My Reaction to the Most Popular Bassoon Tutorial on YouTube

There is a lot of bad bassoon advice on the internet, so in this video I wanted to take a look at a really popular video for beginning bassoon and discuss some incorrect and misleading information that it shares.

🙎🏼‍♀️ About Natalie:

Dr. Natalie Law is an active bassoonist and educator based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As an orchestral musician, she has most recently performed with the the Lansing Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony, and West Michigan Symphony. Natalie is a founding member of the Lansing-based woodwind quintet, Pure Winds, which was recently named a finalist for The American Prize and released an album under the Orpheus Classical music label. She has toured the United States as a performing artist and clinician at numerous institutions and conferences such as the Midwest Clinic and the International Double Reed Society Conference. Natalie received her DMA from Michigan State University, where she also obtained her Master's degree in bassoon performance. She completed her Bachelor's degrees in both bassoon performance and music education at the University of Montana. Her primary teachers have included Michael Kroth, Dorian Antipa, Elizabeth Crawford, and Jennifer Cavanaugh.

Natalie is passionate about teaching bassoonists. Having grown up in a rural area without a bassoon teacher for hundreds of miles, she understands the need for high quality and accessible online resources. That's why she founded and created Building a Bassoonist: to help students feel confident, successful, and enjoy learning this unique instrument!

[mariathompson]

Let's make this one of the most popular.

[KrossKjeli]

My bassoon teacher showed me this video as an example of how to discern bad from good bassoon advice online. It's a perfect example

[maximiliangeier]

I totally agree!

And btw, I was taught that when I set up my instrument, I always put the boot joint and the wing joint first together. Then add the bass joint and so on... That's how I use to do it 😊

And don't you agree that you can in fact dip the reed into the water like in video? Maybe it takes a little longer until it is sufficiently soaked, but I think that this way enough water will wet the entire reed, especially since the moisture actually rises upwards (from the track to the end) the longer it is in the water...

[petertcormack]

Thank you so much for this! As a beginning bassoon player, I'm always on the lookout for accurate information. To that end, I do wish you yourself expanded a bit more. Instead of telling us how his embouchure explanation was incomplete and he should have "talked about this or that, " I wish you had talked about those things. Where should I put my lips on the reed? How do I avoid "biting down"? And so on. I really appreciate your channel and have been doing my best to follow your advice in other videos! Keep up the great work!

[ohmreeds]

I agree with most of your points, Natalie. THAT video is weird. But the reed part, there are all kinds of ways to make and perform on reeds. Over here in Thailand we've seen every thing from threaded reed, shrink tube, just wired, 4 wired, 2 wired, soaked it entirely, just dip the blade, just lick it, or just play them straight of box! In the end, it all comes down to the performance itself. If you can play well, anything goes. Just my two cents. Thank you for creating good videos, great insights, and easy to understand.

[Joao.Benitez]

You probably heard this before, but there's a really popular song in Brasil called "Preciso me encontrar" by Cartola wich features a stunning bassoon intro. It made me wanna play the instrument. If everything works out, I might be learning soon and coming back to yor channel for some tips and lessons. Greetings from Brasil!

[dianedebruhl]

Good points Natalie, and you are so kind with your delivery. Not condescending at all to the other, less experienced YouTube posters.

[bertassink]

Totally agree with your comments. In the Netherland our teaching methods are the same as yours! Please continue your excellent job.

[Bruce]

You do good work, and thank you for what you do. Not everyone does how-to videos well, and some are downright scary - power tool demos, for instance. On YouTube, anyone gets to be an expert. Results may vary. Greatly. Your approach is top-notch. Well done, Ms. Law.

[andrewleblanc]

I almost died watching him assemble the instrument

[martinhaub]

I tried some of those reeds with no wrapping; not even heat-shrink tubing. The claim is with modern substances (Duco) you don't need those add ons. I found I kept getting my fingers nicked by the wires.

[Jwellsuhhuh]

I’ve watched this video before but I never noticed how crazy the guy was to assemble the bassoon while on the seat strap until actually imagining doing it myself. It looks sorta fine on camera but if I were to try doing that myself I would immediately realize how awkward and dangerous it is. Especially if joints are tight, putting a lot of downwards force could cause the seat strap to slip out and crash the whole instrument on the floor. And that likelihood would increase for small kids because of their lighter weight therefore providing less friction on the seat strap

[uyyhsxp]

I was so shocked to see him assemble the long joint before the tenor joint! I think he has good general knowledge on woodwinds, but not bassoon in particular

[TheEarlOfSandwich]

This is amazing, I literally just received a rental bassoon today that I’m going to learn to play for band. I found that exact video and followed along to learn how to assemble and play. Thankfully I didn’t have the seat strap on and assembled it like you described from the floor. But yes, the ooo sound helped me to produce a noise but it definitely didn’t sound like an F. I needed about 5-10 minutes of experimentation to produce a nice sound based on the limited info I got; never played woodwind before.

I’m going to watch more of your content to learn! Do you offer online classes by chance?

[robertan]

Love the video! I was just wondering what the piece at the end is called?

[Eunhon]

He's def an oboe player. Soaking the tip and forming an “ooo”embrosure

[kentreuber]

I’ve never soaked the entire reed, just the blade.

[NinyMusicofe-kofk]

My father showed me the same video but I only payed attention to how the assemble it and when I truly got my bassoon, my director was so much better at teaching me than the vid😭

[deloriesh]

I USE SMARTMUSIC EVERY DAY IN SCHOOL...

[philrichards]

I've never heard of anybody trying to attach both the wing and bass joints to the boot at the same time! I'd also suggest (did I learn it from you?) that unless your wider side of the boot is also lined, don't pull the swab out that direction; place it in the large end and pull it through the small side of the boot so as not to bring the wet swab in contact with the unlined side of the boot joint's bore.