I feel so bad for asking, but here goes.

I`ve been a trumpet player for eight years and I want to expand my repetoire to other instruments. I know I can play other brass instruments, but I am interested in the bassoon the most. I want to begin playing, but I have no idea how to properly... uh... use the mouthpiece to get out notes. Can anyone describe to me how to use the reeds?

Thank you very much.

don`t bother. you`ll just ruin your brass embrouchoure(sp?)

This must be the best site on the Web for bad information...

A good site with basic embouchure information is:
http://www.tsmp.org/band/nelson/nelsontwo.html

Put your mouth on the reed and blow. Just adjust your mouth until you make a sound. As a self taught bassoonist, this is the way I learnt and it didn`t do anything to my Cornet embourchure!

Put the reed in the mouth, fold the top lip over the teeth a little, the bottom all the way over, and make sure you keep a tight embouchre, especially in the corners. And ignore those people who say it will ruin your brass embouchre. It will give you considerably more strength than you could ever get just playing brass. You`ll have more endurance, more control, and more range if you play bassoon frequently.

Luckily you don`t play flute and bassoon. Playing basoon for a long period of time with little flute playing made my flute embouchure much worse than when I started flute. Oh well, I like bassoon more.

I suppose, as long as you balance both, you should keep a same or better brass embouchure.

Yeah, the flute doesn`t go very well with double reeds... I played the clarinet 1 year and then moved to flute and still could double with clarinet easily, but the next year I started oboe, and since I constantly worked on the oboe instead of keeping up my flute, my flute playing was just a bit, well airy and not so nice. I guess practicing on both instruments will eventually make steady progress.

well you`ll need to know bass clef, you curl your lips so your teeth are covered by your lips. You sorta smile and blow. Good luck!!!

except you don`t really smile. Your lips are the only thing that should be on the reed and they should put equal pressure on every side of the reed. Put your lips in a circular shape.

i`m a long term tenor sax player whos just volunteered to play the bassoon for my band. (no one else would do it)

im having a bit of trouble. i finally put it together right i think...but all i have to look at for notes is this fingering chart. and ummm...i have no clue how to do this. my fingers wont reach those places. ive played clarinet, alto, tenor and barry sax, but this beast is something else.

help!