How long does it take to have a good tone on the bassoon? I know i have natural talent at music because I am able to learn instruments quickly and i have been playing the violin for 7 years now. Is the bassoon harder than other instruments? Would i be able to teach myself the instrument? And when soaking reeds, how do i do it? Do i emerge the whole reed in water?

A good tone is something you get from just practicing alot, although its very hard to get in the high register (like high A and up).You cannot teach yourself the bassoon and expect to be good at it; there are too many alternate fingerings/techniques. And yes, you fully submerge a read in water for a couple of mins before playing it.

Hey, I`m starting to notice there are more bassoonists here... I see many different names. And, so does that mean you soak the whole entire reed and just dunk it in? Even the part with the string? I thought it was just the tip and up to the strings.

just drop it in water for 5 min.

Yes you soak the entire reed, and i`m assuming that the string on your read is covered with duco cement, or nail polish or something..It helps to seal it better

actually i have 4 reeds right now and only 2 of them have cement haha... iunno y it doesn`t have cement... they were store bought... hmm.

soak the entire reed string and all. if your reed has no coating on it then your probably buying really cheap reeds so dont expect them to last extremely long anyways. you should soak the entire thing because the entire reed needs to be able to vibrate easily not just the visible portion. and the only way to get good intonation is through practice. the best kind of practice at least for me was when i began i used to start each practice by running the chromatic scale and holding each note as long as i could. do that every practice and after a couple of years you will have a fairly good tone.

Yea, Taylor`s advice is useful, one thing i would add is while doing the scales, play each note for maybe 4 beats, and try to add vibrato..make sure your vibrato comes from your abdomen, NOT your throat; throat vibrato is a common habbit which is hard to fix.

Ok, that was very good advice for me! I thought you only had to dip in the tip but now I know better, oh well I don`t play yet anyways.

Yea, Taylor`s advice is useful, one thing i would add is while doing the scales, play each note for maybe 4 beats, and try to add vibrato..make sure your vibrato comes from your abdomen, NOT your throat; throat vibrato is a common habbit which is hard to fix.

thanx. well i just do what I can

HOw do you do vibrato?

I do diaphragm vibrato on flute, and I heard you do the diaphragm vibrato on the bassoon also. The vibrato naturally comes after a long time, and think about opera singers holding a note and it sounds wavy, like that but without a voice just air that vibrates and play the bassoon while doing that and you`ll have a vibrato. Anyways, you will eventually get it if you are determined.