Ok so at my high school we`re trying to put together a wind quintet and we have our strongest flute, clarinet, oboe (me) and french horn on board. The only thing is we don`t have a bassoonist. However, our flute player doubles on the oboe and there`s another strong fluter player to take his spot. So we`re all wondering if I were to play the Englidh Horn and he played the oboe, could we substitute the English Horn for the bassoon successfully? Does any one think it would work? If anyone has any tips they`d be appreciated!! Thanks!!!

I don`t know, but even the english horn wouldn`t be as low to substitute for the bassoon, because with all those high instruments, you would need a steady strong bass player, I would consider looking into bass clarinet, or if you really can`t find anything, cello, maybe (the same notes as bassoon) but it wouldn`t really be a wind quintet... You might be able to work with the english horn, but I really don`t know, and my advice, don`t take it seriously because it is pretty useless stuff I believe.

I agree that the better substitute would be a bass clarinet.

If you use a bassoon and want to use notes like it lowest Bb, you could use a bass clarinet with a lower joint that goes down to C instead of Eb

if someone in the group could play piano, most good keyboards have a bassoon sound on them, and from some that i have heard they werent too shabbby. You may want to look into that.....