Fagonello, another small bassoon

Haven't heard of this one before. The Fagonello seems to be the latest of a number of attempts to build a bassoon which works for kids (mini-bassoon, fagottino, tenoroon, etc.). This one is nontransposing, and is basically the same as a full-sized bassoon, it just simplifies and moves some keywork, and cuts off the bottom couple of notes. The result sounds pretty good to my ear, at least compared to the other ones I've heard on YouTube.

Trimming a clarinet

I'm fascinated by the construction of instruments. I tend to think of instruments as expensive and permanent, with acoustics fixed in form and unchangable. They're not of course. Someone made them. And to the maker, adjusting an instrument is no scarier than making it out of wood in the first place. Here's Morrie Backun tweaking a clarinet for Ricardo Morales, jamming a reamer into a $8k piece of wood as casually as any reedmaker, making reeds.

Relaxation

One of my problems is tension. It's a very common problem, exacerbated by the critical atmosphere in classical music training and performance, not to mention my own hyper-analytical attitude. The tape loop in my head is commenting: hard part is coming up, try and get it right this time, nerves on high alert, try try try... ooh, just screwed it up again. It's pretty clear that the response to the problem is part of the problem itself. There are a variety of approaches to trying to deal with this. I've mentioned some before, and Barrick Stees comments on the unsuccessful Cleveland audition are relevant too: in a high pressure situation, pretend that you're giving a lesson. My son's piano teacher suggested playing while talking, as a path to effortless playing. (It has to be something you can talk about easily, though. The teacher asked him what he had for breakfast, and he totally couldn't remember. Eventually he replied "A carrot", which seemed like an unusual breakfast to the teacher -- I don't think the passage he was playing came out very effortlessly. My wife suggested changing the topic to the properties of bismuth, something my son has been interested in, and that worked much better. Not sure how you'd do the playing while talking on bassoon, though.)

Recently I've started reading jazz pianist Kenny Werner's book Effortless Mastery, which seems to be concerned with this effect. Early on he describes his experience with a vaguely mystical teacher, this is already after he's been through Berkelee and is a working pro, who only lets him practice one note at a time. One note, one finger. Aiming for total relaxation of that finger and motion. And not as some kind of quick warm-up, before setting into hours of intense, high-tension "real work" in the practice room. Rather, no more than five minutes of this, per day, and no other playing. After some weeks of this, spending most of his time hanging out at the beach in Brazil or whatever, he went to a party, and got asked to play. After many apologies about being out of practice due to his crazy teacher, he did. And everything sounded wonderful. Much of the problem is in our heads, in particular, in the parts of our brains responsible for analytical critique. The part that decides, is it Right, or is it Wrong, the Manichean fallacy. Nonjudgmental should be the goal. "If you can meet with Triumph, and Disaster, and treat those two Imposters just the same." (Kipling) Or alternatively, in words stolen from forum, you're not as good as you think you are. You're not as bad as you think you are, either. At my lesson, we did a few things along the lines of relaxation. One was to exhale in time before inhaling, both to get a fuller breath, and also because deep breathing is a relaxation exercise. Another was to listen to the tone from the room, trying to ignore the direct sound of the instrument coming through the mouth and jawbone. This morning I spent my practice trying to figure out how to practice that mental state, how to play effortlessly and relaxed. I ended up playing scales at MM=48, which I'd just picked to be slow, but is probably a good tempo to establish a slow breathing and a slow heartbeat. Pulse is physical, and relaxation is physical.

Lighter reeds

I wasn't entirely happy with how the slow pp chorale in Egmont went. I don't think it was nervousness, although that didn't help. And I know it's physically possible, even for me. In fact, I think I nailed it fairly well at the sound check a couple hours before the show. I think the right attitude is that this kind of playing, slow, pianissimo, smooth and in tune, is just not sufficiently inside of my comfort zone to allow it to be reliable. Part of the problem could be reed. The reeds I've been making tend to be on the stiffer side, at least compared to my teacher's. There are nice things about that: I think I can make them sound good, all I have to do is support them sufficiently. And maybe the reedmaking process is a little less sensitive when making a stiffer reed. My algorithm has basically been to stop once I have a reed that plays okay, with adequate symmetry etc., then to spend my time practicing, and work on making it play. Another approach is to try and get a reed to be as light as possible, to remove as much material as you can while still doing what it needs to do. My old teacher said that basically everyone ends up going light, in the end. He related a story of an LA player whose backpressure was so high, his neck used to expand dramatically when he played. Very notable for people sitting behind him. This guy eventually developed an aneurysm in his neck, and had to give up playing entirely. I don't think my problem is so severe, but I do have fatigue issues. I can't play all the way through a Milde study without feeling blown out at the end. And my Egmont problem, I think is related to fatigue. At the sound check, we started basically right on the hard part. Totally fresh, I could pull it off. At the show, after having just spent a couple of minutes blowing hard through the first part of the piece, I was unable to control myself and the reed. I'm hoping that trying to learn to make and play on lighter reeds will help things like that.

How a cleaned bassoon reed ages

The upper reed is my main reed at the moment. Actually, because I'm lazy, it's basically the only reed I've been using. I've been playing on it for months, probably at least hundred hours or so. I'm careful to sonicate my reeds after every use, so I can get away with this. In high school, before I cleaned reeds, I remember them going off much more quickly; going first stuffy and then dead. I think the usual aging mechanism is that the reed surface gets clogged with dead skin cells from the lips. This slimy stuff deadens the vibration, and maybe contributes to bugs growing which can eat away at the reed.

The lower reed is a new reed I'm working on finishing. The old reed is still working, but I'm getting worried about it. The color is getting darker, maybe the pitch is rising, and I'm feeling like some of my problems are the reed's fault. Having a new one on hand gives me a comparison, to see how the old one has aged. I arranged the light in the picture to try and demonstrate the difference in texture between the reeds. The old reed has developed grooves between the white cellulose fibers. I'm not sure what the material between the fibers is, maybe lignin, but whatever it is, it seems to be lost faster than the white fibers. I should check the interior of the old reed when I discard it, see if a similar effect is occurring on the interior.

The hard part

This is my hardest part in the concert coming up on Sunday. The piece is Beethoven's Egmont overture, and I've clipped out woodwind part (oboe, clarinets in Bb, and bassoons) from the score. In the fermata bar, the violins cut off the King's head, with a dramatic C-G! Then the woodwinds enter, with second clarinet and bassoon (that's me) on octave F's, then adding parts, in the shocked quiet after the decapitation. After this, there's a rousing finale, but I'm worried about the notes before.

That opening F is marked ppp, and it needs to be very quiet, mysterioso. There's no other sound in the hall. The clarinet I'm playing with can play with a subtone anywhere down to zero; the bassoon, not so much. The first rehearsals, he was playing really quiet, not only because it was ppp, and because the conductor wanted it quieter, less and less, but also because he felt insecure about the pitch, so he kindof wanted to sneak in and hear how it sounded. You'll bury me, I told him, and asked him to do what he could to help us match dynamic-wise. (Ie, play louder, please!) I'm doing what I can: tons of support from lips and diaphragm, slow air, muffled fingering (add low D and E). I think the conductor has gotten the idea after watching me struggle, and hearing the pops, cracks and dropouts when I get too soft: at the rehearsal last night he asked clarinet 1 to meet us on dynamic. It's sometimes described as a knife edge, playing a double reed as soft as possible, but a better metaphor is a cliff's edge. Things are fine a comfortable distance away from it, it's fine creeping up to it, it's even okay balanced right on it, but any jiggle, and down you fall, with no hope of recovery. I'm also slurring the whole thing. My part has each note rearticulated (even the Db, unlike the score here), but adding tongue is just too risky, and I don't think the articulation is needed.

Intonation is a struggle too. I've played this lots against a drone. The F I'm playing as low as I can, without it drooping, the Db needs to be up and supported, the Bb down, with open throat, and the C fully supported. If I'm reading the chords right, the harmonies are F, Db major, G half diminished, C major, making the key change to the final section. So I'm usually the root of the chord, except for the Bb, which is a third, and should therefore be a little extra low. I guess you could also call that G chord a Bbmin add 6, to emphasize the bass line and the descending thirds F-Db-Bb, but calling it G helps recognize it's relation to the C following.

Looking back, I see I've mentioned this passage twice before. Ah well. I guess it's a hard spot. But I'll say this: even though it's hard, and even though I still can't play it as perfectly as I can hear it in my head, I can say that practicing it has helped. It really works, practice. Imagine that.

Bocal brush!

About a year ago I picked up a bocal brush, figuring it was a standard piece of equipment, and I ought to have one. I didn't use it immediately, and somehow misplaced it. I figured I probably didn't need it too badly, since I'm careful to keep my mouth and reeds clean, so what gunk was there that could end up in the bocal? I'm well aware of what can end up in bocals, though. I remember the first bassoon I played, a student horn belonging to my junior high school. (Speaking of which, a junior high with an orchestra? And a bassoon to lend? We didn't know how good we had it.) Anyway, it was tough to make a sound. I didn't have a brush, didn't know special brushes existed, but I did run tap water through the bocal, and was astonished by the large chunks of crud that came out. Really, I was mostly surprised that I could get air through at all, given how packed it was with crud. And yeah, clearing it out helped that horn a lot. So brushing out bocals seems like a good idea, and I was annoyed that I'd lost my brush before ever using it. A month or two ago I even spent awhile searching, without success, and made do with running water through it.

Today, while tidying, I found my unused bocal brush! I immediately brushed out my main bocal, curious if there would be any gunk, though I didn't really expect anything. But lo, check this out:

Not huge hunks, but some substantial slime, to be sure. How exactly a slime coat would affect the acoustics isn't obvious to me, but it can't be good. Trying it out afterward, it felt like maybe it was a little more resonant, and a little easier to reach very high notes (D-D#-E), but I can't be sure if that isn't just psychological. Worthwhile in any case.

As an added bonus, I used the same principle to fix my dishwasher later in the evening. So: two wins for brushes in one day.