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I played bassoon for years and would love to play bassoon now that I am not in school. The trouble is that bassoons are extremely expensive. Even a terrible pla

I played bassoon for years and would love to play bassoon now that I am not in school. The trouble is that bassoons are extremely expensive. Even a terrible plastic bassoon costs thousands of dollars, and a "good" bassoon is $20k-40k last I checked, though you can get lucky on a used wooden one, which still won't come cheaply. Another less important issue I think is the difficulty in finding a good reed source: Mass-produced single reeds (clarinet, etc.) play very well, but mass-produced double reeds are practically unplayable (a double reed is the mouthpiece so any inadequacies are glaring). Demand for bassoonists shouldn't diminish anytime soon, the sound is a crucial part of a symphony orchestra.

jessaustin 11y ago
How much does a good reed cost? They aren't very big, are they? If quality depends on skilled handwork, why can't they be ordered cheaply from e.g. the Philippines?
- oinksoft 11y ago
  I used to pay $20 for a reed that my tutor made (about the same price as a box of nice clarinet reeds). It's possible they could be produced more cheaply in another part of the world, but you need a bassoon to test on (again, not cheap) and the manufacturer should themselves be a skilled bassoonist to capably test the reed across the instrument's significant range. A reed's musical qualities are influenced by local conditions (humidity, etc.) so a reed that works well in one place may sound terrible in another. The current model, where accomplished bassoonists and teachers make reeds to meet the small, local demand, seems to at least be workable. I pointed out reeds as only a secondary issue because there seem to be more oboists than bassoonists. Oboists have the same challenge of finding a good reed-maker, or acquiring reed-making tools and canes, and learning the craft themselves. Oboes are much cheaper than bassoons and sometimes can even be rented (good luck finding a place willing to rent a bassoon -- the vast majority of bassoonists get their instrument from their school system).
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    I'm slightly squicked by the idea that someone would test your reeds on their bassoon before you get them. Did I read that wrong?
    - viraptor 11y ago
      If it's mass produced, you can test every 100th, throw them away and assume that other 99 are ok. If you're producing small quantity for friends/students, they can always return the bad ones to you. You don't have to test the exact one you're selling.
      - oinksoft 11y ago
        Due to the variability of cane, every reed must be tested.
    - NLips 11y ago
      At the woodwind shop I buy reeds from, it's pretty standard practice to try before you buy when looking for something new. You take a batch down to the basement and try them out on your bassoon. If you don't like them, they go back in the box and someone else may buy them. It's just the same as donating a reed to another player etc - all part of the job.
  - navbaker 11y ago
    I can't even imagine what my friend is going through now trying to keep his instrument sounding decent. He plays bassoon in one of the U.S. navy bands that is deployed with a hospital ship doing community relations type work in Southeast Asia. He's constantly posting pictures of the band hauling instruments up and down mountain sides, through rain forests, etc. The humidity must be wreaking havoc on the instrument.
    - oinksoft 11y ago
      That's incredible! The good news is that it's already warm and humid (woodwinds have a much harder time with being warmed up after very cold storage).
- bentoner 11y ago
  Here's a video showing how a $22 reed is produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smanwe3_hY8&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smanwe3_hY8&feature=youtu.be
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    If that's all there is to it, ISTM most adult bassoon players could just make their own reeds.
    - vacri 11y ago
      There's quite a few tools used in that video, including a custom jig and some forms. You'd be looking at a moderate upfront investment, plus have a reasonable feel for working with the material to get it to the appropriate tolerances.
beefman 11y ago
It should be possible to make many musical instruments more cheaply. The pBone and pTrumpet prove that quality, affordable brass instruments can be made from plastic. Bassoon should be even easier (except for the reed).
- analog31 11y ago
  Indeed, there are also good clarinets and piccolos made from plastic. I can't comment on how good. An issue with the "endangered" instruments is that the lack of demand frustrates the desire to win economies of scale. This is certainly true of the double bass, which I play. Student quality instruments can be made from plywood, but fitting and finishing are still done by hand, and economies are won by doing production in countries with low labor costs.
- oinksoft 11y ago
  Brass and woodwind instruments are very different beasts though. Plastic clarinets for instance are mostly found in marching bands due to their inferior (brighter) sound, and those instruments are certainly not all plastic. Most woodwind instruments are mechanically intricate, so I'd be impressed if someone could make a pTrumpet version of a clarinet or bassoon (I'd be just as impressed by a pFrenchHorn). Note the difference in sound between a plastic and wooden recorder, one of the simplest woodwinds. I played on a plastic bassoon for the first year, and they do not sound good at all.
  - crdb 11y ago
    FWIW I consider the Yamaha YHR-862 horns to be your pFrenchHorn: at around $3,000 not exactly ultra cheap, but a lot of players have owned one as their first double horn. Mass manufactured, good enough for orchestra playing, can take an unbelievable amount of damage (I took the valves out myself for heavy duty maintenance, something I would never do on my gold brass 1103), a gateway to the much more expensive Alexanders that an all-brands trial will inevitably result in you purchasing... I think Yamaha is trying the same approach with pianos but do not believe (from experience) their officious claim that their grands are anywhere close to Steinways. There is nothing in the world like a Model C or D, yet.
tashi 11y ago
It's hard to believe I may have useful information about this, but I used to know a guy from the University of Colorado at Boulder who was getting his master's degree in bassoon performance by day and sneaking out to the physics lab at night to work on machining reed-making equipment. Now he's got a company, http://www.bartoncane.com/ http://www.bartoncane.com/, that seems to be way better than mass produced and way cheaper than custom... or at least, that's how it seems to me, a guy who doesn't play the bassoon.
- oinksoft 11y ago
  Very cool! Now I just need to save up, for a long time, for a bassoon :)
  - gtani 11y ago
    I've been pricing student oboes, you could do something decent for $1.5k (used grenadilla Yamaha). Also, oboists have been trialling synthetic cane, with promising results: http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=10&i=27177&t=27161 http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=10&i=27...
deleted 11y ago
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aidenn0 11y ago
If you are still looking for reeds, my sister sells hand-made ones at a reasonable cost: http://www.gobassoon.com/ http://www.gobassoon.com/
- oinksoft 11y ago
  This looks great! I bet she could get away with charging a little more :)
NLips 11y ago
Honestly - the high end of the cost bracket isn't really very relevant. Yes, you can pay £25k for a Heckel, but that's pretty much the only make that goes that expensive. Puchners are _very_ highly rated and start sub-£10k new. And then you'd be surprised at the number of players who are still using e.g. a student Adler. My bassoon cost just south of £3k new, which isn't cheap for a 'student' instrument <edit>i.e. compared to non-bassoons</edit>, but has taken me through from grade 2 (I used a music service instrument for ~1 year first) to my diploma and onward - I haven't replaced it! Sure, I'd love an upgrade to some fancy-pants model, and it's thrilling to have a tootle on other bassoonists' instruments from time to time, but virtually no one needs what the parent comment called a "good" bassoon. Order of importance for making a good sound? player > reed > crook > bassoon I can't comment on the availability of reeds where you are, but I'll agree they can be a bit of a pain. They're expensive (mine are £20 each) and variable. That said, once you've got an instrument, the ongoing costs of playing the bassoon are much lower than many hobbies.
- oinksoft 11y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know decent bassoons were available cheaply. I played on a couple of old Fox bassoons in school (a decent brand but nothing incredible) and found even these instruments to cost at least $7,000 used. More palatable, but still quite expensive for a musical instrument that might need repairs. I'll have to take a look at these Puchners some time!

jessaustin 11y ago

How much does a good reed cost? They aren't very big, are they? If quality depends on skilled handwork, why can't they be ordered cheaply from e.g. the Philippines?

oinksoft 11y ago
I used to pay $20 for a reed that my tutor made (about the same price as a box of nice clarinet reeds). It's possible they could be produced more cheaply in another part of the world, but you need a bassoon to test on (again, not cheap) and the manufacturer should themselves be a skilled bassoonist to capably test the reed across the instrument's significant range. A reed's musical qualities are influenced by local conditions (humidity, etc.) so a reed that works well in one place may sound terrible in another. The current model, where accomplished bassoonists and teachers make reeds to meet the small, local demand, seems to at least be workable. I pointed out reeds as only a secondary issue because there seem to be more oboists than bassoonists. Oboists have the same challenge of finding a good reed-maker, or acquiring reed-making tools and canes, and learning the craft themselves. Oboes are much cheaper than bassoons and sometimes can even be rented (good luck finding a place willing to rent a bassoon -- the vast majority of bassoonists get their instrument from their school system).
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  I'm slightly squicked by the idea that someone would test your reeds on their bassoon before you get them. Did I read that wrong?
  - viraptor 11y ago
    If it's mass produced, you can test every 100th, throw them away and assume that other 99 are ok. If you're producing small quantity for friends/students, they can always return the bad ones to you. You don't have to test the exact one you're selling.
    - oinksoft 11y ago
      Due to the variability of cane, every reed must be tested.
  - NLips 11y ago
    At the woodwind shop I buy reeds from, it's pretty standard practice to try before you buy when looking for something new. You take a batch down to the basement and try them out on your bassoon. If you don't like them, they go back in the box and someone else may buy them. It's just the same as donating a reed to another player etc - all part of the job.
- navbaker 11y ago
  I can't even imagine what my friend is going through now trying to keep his instrument sounding decent. He plays bassoon in one of the U.S. navy bands that is deployed with a hospital ship doing community relations type work in Southeast Asia. He's constantly posting pictures of the band hauling instruments up and down mountain sides, through rain forests, etc. The humidity must be wreaking havoc on the instrument.
  - oinksoft 11y ago
    That's incredible! The good news is that it's already warm and humid (woodwinds have a much harder time with being warmed up after very cold storage).
bentoner 11y ago
Here's a video showing how a $22 reed is produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smanwe3_hY8&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smanwe3_hY8&feature=youtu.be
- jessaustin 11y ago
  If that's all there is to it, ISTM most adult bassoon players could just make their own reeds.
  - vacri 11y ago
    There's quite a few tools used in that video, including a custom jig and some forms. You'd be looking at a moderate upfront investment, plus have a reasonable feel for working with the material to get it to the appropriate tolerances.

beefman 11y ago

It should be possible to make many musical instruments more cheaply. The pBone and pTrumpet prove that quality, affordable brass instruments can be made from plastic. Bassoon should be even easier (except for the reed).

analog31 11y ago
Indeed, there are also good clarinets and piccolos made from plastic. I can't comment on how good. An issue with the "endangered" instruments is that the lack of demand frustrates the desire to win economies of scale. This is certainly true of the double bass, which I play. Student quality instruments can be made from plywood, but fitting and finishing are still done by hand, and economies are won by doing production in countries with low labor costs.
oinksoft 11y ago
Brass and woodwind instruments are very different beasts though. Plastic clarinets for instance are mostly found in marching bands due to their inferior (brighter) sound, and those instruments are certainly not all plastic. Most woodwind instruments are mechanically intricate, so I'd be impressed if someone could make a pTrumpet version of a clarinet or bassoon (I'd be just as impressed by a pFrenchHorn). Note the difference in sound between a plastic and wooden recorder, one of the simplest woodwinds. I played on a plastic bassoon for the first year, and they do not sound good at all.
- crdb 11y ago
  FWIW I consider the Yamaha YHR-862 horns to be your pFrenchHorn: at around $3,000 not exactly ultra cheap, but a lot of players have owned one as their first double horn. Mass manufactured, good enough for orchestra playing, can take an unbelievable amount of damage (I took the valves out myself for heavy duty maintenance, something I would never do on my gold brass 1103), a gateway to the much more expensive Alexanders that an all-brands trial will inevitably result in you purchasing... I think Yamaha is trying the same approach with pianos but do not believe (from experience) their officious claim that their grands are anywhere close to Steinways. There is nothing in the world like a Model C or D, yet.

tashi 11y ago

It's hard to believe I may have useful information about this, but I used to know a guy from the University of Colorado at Boulder who was getting his master's degree in bassoon performance by day and sneaking out to the physics lab at night to work on machining reed-making equipment. Now he's got a company, http://www.bartoncane.com/ http://www.bartoncane.com/, that seems to be way better than mass produced and way cheaper than custom... or at least, that's how it seems to me, a guy who doesn't play the bassoon.

oinksoft 11y ago
Very cool! Now I just need to save up, for a long time, for a bassoon :)
- gtani 11y ago
  I've been pricing student oboes, you could do something decent for $1.5k (used grenadilla Yamaha). Also, oboists have been trialling synthetic cane, with promising results: http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=10&i=27177&t=27161 http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=10&i=27...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

aidenn0 11y ago

If you are still looking for reeds, my sister sells hand-made ones at a reasonable cost: http://www.gobassoon.com/ http://www.gobassoon.com/

oinksoft 11y ago
This looks great! I bet she could get away with charging a little more :)

NLips 11y ago

Honestly - the high end of the cost bracket isn't really very relevant. Yes, you can pay £25k for a Heckel, but that's pretty much the only make that goes that expensive. Puchners are _very_ highly rated and start sub-£10k new. And then you'd be surprised at the number of players who are still using e.g. a student Adler. My bassoon cost just south of £3k new, which isn't cheap for a 'student' instrument <edit>i.e. compared to non-bassoons</edit>, but has taken me through from grade 2 (I used a music service instrument for ~1 year first) to my diploma and onward - I haven't replaced it! Sure, I'd love an upgrade to some fancy-pants model, and it's thrilling to have a tootle on other bassoonists' instruments from time to time, but virtually no one needs what the parent comment called a "good" bassoon. Order of importance for making a good sound? player > reed > crook > bassoon I can't comment on the availability of reeds where you are, but I'll agree they can be a bit of a pain. They're expensive (mine are £20 each) and variable. That said, once you've got an instrument, the ongoing costs of playing the bassoon are much lower than many hobbies.

oinksoft 11y ago
Interesting, I didn't know decent bassoons were available cheaply. I played on a couple of old Fox bassoons in school (a decent brand but nothing incredible) and found even these instruments to cost at least $7,000 used. More palatable, but still quite expensive for a musical instrument that might need repairs. I'll have to take a look at these Puchners some time!