Practicing/Resources/Exercises
In this section you'll find practicing tips, bassoon resources and at the bottom a printable beginning bassoon exercise.
Practicing Tips
- Make your practicing a part of your daily routine.
- Practice in small sections. Practice only one measure of a few notes at a time for very hard passages.
- Change the articulation. If the passage contains some slurs for example, tongue everything. In this way, you are eliminating a variable.
- Change the rhythm. If a technical passage contains a difficult rhythm, practice it with all eighth or sixteenth notes. Again you are eliminating a variable.
- Change the rhythm of a passage to dotted eighth and sixteenth then reverse this to a sixteenth and dotted eighth. This makes half the notes played, twice the speed as the others. Also try, triplet eighths or four sixteenth notes.
- Use a metronome to increase the tempo gradually, to keep good pulse and to practice at different tempos.
- Practice a particular passage in short spells, then move on to another difficult section. You will make more progress if you practice for short amount is time. Also, concentration is difficult for long periods of time.
- Change the internal rhythm. Choose a passage that contains an odd number of notes, then play this passage repeatedly immediately going from the last note to the first note without a rest. Note how the first note of the passage now falls on a different portion of the beat.
- Finger Articulation - This involves concentrating on your fingers and fingering, thinking about which fingers must move to play the next note. This will help you move fingers quickly, even in slow tempo.
- Set goals for yourself!
- Sometimes it helps to practice your least favorite passage/section/piece first so you end your practicing with your favorite piece!
- Pick a song you would like to learn and practice it to compliment your required repertoire.
- Learn a pop song just by listening to it, no music!
- Above all, have fun and have a great time practicing!
Resources
A Few Famous Bassoonists:
Everyone who plays the bassoon should have a idea of the tone they want to make. The following list is a great bassoonists who you could model your tone after:
Everyone who plays the bassoon should have a idea of the tone they want to make. The following list is a great bassoonists who you could model your tone after:
- Bernard Garfield
- Judith LeClair
- Leonard Sharrow
- Milan Turkovic
- Sherman Walt
- Karen Borca (Jazz)
- James Lassen (Jazz)
- Jussi Björling
- Klaus Thunemann
- Dong Yonson
- Chris Mallard
- George Philipp Telemann’s Sonata in F minor
- Antonio Vivaldi wrote 39 concerti for bassoon
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto in B♭, K. 191
- Camille Saint-Saëns’ Sonata for Bassoon and Piano in G Major, op.168
- Edward Elgar’s Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra, op.62
- Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Entr'acte to Act II
- Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (in the fourth movement)
- Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf
- Igor Stravinky’s The Right of Spring and The Firebird
- Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King
Suggested Beginner and Intermediate Books:
1) "Rubank, Elementary Method: Bassoon", by J. E. Skornicka
2) "My First Weissenborn: For the Developing Student", Carl Fischer
3) "Weissenborn: Method for Bassoon", Cundy-Bettony edition
- Good for Elementary and Middle School beginners.
- Easy to obtain
- Exercises are well written.
- Contains exercises in both flat and sharp keys.
- Contains many duets and a few trios.
2) "My First Weissenborn: For the Developing Student", Carl Fischer
- Good for Elementary and Middle School beginners.
3) "Weissenborn: Method for Bassoon", Cundy-Bettony edition
- Good for 8th grade and above beginners, and as supplement.
- Not as easy to obtain as the Rubank series.
- Not as progressive in rhythm and difficult key signatures.
- Contains many exercises in both flat and sharp keys.
- Duet at the end of each lesson with an easy and advanced part
Bassoon Playing Exercises
Here is a good exercise to start playing Bassoon
beginning_bassoon_exercises.pdf | |
File Size: | 213 kb |
File Type: |