ooooh now I get it! yeh i wasn't too impressed with those either.

Hi Colleagues,
I am new on this forum but I play the bassoon 17 yrs.I use harness with balance hanger and seat strap together(actually a simple neck strap hooked into the hole into the cup) Although, I can`t change my sitting position but if I let my bassoon that stays in the same position. I found it better as the Neck Strap OR Seat Strap separately.

Yeh I can see why you might do that, it's a good way of being able to keep both hands free if you need to. Welcome to the bassoon forum

All I was saying back at the front of this thread is that the "cup" system is SOOO handy if you're having to stand up and take bows, etc., often. You just leave the seat strap where it is, stand up holding your bassoon, then plop it right back down into the cup at the bottom when you sit back down, no problem. A member of our big city orchestra uses one of these and can stand up and sit back down quickly without re-adjusting everything.

My seat strap uses a cup at the bottom mostly because my bassoon didn't have a hole in the metal cup at the bottom to hook something into.

I find though that if I want the bassoon to be comfortable it ends up to be very close to the body so that my body presses against some of the keys down at the bottom section and making eg playing Bb a bit awkward. (Have to exert more force)

I'm thinking of maybe getting some guard installed there so this doesn't happen anymore.

I can also see that there is quite a worn spot on the bassoon at that section so I'd assume it'd be a common thing to happen.

Hmm
James

My bassoon did havea hole at the bottom, but it was too small for my strap, so I put a keyring through it and it's fine. Then in concerts you don't even have to unclip it. And if the strap does move, it's not exactly time consuming to put it back.
You often get patches worn away on the bassoon. I find it gives the instrument a more individual look
If you find you have to exert more force to press a key, then I strongly recommend you get your bassoon checked out of do something to make it easier. I'm having a pretty serious physical problem related to the bassoon at the moment, and it's not making life easy for me. It's so easy to get injuries from playing music - I get told all the time that musicians are athletes. I'm having nasty problems with my jaw, you hear about repetitive strain injury, bassoonists thumb (on the left hand usually, from playing the low notes) all kind of stuff. you want to make playing as easy as possible. I know it's just the B flat, and might not seem like much, but you should still be careful. Just in case.

I can work around it, it's not that bad really, just annoying.

Luckily my bassoon teacher is the same person that fixed up my bassoon in the first place, so I have always a person to go back to for such things. I mentioned it to her the other day and she said she'd be happy to put a guard on there once she sees one she could use.

Of course, the thought of someone drilling into my baby..............ARGH !!!
Back to Handel's Bourree to forget such things (of the water music suite in F of course)

Cheers
James