I`m sorry I’ve been away from the blog for so long, I’ve had quite a lot of work and practicing to do, and I haven’t had much to talk about either. That will change right now.
So as I had mentioned in a previous post about early instrument affecting my modern instrument, I now have noticed the reverse as well.
The past three weeks have almost entirely circled around the modern bassoon. This past Tuesday I had a concert for two elementary school classes and I played first movements from concerti by Vivaldi, Mozart and the frist two movements of “Sonatine” by Alexandre Tansman. If you know the Tansman, you’d probably understand why I basically shunned the baroque instrument for quite some time leading up to the concerts.
By the time it came for my occasional lesson with Mathieu, he noticed that I was holding the (baroque) reed quite firmly in-between my lips. He felt that I wasn’t making my instrument resonate 100% although it was playing in tune and musically. I also have noticed recently that the muscles just below my eyes feel sore after playing on the larger baroque reed. We spent most of the lesson on loosening up my embouchure and it was very helpful. You could really hear the difference between an 85% resonant bassoon and one that was resonating fully.
Interesting how about a month ago I was more concerned about the baroque bassoon affecting my modern playing but not the other way around…
