I am a clarinetist and want to switch to bassoon in high school...I know absolutely nothing about bassoon, even down to how to blow it! In fact I have never even seen a real life bassoon in my life. Please help...any tips for a total newbie? Thanks for anything that might remotely help!

Take some time on this forum and read many posts from past musicians who have done the same thing you want to do. There are many tips listed in these replies, too many to repeat here.

The first tip I would give you, however, is to talk to your band director and see if he thinks it is a good idea for you. The clarinet-to-bassoon route is a well-worn road and many people have done it. Second thing is to ask your band director to recommend a teacher, then rent yourself a bassoon, if the school will not supply one. Don't do any more than this until you see if you like playing the bassoon.

If you have trouble adjusting to a double reed, they do make mouthpeices for bassoons. They look kind of like a clarinet mouthpeice and use clarinet reeds, I think.

I play the clarinet and i switched to bassoon last year it was hard at first but you will definatly need a tutor because of your embourchure for bassoon is very different to your clarinet embourchure. You will also find that you will pick it up quickly i am doing 6th grade after a year of playing.

I actually switched from Clarinet to Bassoon 1/2 a year ago, and I was able to teach myself the embouchre and everything. Just try it out, and start with seeing if you can get a sound out of it, then go from there.

I just switched from clarinet to bassoon half way through this past school yeah (half way through 8th grade for me) but its not as bad as some people say if you can catch on quickly and in my opinion the hardest part was switching from reading treble cleft to bass cleft. I don't know why but the reed wasn't hard to get used to. I am getting private lessons next year as well. Hope you have fun! Bassoon is amazing!

The biggest problem for most students switching from clarinet to bassoon is the embouchure.

Clarinet embouchure requires a lot of pressure and biting. The bassoon embouchure requires almost none.

A great way to make sure you don't bite on the reed is this: being mindful of the wires, place your lips on the WRAPPING of the reed, past the blades and wires (where you'd never normally play) Now blow! It will make a great honk! Now try to play something, but keeping the notes up to pitch. What does this require? Good air support. If you bite, it won't matter because the wrapping won't change. Once you can play notes (even in the alto register) in tune without any embouchure at all (because it is on the wrapping) move your lips back to normal position:

Totally relax your mouth. Place the reed in the center of your lips. Gently bring the corners of your mouth in just enough to touch the reed. Open your jaw and pull your bottom lip down and away from the reed. Blow with GOOD AIR PRESSURE, using ONLY the lip pressure that it takes not to leak air (not much).

Now you got it! Totally different from the clarinet.

I switched from tenor sax to bassoon, and the double reed was extremely easy to catch on to.
The hardest part of the change was the bass clef transition, which I still don't know how to read. Also, when you have really high notes, the bass sign will switch to something else, and you have to get used to that as well. I have also taught myself, and the fingerings provide a challenge, but are better than the clarinets boring ones! Lastly, I find that the upper reed really makes your upper lip tired, where as your lower lip should already be fine from years of clarinetting!