modern Heckel, another with Puchner and another with a Moosmann as well as in her regular trio 

So all in all a very memorable week in Leitzinger land! If you have any questions email me or contact me via my main website

Tom Hardy
http://www.tomhardybassoon.com/

Ole Kristian Dahl on Playwithapro.com

Play with a Pro is a huge and fantastic resource. Clarinetist Adam Simonsen from the Royal Danish Orchestra has collected together what is rapidly becoming an essential library of masterclasses with top pros on many instruments. http://playwithapro.com

I loved the Sergio Azzolini ones because  his passion for the music helped me love the music even more and were delivered with such conviction with a touch of Italian madness. The interview with  Sergio where he describes his path to the bassoon and gives more information on Vivaldi is fantastic too.

And I was looking forward to the new bassoon videos from Ole Kristian Dahl as I had heard such good things about him as a teacher from players who had been out to Mannheim to have lessons.  I have spent a few hours studying these now.

The attention to detail is astounding! These are not for the faint hearted - i.e. they are pitched at advanced students and players. He is really giving us his “hat” on how to prepare for auditions to the highest level possible. The musical ideas are great and the “bassoon fundamentals” are startling and enlightening. Here is a player who has worked and worked to hone his craft and is willing to share that journey so we can all get something out of it.  It is obvious from the videos why he has become such an important teacher as well as player. 

Once again the free clips on Youtube and Facebook (and the free gifts on the site) are tasters and though much more representative of the overall videos  than the Azzolini clip, still leave you with questions rather than giving you all the answers. Dip in and see for yourself.

Having just finished watching the full set all in sequence and then some again with my instrument out (and of course he plays at 442 which is interesting for English players!) I can see these videos are for use again and again rather than “oh that’s nice - I wish I could do that”.

Though they can never be a total substitute for a one on one lesson you could use these to prepare and improve on endless details to work out your own plan of attack on these excerpts. And as for the bassoon basics there are some things I run into again and again with pupils, both beginner and advanced, that were described in a codified and more Scientific way than I have come across before. 

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas,

Azzolini comes to Playwithapro.com

When Adam Simonsen (creator of www.playwithapro.com) told me that he was going to be filming Azzolini talking about Vivaldi I was more than excited. For me Sergio Azzolini’s Vivaldi recordings both on the modern bassoon and baroque bassoon have taken this music to a whole new level. It was no longer about “wow, what a lovely bassoon sound and great technique” (and there are many fine players with great recordings of Vivaldi).It became “wow this is some of the most amazingly exciting music I have heard!”. The freedom and crazy Italian expressiveness is infectious. So a chance to see him in action is something I have been waiting for since Adam told me this in 2011.

I have only spoken to a few people who have studied with Azzolini and so the chance to see him teaching for myself was a long time coming. Yesterday the masterclass went live on Play with a Pro and I didn’t drop a heart beat downloading this. I had intended to do lots of other things before the end of the day and I thought I would put the video on and make some reeds. Instead I was transfixed for over an hour and a half and didn’t move from my chair. His care, love of the music, insistence, knowledge and musicality is something I just have not seen to this degree in the world of bassoon playing that I have encoutered . As his style is so unique I was interested to see if there would be some Azzolini clones coming off the line.

The masterclass is not about this at ALL. He takes all the players in the room and works on the string parts of the concerto with them playing the bass line, viola, violin 1 and violin 2 parts before even getting to the solo part. There are musical gems in this part of the masterclass before a note of the solo part has been mentioned. And some blowing and reed advice comes up only as a consequence of the music making and not as an end in itself which is refreshing for someone like me who makes dozens of reeds for others each month and can end up fiddling and not practising or music making if I am not careful. And when one of the pupils has a reed that isn’t up to it Sergio just gives him his own reed and continues playing on the pupil’s reed (still sounding amazing!).

Some of the subjects covered are: Tempi - choosing the right one and why; length of notes, especially in basso continuo and why; when to breathe and phrasing of the music in relation to harmony and function of the notes; having a reed that will enable pianissimo attack without great effort but that has enough “wood” on the back to support the sound; tuning of notes in relation to the chord and the difference between A sharp and Bb and why; colour in sound and discussion of vibrato and rubato; fingerings for very high notes for tuning (a nice flatter top C sharp for a start!); spending the time on the music so that a performance can emerge that is truly expressive. And more!

By the end of the masterclass I was inspired to play for an hour and see if I could get anywhere the flexibility and intensity of this playing. Mmmm. Work to be done. But a real pleasure to watch! A truly generous hearted individual who cares intensely for the music and to inspire others. I am grateful to Adam Simonsen for creating such a well produced presentation and to Sergio for being a stellar individual!

Making bassoon reeds from tube to finished reed

Well, I finally took the plunge. I have now got a room full of tube cane which I have to split, pre-gouge, gouge, shape, hardness test, profile, construct into a reed, tip on a tipper and then finish by hand. Phew. Despite the obvious long term cost savings on prepared cane (and I really do mean long term to make back all this investment!) I have to question the business sense. It’s going to take me a lot of reed sales to recoup this. However, on the few dozen or so I have made up so far it becomes obvious that I am able to make more consistent and useable reeds by being in control of the whole process. And if a piece of cane really doesn’t meet my criteria then I don’t feel bad about not making a reed out of it as it is pennies rather than pounds I am turning down! The main thing is that this will be better for the students and other players who buy reeds from me already.

I thought about making some videos of the whole process but there are already some great sites out there and some good Youtube clips. But I will share one thing right now - I changed the blade in my profiler and sharpened the one in the tipper. I had got so used to blunt blades that I hadn’t noticed how much effort and force I was using on a piece of cane and that ends up with compressed fibres and less vibration! The sharp blades are a revelation and lesson learned. I will post some pictures of the fun but meanwhile interested to hear feedback on others experiences.

Breathing and resonance

A few months ago I found the great videos on http://www.playwithapro.com/ with Gustavo Núñez from the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

This week they have put a new video up from Berlin Phil veterans oboist Hansjörg Schellenberger and flautist Emmanuel Pahud.

The download of the first video from Schellenberger (Breathing and Blowing) is free (you have to also have the player installed from the site though you can watch a free preview). Both he and Emmanuel Pahud make some points on breathing that I have never heard before and that I found amazingly helpful.  Always easier “said” rather than put into practise and done of course, but in this case it had an immediate impact on my playing.

It never ceases to amaze me how one player sounds like him or herself on whatever make of instrument they play on.  In the search for an easier life we try Heckel, Fox, Moosmann, Puchner, Bell, Soulsby, Adler, Mollenhauer and so on (though I have yet to try a Leitzinger bassoon!). Also endless reed scraping and crook changing has led me to a set up that feels comfortable with a wide dynamic range. But at the end of the day I sound like Tom playing the bassoon. Even on a Chinese Lark. Which for all of us is actually a good thing as it is our individual voice.

But some of Emmanuel Pahud’s comments on resonance (especially an analogy he makes and a comment on how to open up the sinus and nose area) go a long way to explaining to me why this would be. And a practise session after watching this video was VERY fruitful (and fruity in the “resonance” department!).

So in the interest of improving sound/projection/tuning/comfort/endurance and dynamic range have a look and let me know if you agree or disagree with them and what you get out of it! I’m sure there will be as many viewpoints as there are players but either way there is something to be gained from this video.

Hats off to founder  Adam Simonsen  (clarinetist playing in The Royal Danish Orchestra, educated from the Juilliard School of Music, and founder of Play with a Pro) for creating this site and getting these videos done!

Guildhall School of Music and Drama bassoonists in action

Well the future of bassoonery is in good hands, with Meyrick Alexander and Gordon Laing (contra) and Stuart Russell(reed making) as professors there swelling the ranks of the collective bassoons at the school for this great rendition of “Bassoonists Holiday” (which sounds like it’s Fraser Jackson’s fab arrangement for the Calibans if I am not mistaken).



A great Super Mario trio with hats and choreography on the same youtube channel too! It never ceases to amaze me how bassoonists just naturally share this zany sense of humour. On a smaller scale we have our next http://www.reedrage.co.uk/ outing on 24th July at St. Anne’s Kew in London with some great fun lined up! Maybe getting all our pupils involved for a grand finale is a good idea. So the world of bassoon ensembles is very much alive!

BIG Double Reed 2011

Hard to believe that over half a year has gone by since the last BIG Double Reed Day but there we go. http://www.bigdoublereed.com/
With Summer Holidays coming up it’s time to spread the news to pupils and parents to put 6th November in the diary. And there was a strong adult attendance last year too so this is for everyone!

Leitzinger Bassoon Crooks

I am very pleased to have found Leitzinger crooks. Stephan Leitzinger makes the most stable yet flexible bassoon “bocals” I have ever tried. These have been popular in Europe and the US and Canada for some time but few have heard of them in the UK.
Stephan makes a vast range of styles so that you can match the crook to your bassoon and reeds and performance requirements. The main feature most people notice immediately is that with the right crook the bottom is not too sharp, the tenor not too flat and the high B and C not too sharp, with the octaves more balanced and in tune on a variety of reeds. Though the first blowing of them is not always impressive in the way that an old Heckel crook can be, once in the orchestra it is the ability to creep around pianissimo and create a real fortissimo that makes these such a hit with pro players around the world.
I was pleased to see and hear Meyrick Alexander using his platinum plated MDV2 for his final concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the BBC Proms 2010 which sounded splendid in the Ravel Left Hand Piano concerto solo!
I currently have an S2V platinum (thin walled, great for creeping around fag2 and very responsive) an MDV1 (Ravel piano concerto, Saint Saens top E’s no problem but still lovely down the bottom so not a one trick high note crook) and the best crook I have ever tried, M1F Platinum, which seems to have been made from metal mined by dwarfs and hammered into shape with the assistance of elves and is perhaps made of “Mithril”....it is some blend of metals that Stephan Leitzinger doesn’t tell us about in detail.
More information on “Leitzinger Bocals” can be found here (as well as information on his bassoons) www.leitzinger.de/en/ins_nav_02a.html
On my Mollenhauer contra I play a very early pre war Heckel contra crook which has projection qualities I haven’t found in modern ones and have a Puchner B2 which is fabulous for sorting out the flat tenor register on these contras. I am looking forward to Stephan Leitzinger’s plans to make a contra bassoon crook coming to fruition.
Julian Partridge from the Ulster Orchestra is now also playing on a Leitzinger so we have a matched section when I play there:
“I’ve been playing Fox bassoons for over 20 years and have always used Heckel crooks with them; finding the factory Fox crooks lacking flexibility, especially for grovelling around when playing 2nd bassoon. When I was working in Hong Kong I bought a Heckel C1 which was wonderful at grovelling. But I always thought it was weak in the tenor register. Fast forward ten years and Tom showed me a Leitzinger crook, which at first I didn’t warm to, but then a few months ago he leant me an M1N and I thought “wow”. It has more resistance than my Heckel but is great in the tenor register and is supremely flexible in all registers. There are rumours of a contra crook.. can’t wait.”
Julian Partridge Acting Principal Bassoon Ulster Orchestra
(Now the proud owner of the M1N)
Stephan has contacted me with the idea of coming over for a small event in UK in the Autumn which would be a great chance for more of us to try these crooks.

New site for Musicians - play with a pro

There is a new site called Play With A Pro which I came across which is amazing. It is in its early stages but already has some great masterclasses up and the bassoon world is currently represented by Gustavo Núñez from the Royal Concertebouw Orchestra.

You can see short previews on the site but I paid and watched all of the Núñez ones as I was busy making reeds and this was a change from Radio 3 and 4 (and I had enough money in my Paypal account!).

The founder is Adam Simonsen - a clarinetist playing in The Royal Danish Orchestra, and he has done a fabulous job of getting this live and working in high definition. I have been in touch with him to ask about teacher discounts and other ideas and he is very happy to receive feedback.  Hats off to him for pushing the idea through from conception to a live site with all the structure in place.

The pricing is one subject that he has obviously had to think about long and hard and it isn’t cheap but seems fair.

The only Englishman on the list so far is David Campbell and Adam says this will go live in the summer. Also there is a coming soon for Sergio Azzolini which I think can’t fail to be entertaining and useful.

The production is simple but very high quality with fabulous sound so the files are huge but it all works with the software installed from the website.

http://playwithapro.com/

The contra bassoon vs the contraforte

Well, the debate continues. After reading this article http://m.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/flatulent-contrabassoon-gets-a-modern-second-wind-20101015-16nin.html and the comments on the sound of the contra bassoon I was intrigued to find http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/2010/10/contrabassoon_contraforte_audio.html where you can actually hear Lewis Lipnick sounding fantastic on BOTH instruments.

I did try the contraforte at IDRS in Birmingham in 2009 and really couldn’t see how we could use it in place of the contra as it is SO very different. But from these audio clips the difference is not as huge as I thought. I would be interested to hear from contra players who have played a contra forte and especially from those who have played it in a professional orchestra and why!

http://www.guntramwolf.de/englisch/f_modern.html#kontraforte has Guntram Wolf’s information on the development and http://www.Eppelsheim.com/kontraforte.php?lang=en has sound links.

Helping Your Child Practise

A note to parents of the young bassoon player.

As a parent of the budding bassoonist you play a key role in helping them make rapid progress. After all you have already found a bassoon teacher, paid for the books, the reeds, the hire or even purchase of the instrument and endured the first fantastic cow noises coming from the new addition to the family! You could of course sit back and hope that their weekly lesson of half an hour will bear fruit and transform them into the next soloist and speed their progress into the National Youth Orchestra OR you could get more involved! But how?

From my experience the pupils who get distinction in their exams and make rapid progress have a great deal of support at home. Not that you are expected to teach the bassoon - that's my job. But working with parents on ways to help their child practise constructively and regularly (without undue nagging or "pressure") and by sending recordings of lessons and "how the piece goes" by email to the parents to put on the student's ipod, I have seen a huge difference in speed of progress this year.

Most teachers keep a notebook that they send back with your child after a lesson. This lays out what they have done in the lesson, what they want the child to practise and a place for you to make notes and in some cases sign off the times that the young player has actually practised! But even in schools where this is part of the rules the practise book gets neglected. A short note from you back to the teacher in this book is a huge encouragement that we are not writing notes into a void.

The child who doesn't want to practise at all is not being discussed here - that's a different story. But the willing pupil will usually have chosen the bassoon because they have heard one being demonstrated at school by someone like me and have realised for themselves that it is a wondrous noise unlike anything else. But the sound that comes out of their bassoon (or in the case of the small ones out of their mini bassoon or tenoroon) can bear little resemblance to what they heard. And the task becomes getting enough progress FAST enough so that they can sound good and get to play in their school ensemble as that's when the real fun starts - the bassoon is really a social instrument and doesn't stand up well to years of solitary confinement.

By getting agreement on how much time they can practise (around the sports club, the swimming, the friends, the TV, and the ever increasing "homework" from school) we can then start to monitor progress. This is much more important than "time spent". Progress is what they want and we all want. If they can do this effectively in the least time and have fun whilst doing it then we are all happy. And when things are going slowly that's the time to go back and forth with notes in the book or even call to discuss. With the lazier pupils I often make this into a game of how they can practise better in less time and point out I give no rewards for time wasted blowing down the bassoon with no progress.

As a teacher I want my pupils to learn WHAT and HOW to practise so that they can see, hear and feel the progress and enjoy that progress. Some are exam driven, others reward driven and some (the ideal bassoonist) are happy to go up to their room and tinker and experiment and come back and say "I found bottom Bb!" the next week.

If you are a parent of a pupil of mine already you will know you get emails/sound files and recommendations as well as writings in the "practise book" each week. With these tools and an open dialogue back and forth the whole "learning adventure" is greatly aided.

Here's to constructive practise and happy blowing!

http://www.tomhardybassoon.com/

The Big Double Reed Day, London 10th October 2010

It’s official - preparations for the Big Double Reed Day at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Sunday 10th October 2010 are not only underway, we have a WEBSITE all alive and shiny. http://www.bigdoublereed.com/

Crook Repairs

Sometimes a small adjustment to a crook (bocal) makes a big difference to the playing angle and playing comfort for a bassoonist and can prevent long term strain of both neck and hands. After all the bassoon doesn't naturally fit the human body by any stretch of the imagination! I have always had to do little bending of a bassoon crook for my height and playing position so that my head and hands are at a comfortable angle. I haven’t needed the full “English Bend” that some makers provide (and which Heckel used to call "berger" bend and now seem to call "flat bend") which seems to work especially well for very tall people as it drops the hands/shoulders to a comfortable height when using a seat strap, spike or dutch leg support.

If there is more than a few centimetres bending needed I have usually had a repairer do this by filling the crook with a metal that melts at boiling point (such as Field’s Metal or Woods Metal) to make sure the walls don’t split or collapse. This involves re-corking and the right materials to hand, so I have done many bends just by filling the crook with table salt to give some support internally. For a small change on a new crook this has worked. Also I have risked bending the metal with nothing inside with no bad results and indeed watched one maker bend a new crook for me in front of my eyes (though he did tell me not to watch!).

However I recently did a small bit of bending on a crook which resulted in not only a split but a split right across and I suddenly found myself with two bits. Aaargh. My "crook bending without a safety belt on" days are over.

David Lock is a name known to most UK bassoonists. He has not only produced endless supplies of reeds and contra bassoon reeds for decades, he has also saved the day on repairs for many years. Although he is reluctant to take on metal work these days he has a very talented son Steve who lives a few minutes away from him (in deepest Suffolk) and repairs oboes, clarinets and of course bassoons! This week Steve saved the day by repairing the mess I had made below. Not only repaired, but actually works better than before! (Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a regular method of softening up a crook). Steve tells me he is totally happy to take on more bassoon repairs and I would highly recommend him: steve@utopians.co.uk

Though of course I am hoping not to repeat my mistake on unsupported crook bending again!

Bassoon Reed Reamers

Having bought and cursed a variety of reamers over the years from cheap to very expensive I have recently found one that ticks ALL the right boxes and is really the Rolls Royce of reamers!

It reams out the back of a reed a) rapidly b) without blisters on my left index finger (I’m left handed) c) wet or dry d) right into throat - so throat is left a uniform size and remedied if I have made the throat a bit too small e) with a ring round the top of the reamer to set the depth I want it to go onto the bassoon crook. Oh and f) it's SHARP. Very sharp!

I usually make reeds in batches of ten and used to dread the reaming bit as ten in a row was cramp and blister inducing! This is now more like pealing some potatoes but more fun.

I have tried Pisoni, Rigotti, Reiger (and still use the diamond finishing reamer when out and about to keep in my bassoon case) and some lesser known and often ended up using a combination of them in the finishing process. All a bit painful really (literally!)

The supplier of the magic reamer?

Barrick Stees - Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. The reamer was designed by Ken Potsic

http://steesbassoon.com/

Look under "products"

In fact the whole site is something I have referred to again and again over the last two years as I have found his reed making advice very very sound and helpful.

The aches and pains of bassooning

Last year I was experiencing a great deal of discomfort playing the bassoon and contra bassoon. I ended up going for some physio to help correct this but it only made matters worse. I met another bassoonist, Fiona Bryan, on a gig and commented on her great posture and said "ah Alexander Technique". When she told me she taught it I immediately asked for a lesson. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should return to Alexander Technique as I had seen it work on others and had a brief attempt to get lessons whilst I was studying at the Guildhall! (In those days it was only the string players who got this as part of their course.. times have changed).

After the initial frustration of wanting instant results and Fiona pointing out that years of habit are not undone in five minutes I settled down into a routine of using AT to make changes. I found that keeping regular lessons and sessions made a huge difference as big gaps in between just led to old habits slipping in. However, a year down the line I can see a big difference in my general posture and more importantly I don't HURT all the time! If my back or muscles become painful I know I can control this and take the time to use the techniques to get me back on track. I had wanted something where I could do all the work and not go to someone to "treat" or "adjust me" and most of the work in Alexander Technique is indeed on your own. However, my concept of being able to do it all myself was only partially correct as the hands on work from someone trained is essential and makes all the difference between success or failure and has yielded much faster results.

As there are immediate benefits and long term improvements to be had I continue to work on using more and more of what I have been learning. And this of course is starting to pay dividends with my breathing and posture when playing. And nobody seems to mind me lying on the floor with a book under my head before a gig as long as I don't clutter up the corridor too much...

I can't stress enough just how vital learning this technique is for any performer as we all put our bodies through twists and contortions to play/sing/dance or whatever. But of course it applies just as much for anyone in any walk of life as good posture and freedom from back pain makes life a lot more fun!


For those in London Fiona Bryan teaches from home and can be found at
http://www.dulwichtherapyrooms.co.uk/#/alexander-technique/4536349747


There is also a great book that covers the basics well called Body Breath and Being by Carolyn Nicholls.

"Reed Rage" filled Burgh House in Hampstead on 12th October with an enthusiastic and attentive audience for a programme of Bassoon Quartets, including the European Premiere of "Dance of the Polar Bears" by Gernot Wolfgang as well as many delightful ditties. Although the room did seem to contain a fair smattering of bassoonists in the audience, there were a couple of dozen people who had probably never even blown a bassoon or made a reed. No doubt they were closely related in other ways to the bassoonists in the room and had been dragged along. The feedback was most positive and confirmed that this is indeed a superior genre and may well replace the string quartet in the 23rd century.

The whole event was highly entertaining and coincidentally was finished in Ye Olde White Bear public house though no live Polar Bears were seen. More pictures can be seen on Picasa

Pictures Here