HI i am 13 and play the bassoon, and was wondering if it is an important instrument in bands and orchestras?

thx

It's an important instrument....period!

Yes, it is extremely important in some works. Usually (like in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, In the Hall of the Mountain King) the bassoon will have an opening part, setting the beat or theme. Other times, just a "filler" instrument, meant to harmonize with the others. I find that the bassoons timbre makes it well suited for being combined with anything from brass to strings.

The bassoon plays an important role in many orchestral and band and solo pieces such as, Ravel's Bolero, Marrige of Figro, Firebird Suite, Peter and the Wolf, Jupiter symphony, works by P.D.Q Bach, and in many of Mozart's, Beethovenss, Brahamss, Vivaldi's, and Shulmann's works. This list is very incomplete and off the top of my head, but the bassoon is a very established instrument with lots of good music written for it.

well obviously the bassoon is the coolest instrument ever, and only the most special people are aloud to play it, but.....

In bands (like concert bands) i'm afraid the bassoon is neglected a bit... it depends on the composer, you do get very good composers who write fantastic parts for bassoon. But the majority of composers of band music tend to give the bassoon the um-pah stuff, or you just don't hear the bassoon - being a tenor instrument it tends to blend in with the rest of the band and it can be very difficult to make yourself heard.

Orchestras, however, are the opposite. Bassoons are very important in orchestras, other people have already given you a list of the most famous bassoon solos. But even without the solos, you can't really have an orchestra without two bassoons, because they fill out the wind section. If you think about it, you only get two of each wind instrument in an orchestra (not including stuff like piccolos and contrabassoons) and it is not uncommon for the wind to have very prominent parts in a piece. The bassoons are the bass of the wind. If you ask me, i think having an orchestra without bassoons is just as bad as having an orchestra without cellos.

bassoon is important, but as Ruth mentioned, in band, the capability of the bassoon is neglected. Some songs (well, I've heard) are really good for bassoon like Eric Whitacre's "Noisy Wheels of Joy" (with a small solo and Suite from Hymn of the Highlands by Philip Sparke, with a beautiful opening duet for clarinet and bassoon

I LOVE philip sparke, he's one of my favourite composers! I love him cus he writes really good bassoon parts in his concert band pieces, and his pieces always sound kinda querky and cool! Have you played Fiesta? or Jubilee Overture? Unfortunately I haven't come across the one that you mentioned. Guy Woolfenden is also a brilliant composer.

actually, to tell the truth, i haven't played bassoon with my band. because we have two bassoonists, my director wants me to stay on clarinet until they graduate, since apparenlty, i'm pretty good on clarinet. i want to play bassoon sooo badly though. Concert season hasn't started yet. We're still marching, and i started bassoon last June.

That's the opposite to me - where i live bassoons are so rare that whenever i turned up to rehearsal they wouldn't let me play flute because they were so glad to have a bassoon. I always got to play piccolo in marches though (i don't march anymore, thankfully) now that i'm at music college i barely touch the flute at all.

Although its nice to think bassoons are important in the orchestra (I do) the general public listening will more often than not not know what a bassoon sounds like, and they won't really notice the solo as a bassoon solo

It doesn't matter. Just because they don't know what a bassoon sounds like doesn't mean it's not there. For example, in Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. There's a massive bassoon solo at the end of the second movement. The public listening might not have a clue what a bassoon is or what it sounds like, but if the bassoonist didn't play that solo then all they would hear is pizzicato.
Also, think about what music people listen to these days. There will obviously be exceptions, but most of the people who put the effort in to go and listen to an orchestra must have some idea about what it is and what instruments are in it.

You have a point (and a big one at that) but still, if you look at movie scores (which is where the general, non bassoon loving public hear orchestras the most) there are quite a lot of bassoon solos for lumbering giants and sometimes suspensful scenes

Quite an interesting thing, Garage Band's ;Symphony Pack' has the sillhoutte if a bassoon in the middle of the disk cover! Fantastic

Also, I reckon people don't know about bassoons is because it has a bad PR department
Its not SEEN in pop or jazz ensembles
When people go to a orchestral concert, they can see trombones moving their slides, flutes at eye level and strings dominating the front-all they see of the bassoon is a white ring and part of a part of the bell

AND when they do see it they don't know what they're looking at because of the reasons stated above.
Its a sad viscous cycle

On the good side, if you know what a bassoon sounds like the (mini) solos are easy to hear. over the orchestra If you know what a contrabass sounds like you still can't hear it.

you know, since i started playing bassoon in july, i think i've been surprised in my daily watching tv and watching movies, like you said, to see how often the the bassoon is used, and with good reason too.

Exactly. Bassoons are actually everywhere, but because no one knows what it is, they don't realise. Another example - there's a program called Midsummer Murders, and they have loads and loads of bassoon solos in that. Everyone hears it but no one knows what it is. Going back to the main question, just to reiterate my point, just because people don't know about it doesn't mean it's not there, therefore the bassoon is very important in an orchestra and does have many exposed solos.

It is a shame about the cycle that bassoonists are in. It's rubbish that no one knows what it is, and the few people (who aren't musicians) who do know don't like it because it doesn't have the best reputation. I think people are just too easily put off by the horrible noise beginners make. They never hear how beautiful the bassoon can be when played properly. I think that if more bassoons were featured in concerts and pulicised, then it would be a lot more popular.

I know-double reeds for that matter aren't given enough attention.
I think that the bassoon is sort of doomed-it evolved from the dulcian and gradually got more and more keys, but the only person who actually re-mastered it was William Heckel, and Adolphe Sax contributed a bit too. But look at other winds, and many more people concentrated on getting them right.


Also, because bassoon fingering changes from bassoon to bassoon people are sort of dettered from teaching/playing it

Bassoons are like viols in the sense they are from medieval times, but the bassoon never evolved much from that

Bassoons are awkward, expensive, hard to play and aren't given much publicity, but I agree with the fact that it doesn't neccarsarily matter that no-one knows what it is-as long as they hear the wonderfull sound. Its just not accsesible enough which is sad because its just as improtant in a symphoy as every other wind is

Finally, bassoons spoil quickly, so not many people mess around with them-look at brass, you can twist it, bend it, put valves and slides everywhere and it'll still work-do something like that to a bassoon and...

I still like them though!