That's what I did too! I played flute and piccolo also, so I just bought a plastic body/silver plated head Yamaha piccolo and made my marching band life super easy!
I was fortunate that my band teacher didn't make me do anything at all. But, I did find that there's a thing called a single Reed mouthpiece for a bassoon. It uses an E flat clarinet Reed. I never used it for marching band, but I did use it for jazz band. It didn't change the tone a lot, but it did add just a hint of that sax snarl for jazz.
The Bassoon mouthpiece, and only one I know of, was made by Runyon Products. They are now out of business. That mouthpiece was actually quite good. It used a standard Bb Clarinet reed. In designing it, Mr. Runyon made it to have the same internal volume as a well made bassoon double reed. He used it for doubling in the Chicago Theatre Orchestra where he played 5 shows a night transmitted over NBC Radio in the '30's and '40's. A listener would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the sound produced by that mouthpiece and a double reed.
There is a classic double reed instrument that is traditionally played outdoors in all kinds of weather. It cleverly addresses most all the issues you identify. The reed is in a separate enclosure so is not affected by walking movements. There is a separate air reservoir so tone is not affected by walking. The setup facilitates carrying on the shoulder. Rain does affect it but the major problem is that it doesn’t merge well with other instruments for most band repertoire. I am of course referring to the Great Highland Bagpipe or GHB for short.
There's another double-reed instrument that can march and actually works very well with bagpipes, to the degree that entire groups are made up of that pairing (and percussion). The Breton bombarde.
This is the EXACT reason I'm in color guard! My band teacher originally put me on cymbals and it was so boring compared to the bassoon. There were like, three ways to play. So I then went to color guard. I really didn't feel like learning another instrument freshman yeah smh. The big reason that I tell people is the "if i trip, it goes down my throat" and then no one aruges.
I'm guessing this was your high school band director. Now, my instrument is Trumpet, but I have fond memories of watching the Perc section in college do interesting things, and cymbals were never boring. Want proof? Go find a movie called Drumline.
First off, the movie drumline is a movie, not real life. Second, im actually in drumline at my hs which in 2022 got 6th during WGI Finals, and drumline the movie is more like college drumline which is more making noise based. If you want a good example of cymbals being crazy watch pulse percussion's 2023 cymbal break. But drumline IRL and drumline the movie have 1 similarity and thats the fact they have drums in them.
I started in drumline in 6th but hated it so I play clarinet now and do colorgaurd but I’m probably gonna quit colorgaurd and play trumpet or trombone as well as clarinet
In 8th grade as a bassoonist, I wanted to join the drumline. After our last concert of the year, I was approached by the band director with a proposition. He said "Hey! Here's a mellophone!" So now I can play that too! Yippee! That was 9 years ago. And to be fair, I was not the only bassoonist he did that to. One of my best friends at the time got a tuba that year. I loved marching mellophone though and since I hung around french horn players a lot, I have a really weird sense of humor now ;p
@@M_SC It is the marching instrument for the French horn. I've seen bands march the French horn as well, but the mellophone is easier to carry. French horn players are just a bit unique in their own way. Hard to describe 😜
Even in 1972 when I was in band I did NOT march with my bassoon. I pretended to play the flute. And as expected out of 200 band members there were exactly 5 bassoonists. Really enjoyed your video - like a blast from the past.
i played oboe in middle school and remember my band teacher saying if i wanted to do marching band in HS id have to switch to percussion, but he never explained why. thanks for the informative video!
I did a show with Mark Wood from TSO once and he had a cello that he basically attached a quad drum harness to so he could run around and be Mark Wood lol 😂
This was a great video. Also, it's so affirming what you said about the saxophone and the bassoon, I play both and I feel the similarities, I transfer a lot of the saxophone techniques to the bassoon.
BOTTOM LINE: The bassoonists are the ones who don't allow them outside, because they love and respect their instruments too much. Thal love and respect is justified. (I am not a musician, but I love the music that emanates from them.)
We definitely had a bassoon in our marching band and we were one of the most competitive bands in California. She used a different mouthpiece of course.
In the massive marching band featured in the final scene of The Music Man (1962, Warner Bros.) there was a whole row of marching bassoonists, and despite the presence of seventy-six trombones, each bassoon had its big fat say.
I always wondered: the lyrics to “Seventy-Six Trombones” mentions bassoons, each having is big fat say. But I knew that this is absurd; you can’t march with a bassoon. So why is that lyric in there? It fits the rhythm and rhyme of the song, but it makes no sense.
Thank you for this informative purposed, inspirational and educational recording formatted video, on the reason(s) for the absence of bassoons and other double reed instruments in marching bands. I enjoyed the video editing and was engaged by the light additional humorous references. Much appreciated and looking forward to your future videos.
Fabulous video. It takes a smart mind to make a 7 minute show about bassoon safety. I was in marching band in the 1960's. When first asked, I told the band director I wanted to play piano. Everyone laughed and I didn't know why, until I really thought about it. Been a party/dance band leader for 50 years. keep up the good work.
Loved the video! I was a French Horn player, and for marching band, the director handed me not a mellophone, but an E-flat alto horn that some of my bandmates called a baby baritone, which is kind of what the instrument looks like. A lot of what you said about not being able to hear a bassoon outside, especially when played with typical marching band instruments, and faking an instrument reminded me of Peter Schickele's introduction to "PDQ Bach's Sinfonia Concertante for Six Solo Instruments and String Orchestra". While talking about the solo instruments, he says, "When the bagpipe is playing, you can't hear anything else, whereas the lute is such a quiet instrument that if there is simply another instrument in the room with it, you can't hear it, whether it's being played or not." After telling the audience that PDQ Bach never found any solution to this imbalance, he finishes with, "But the lute looks nice. ... It's a very nice lute, and we hope you enjoy it ... Think of it while listening to the bagpipe."
Years ago someone made a clarinet-like mouthpiece with a single reed that fit a bassoon bocal for outdoor use. Made that aspect easier. I've played my old plastic Linton outside on the march using either a Fox or Legere plastic reed. Not exactly comfortable, and totally inaudible, but still fun.
My HS band marched bassons and oboes. The only instrument changes we had for outside were flutes changed to piccolos, french horns switched to bell front FH, tubas switched to sousaphones, and upright euphoniums were switched to curved bell baritones.
Hell, I was the ONLY bassoon player for my entire middle and high school years! We had two girls who were oboe players in middle school; I don't remember how many we had in high school, but it wasn't more than three in any one year. Not small schools, either - average number of students was about 2200 per school, per year. Oh, and the only reason that I even was a bassoon player was because my band teacher asked me to switch (I was in 6th grade, and was 3rd chair clairinet at the time) I hadn't heard of the bassoon before he asked me! When he showed me one after I asked, I thought it was both the weirdest and the coolest instrument I had seen.
Great explanation! Thanks. I always wondered about that. I wanted to play bassoon in Jr High, but was put on bass clarinet so I could be on the marching band. I never knew the reason why until now. I just knew "bassoons aren't in the marching band." Much appreciated.
I was a tuba player in high school (sousaphone for marching band). Our band director loved marching band and that rubbed off on us. It's been a while, but I think I remember one of our oboe players playing alto sax during marching band, another swapping to clarinet, and our bassoon player played sousaphone with us tuba players. I kind of maybe remember us having a second bassoon player, but I'm having a hard time remembering. This was more than twenty years ago, so there's a lot I've forgotten.
Long ago, we didn't even have woodwinds in the field show band at all, except for piccolos and saxophones which could still be heard. All the flutes and clarinets had to switch over to something that could actually be heard. Since this gave us a surplus of alto and tenor saxophones, we typically were in no great need for mellophones so there might only be four of them compared to a dozen trumpets. Parade band was a completely different beast. Then the instrumentation was pretty much identical to indoors. But at night we looked more like a drum corps with saxophones sprinkled in. It was very common for people to play three different instruments during the course of the day: their indoor primary for the parade band, some piece of percussion if they were in the drum line which had its own competition, and a loud (and generally directional) instrument for the football field at night.
Coming from germany, i never knew marching bands were a thing. In Germany we have what's called a Blaskapelle. It's basically a small band-club for wind instruments playing folk songs for example.
What the US terms Marching Band is much more than the traditional military style marching bands you see elsewhere in the world. We still came from the same tradition, but it got tied to American Football and became more of a pageantry band over just straight parade marching. I can't tell you how it started, but I'm sure Wikipedia can. Also, there are military/parade bands that do fancy stuff in the street. Mind you, we do parades, too. My high school marching band used to practice parade marching two weeks in spring because the school was in a small town and the big event in spring was the Whoopy Days. Featured a parade, so of course the local High School was going to play in it. Now, there's a style of the US Marching Band tradition called Drum and Bugle that's mostly perc, brass, and color guard. The organization that's running a professional version (DCI or Drum Core International) does have a branch in Europe, and I think has chapters in Germany that perform and compete. So, it's coming for you. :P
My school district allows us to march bassoons and they love using them for solos. Also that thing in the beginning is a contrabass tuba/marching tuba,usually bach
I was the only bassoonist at my high school, and I played oboe in marching band. It actually worked decently well - if you're marching correctly, your head stays level, and you don't need to worry about the reed too much. I played the flute part - yes, at pitch lol
The Heckelphone is meant to blend with the oboe, English horn, and so fourth, so it has roughly the same problems. A Baroque tenoroon might work better.
When I was in England I saw a bassoonist marching with the changing of the guard. My sister played oboe in high school. One year she played cymbals, and several years she carried the banner.
Flower Mound HS, bassoons in a box. What made that even more impressive is that there was contrabass bassoon in the mix. Pretty expensive instrument to take on trips.
It’d be really cool if y’all played Turkish march and then Bravura. And it would be also really cool if it was done by a military marching band (specifically from Kingwood) and the bassoon part wouldn’t be cool if it didn’t have the legendary Patrick Jia in it.
I clicked "I'm feeling lucky" on the RUclips app and it took me to this video randomly... Wow, I learned a lot about a topic I had no idea existed 😂 here is a like 👍 and a comment for engagement!
2:33 I was taught to carry my bassoon differently. On the long joint there's this ridge in the metal rods that connect the low B and Bb keys to their tone holes/pads. I place my thumb under this ridge and wrap the rest of my fingers around and over the A thumb key. I believe this is the safest way to hold a bassoon because it's closer to the center of balance than anywhere on the boot joint. The only situation in which it might be unsafe is if the tenons of your wing joint and long joint are too loose which is a separate problem in and of itself.
British military bands, and those of commonwealth countries do have bassoons as well as French horns, including the Household Cavalry Band which often plays mounted on horses. Incidentally the saxophone was actually invented for mounted military bands in France.
Have not heard someone call the Fr. Horn substitute for marching a Melophone since 1969 (first year in high school marching band, before that I marched with a french horn) the next year it was called a euphonium. In high school our double reed players switched to clarinet or the the Glockenspiel (bells).
Our school is just like "meh, if you wanna march with a double reed we're not stopping you" Hence why I'm a marching oboe :P We have marching violins too and judges love it at competitions
@@ArsonnFrog lol well last year we didn't have any violins or double reeds in the actually good band that wins all the sweepstakes, but we're in Varsity this year so I don't have videos of that yet. Here's a video of us last year in Junior Varsity though: ruclips.net/video/PpOzMEjrU2E/видео.html (I'm probably doxing myself with this but oh well) If you want to see actually good marching, just search up varsity :)
I judged the Tupelo High School Band from Mississippi three years ago in West Tennessee and they opened the show with a bassoon quartet. Yes, you heard it right-a bassoon quartet. I have also seen a band or two from the panhandle of Florida marching bassoons.
Sound is a big one, even flutes, clarinets, bass clarinets, and saxophones can struggle with sound as the brass are overpowered. Besides Bass Clarinet, the other instruments have high pitch we can pierce through, but yeah you ain’t hearing Bassoon unfortunately. I play bass clarinet but Tuba got marching band (tho used to march soprano clarinet) and you can barely hear bass clarinet sometimes.
I was always told that double-reed instruments would be too awkward to march and play with, plus they wouldn't be audible enough. Therefore I joined the drumline and made friends and memories there, while still playing bassoon during the concert season.
I actually showed up as a woodwind tech to camp and had oboes and bassoons outside. I told them to take those things inside where they belong and I would sort it out with the band director. We had some extra mellophones, pit, and bass clarinets. And yes, some drill had to be rewritten. I did it. If I change something undesirable to me, I'm gonna also work it correctly.
My HS had the option to march cymbals or play in the front ensemble for the double reeds. I really enjoyed learning cymbals and ended up marching a couple seasons in DCI.
When I started doing marching band at the college level (my freshman year... It's now MUCH different at ASU), the band t-shirt said "Pride, Sweat, and a Great Farmer's Tan". I can attest I did have a great farmer's tan. Still do to some respects, even though I work primarily indoors.
The german army bands actually march with bassons. Just looked it up before because i couldn't remember if they march with it(they even have a high need for basson players and french horn players as said on their internet site). But these are professionells so i think are verly unlikely to fall over
Huh, never thought about it before, but what you say totally makes sense. I love the bassoon sound, but I guess I can settle for getting it in wind quintet chamber music, the odd concerto, and old Frank Zappa records. Thanks for the education.
A friend told me her son started on bboe for his first instrument. Once he got to marching band age, he learned the clarinet. Now that he is the age to be in the jazz band, he wants to learn sax. I say, start kids on the doubles early. I learned to be proficient on saxophones in high school, but didn't get the opportunity for bassoon or the other woodwinds until college. I did finally get to play bassoon in the concert band for 2 years.
Amen brother. I was a bassonist in the College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean band in the mid-80's. Indoor concert? No problem. Marching outdoors? Switched to either euphonium or trombone. There's nothing quite like having that cane double-reed bouncing against your gums while you're trying to keep pace.
At my school in 6th grade everybody starts on a basic instrument like percussion, clarinet, alto sax, flute, trombone, trumpet then in 7th grade brass can move to tuba or the other trombone I forgot the name, then woodwinds can move to tenor or berry sax, bass clarinet, bassoon, and then I’d you can march with your instrument you move to your first instrument because you already learned how to play it, it works well for everyone because if we don’t need those instruments they can hop on the other instruments at anytime
My HS band director never told me it was hard to march with an oboe so we had oboes, bassoons, even bass clarinets on the field. Great concert sound. First oboe in the University of Texas Longhorn Band to march. There were 4 of us at one point!!!
Def taught and marched at schools with bassoons and oboes. I think they make these wicked synthetic reeds now to help keep down the reed cost and our schools got them for a discount for the students. But I highly recommend the students to switch to a low brass instrument, partially because more brass more betta. and builds up their lungs
I played Bass Clarinet, for marching band the band director got the school's alto calrinet repaired lol I did play the bass for football games when the alto was out for repair ... and I got to play it at Graduation . I will say chipping the reed while matching was a common thing... but happned to sax and regular clarinet as well so
There was, in fact, a double reed instrument like the bassoon designed for marching band use! It was called the Sarrusophone, but unfortunately it never caught on, possibly because the safety issues were never solved.
I was a trombone player in marching band, and I actually have two trombones one that I use for practice and football games and won that was only used at competitions and during concert season.
I saw one amazing band use a bassoon in their marching show. Their show was Rite of Spring by Stravinsky, which a bassoon is crucial. However, they're bassoon player didn't march, they stood in the pit section the entire time, and I believe it's because they were mic'd up. It was fantastic though. Band was Pomona High School in Colorado, circa 1997.
I recently spent a day at a shop where they had two from a local school on site for cleaning and adjustments. I don't think the school even knew what they had.
My friend in HS marching band ONE TIME played his concert wooden clarinet outside in bad weather. The black color began to bleed off and before much damage was retired from the field. He got a cheap plastic one for marching
Something quite interesting is that an instrument was developed to become essentially a marching band equivalent of the bassoon. It was called the Sarrusophone, and had quite a striking similarity to the Saxophone and Tuba's precursor, the Ophicleide. Although I quite like its sound it unfortunately never caught on -possibly due to the design failing to address the safety issues of marching with a double reed.
I had a few concerts in Europe that we were playing outside and with my black composite bassoon. It expanded and multiple keys didn’t work for the majority of the confers 😢😢
My band director made my friend come watch the whole first half of our football games so she could play one minute solo in "Variations on a Korean Folk Song". (Since she was the only one at the mic, she took the 10 second horn part of the solo too). Then she...went home. And did I mention despite us having timpani, we could NOT get them down to even our own home field. But...in my case I actually volunteered to join the drumline on crash cymbals (Despite normally only covering timpani and CONCERT bass drum...Which is NOT ANYTHING like the 5 to 7 basses my HS band called for...
My school allows us to do it but we have to sign waivers lol. I just play piccolo for the Marching season.
that’s cool :o
That's what I did too! I played flute and piccolo also, so I just bought a plastic body/silver plated head Yamaha piccolo and made my marching band life super easy!
Idk if my school allows it, probably not, but I just do drumline(bass 2)
@@lorenclark8457bass 2, let’s goooo
(Although one of our tenors (quads) is leaving so now I have to learn that in two weeks for our next football game
Same
I was fortunate that my band teacher didn't make me do anything at all. But, I did find that there's a thing called a single Reed mouthpiece for a bassoon. It uses an E flat clarinet Reed. I never used it for marching band, but I did use it for jazz band. It didn't change the tone a lot, but it did add just a hint of that sax snarl for jazz.
Yep I know exactly what you're talking about...i've tried that mouthpiece in another one of my other videos lol
Where can I get one?
JAZZ BASSOON. I love it!
The Bassoon mouthpiece, and only one I know of, was made by Runyon Products. They are now out of business. That mouthpiece was actually quite good. It used a standard Bb Clarinet reed. In designing it, Mr. Runyon made it to have the same internal volume as a well made bassoon double reed. He used it for doubling in the Chicago Theatre Orchestra where he played 5 shows a night transmitted over NBC Radio in the '30's and '40's. A listener would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the sound produced by that mouthpiece and a double reed.
@@hiiexist479 Runyon Products is out of business, and had not produced any bassoon mouthpieces for quite some time even before they closed.
There is a classic double reed instrument that is traditionally played outdoors in all kinds of weather. It cleverly addresses most all the issues you identify. The reed is in a separate enclosure so is not affected by walking movements. There is a separate air reservoir so tone is not affected by walking. The setup facilitates carrying on the shoulder. Rain does affect it but the major problem is that it doesn’t merge well with other instruments for most band repertoire. I am of course referring to the Great Highland Bagpipe or GHB for short.
And it isn't chromatic, and isn't tuned to the same pitch as standard instruments.
It also will drown out the rest of the band.
@@oldfarthacks You say that as though it were a bad thing.
There's another double-reed instrument that can march and actually works very well with bagpipes, to the degree that entire groups are made up of that pairing (and percussion). The Breton bombarde.
And the Schalmai.
This is the EXACT reason I'm in color guard! My band teacher originally put me on cymbals and it was so boring compared to the bassoon. There were like, three ways to play. So I then went to color guard. I really didn't feel like learning another instrument freshman yeah smh.
The big reason that I tell people is the "if i trip, it goes down my throat" and then no one aruges.
I'm guessing this was your high school band director. Now, my instrument is Trumpet, but I have fond memories of watching the Perc section in college do interesting things, and cymbals were never boring. Want proof? Go find a movie called Drumline.
Color guard is where it’s at (even if I’ve broken like 6ish bones, had to wash blood out of clothing and off equipment, and had a few concussions)
@@crashvds777 Rifles for me and did both flag/rifles in Drum Corp. Hung up the trombone.
First off, the movie drumline is a movie, not real life. Second, im actually in drumline at my hs which in 2022 got 6th during WGI Finals, and drumline the movie is more like college drumline which is more making noise based. If you want a good example of cymbals being crazy watch pulse percussion's 2023 cymbal break. But drumline IRL and drumline the movie have 1 similarity and thats the fact they have drums in them.
I started in drumline in 6th but hated it so I play clarinet now and do colorgaurd but I’m probably gonna quit colorgaurd and play trumpet or trombone as well as clarinet
In 8th grade as a bassoonist, I wanted to join the drumline. After our last concert of the year, I was approached by the band director with a proposition. He said "Hey! Here's a mellophone!" So now I can play that too! Yippee!
That was 9 years ago. And to be fair, I was not the only bassoonist he did that to. One of my best friends at the time got a tuba that year. I loved marching mellophone though and since I hung around french horn players a lot, I have a really weird sense of humor now ;p
Wait what is their sense of humour like? Also what’s a mellophone? I am horrified there’s a band instrument I don’t know
@@M_SC It is the marching instrument for the French horn. I've seen bands march the French horn as well, but the mellophone is easier to carry.
French horn players are just a bit unique in their own way. Hard to describe 😜
Then where do the oboist go?
Even in 1972 when I was in band I did NOT march with my bassoon. I pretended to play the flute. And as expected out of 200 band members there were exactly 5 bassoonists. Really enjoyed your video - like a blast from the past.
i played oboe in middle school and remember my band teacher saying if i wanted to do marching band in HS id have to switch to percussion, but he never explained why. thanks for the informative video!
We need more marching cello players anyhow.
Ever see Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run"?
I did a show with Mark Wood from TSO once and he had a cello that he basically attached a quad drum harness to so he could run around and be Mark Wood lol 😂
💀
WHO'S GOING TO HEAR THOSE TYPE OF INSTRUMENTS!?
Put a wheel on the endpin
This was a great video. Also, it's so affirming what you said about the saxophone and the bassoon, I play both and I feel the similarities, I transfer a lot of the saxophone techniques to the bassoon.
BOTTOM LINE: The bassoonists are the ones who don't allow them outside, because they love and respect their instruments too much. Thal love and respect is justified. (I am not a musician, but I love the music that emanates from them.)
I wanted a bassoon not too long ago, but now I'm glad I don't want it anymore.. Phew!
We definitely had a bassoon in our marching band and we were one of the most competitive bands in California. She used a different mouthpiece of course.
No one's going to hear a bassoon in a marching band bro.
In the massive marching band featured in the final scene of The Music Man (1962, Warner Bros.) there was a whole row of marching bassoonists, and despite the presence of seventy-six trombones, each bassoon had its big fat say.
Just watched “The Music Man” a few days ago….watch it every year or two.
I always wondered: the lyrics to “Seventy-Six Trombones” mentions bassoons, each having is big fat say. But I knew that this is absurd; you can’t march with a bassoon. So why is that lyric in there? It fits the rhythm and rhyme of the song, but it makes no sense.
@@davidkantor7978 Some people think bassoon = tuba (the same people who think we play oboe).
Thank you for this informative purposed, inspirational and educational recording formatted video, on the reason(s) for the absence of bassoons and other double reed instruments in marching bands. I enjoyed the video editing and was engaged by the light additional humorous references. Much appreciated and looking forward to your future videos.
Fabulous video. It takes a smart mind to make a 7 minute show about bassoon safety. I was in marching band in the 1960's. When first asked, I told the band director I wanted to play piano. Everyone laughed and I didn't know why, until I really thought about it. Been a party/dance band leader for 50 years. keep up the good work.
Loved the video! I was a French Horn player, and for marching band, the director handed me not a mellophone, but an E-flat alto horn that some of my bandmates called a baby baritone, which is kind of what the instrument looks like. A lot of what you said about not being able to hear a bassoon outside, especially when played with typical marching band instruments, and faking an instrument reminded me of Peter Schickele's introduction to "PDQ Bach's Sinfonia Concertante for Six Solo Instruments and String Orchestra". While talking about the solo instruments, he says, "When the bagpipe is playing, you can't hear anything else, whereas the lute is such a quiet instrument that if there is simply another instrument in the room with it, you can't hear it, whether it's being played or not." After telling the audience that PDQ Bach never found any solution to this imbalance, he finishes with, "But the lute looks nice. ... It's a very nice lute, and we hope you enjoy it ... Think of it while listening to the bagpipe."
Years ago someone made a clarinet-like mouthpiece with a single reed that fit a bassoon bocal for outdoor use. Made that aspect easier. I've played my old plastic Linton outside on the march using either a Fox or Legere plastic reed. Not exactly comfortable, and totally inaudible, but still fun.
The weather:
My HS band marched bassons and oboes. The only instrument changes we had for outside were flutes changed to piccolos, french horns switched to bell front FH, tubas switched to sousaphones, and upright euphoniums were switched to curved bell baritones.
My elementary-school band had a baritone-sousaphone; after all, it fit over a kid’s body.
y'all get 4-6 bassoonists on average??? we basically have a party for every bassoon we can get
Hell, I was the ONLY bassoon player for my entire middle and high school years! We had two girls who were oboe players in middle school; I don't remember how many we had in high school, but it wasn't more than three in any one year. Not small schools, either - average number of students was about 2200 per school, per year. Oh, and the only reason that I even was a bassoon player was because my band teacher asked me to switch (I was in 6th grade, and was 3rd chair clairinet at the time) I hadn't heard of the bassoon before he asked me! When he showed me one after I asked, I thought it was both the weirdest and the coolest instrument I had seen.
my highschool band didnt even have a bassoon lol
We were lucky if we got one in our school.
Great explanation! Thanks. I always wondered about that. I wanted to play bassoon in Jr High, but was put on bass clarinet so I could be on the marching band. I never knew the reason why until now. I just knew "bassoons aren't in the marching band." Much appreciated.
I was a tuba player in high school (sousaphone for marching band). Our band director loved marching band and that rubbed off on us. It's been a while, but I think I remember one of our oboe players playing alto sax during marching band, another swapping to clarinet, and our bassoon player played sousaphone with us tuba players. I kind of maybe remember us having a second bassoon player, but I'm having a hard time remembering. This was more than twenty years ago, so there's a lot I've forgotten.
1:05 yeah, tell that to my $1200 clarinet that got destroyed in one high school marching band season
2003 ( I think) BOA grand national champions Westfield HS had 4 bassoons playing “Dead Elvis” by Dougherty. It was a bop.
Very entertaining and informative video. Well done and thanks.
Not sure why this was in my feed, but you gave great explanations for your topic.
Long ago, we didn't even have woodwinds in the field show band at all, except for piccolos and saxophones which could still be heard. All the flutes and clarinets had to switch over to something that could actually be heard. Since this gave us a surplus of alto and tenor saxophones, we typically were in no great need for mellophones so there might only be four of them compared to a dozen trumpets.
Parade band was a completely different beast. Then the instrumentation was pretty much identical to indoors. But at night we looked more like a drum corps with saxophones sprinkled in. It was very common for people to play three different instruments during the course of the day: their indoor primary for the parade band, some piece of percussion if they were in the drum line which had its own competition, and a loud (and generally directional) instrument for the football field at night.
Coming from germany, i never knew marching bands were a thing. In Germany we have what's called a Blaskapelle. It's basically a small band-club for wind instruments playing folk songs for example.
Das Musikkorps Der Bundeswehr?
You're lucky, marching band is the worst
What the US terms Marching Band is much more than the traditional military style marching bands you see elsewhere in the world. We still came from the same tradition, but it got tied to American Football and became more of a pageantry band over just straight parade marching. I can't tell you how it started, but I'm sure Wikipedia can. Also, there are military/parade bands that do fancy stuff in the street.
Mind you, we do parades, too. My high school marching band used to practice parade marching two weeks in spring because the school was in a small town and the big event in spring was the Whoopy Days. Featured a parade, so of course the local High School was going to play in it.
Now, there's a style of the US Marching Band tradition called Drum and Bugle that's mostly perc, brass, and color guard. The organization that's running a professional version (DCI or Drum Core International) does have a branch in Europe, and I think has chapters in Germany that perform and compete. So, it's coming for you. :P
“Most high school band programmes have 4-6 bassoon players”
My band that has 0 bassoons:
My entire fucking school district that has 0 bassoons:
@_Dayspace_ real
I have said this before and will say it again, THE BASSOON HAS THE SOUND TEXTURE OF A BROWN CRAYON. Thank you for your video.
I once saw a bassoonist getting ready to go on the field at a marching competition and it s h o o k e t h me.
My school district allows us to march bassoons and they love using them for solos. Also that thing in the beginning is a contrabass tuba/marching tuba,usually bach
I was the only bassoonist at my high school, and I played oboe in marching band. It actually worked decently well - if you're marching correctly, your head stays level, and you don't need to worry about the reed too much. I played the flute part - yes, at pitch lol
What about Heckelphone?
The Heckelphone is meant to blend with the oboe, English horn, and so fourth, so it has roughly the same problems. A Baroque tenoroon might work better.
When I was in England I saw a bassoonist marching with the changing of the guard. My sister played oboe in high school. One year she played cymbals, and several years she carried the banner.
As a tuba player, I can confirm that I have become a radar dish.
Funny cc joke
We started marching horns a couple years ago, and I don’t mind it.
My school did a bassoon feature with our 8 bassoons so it is real, (texas highschool marching band lol)
Texas high school marching bands are intense lol
Flower Mound HS, bassoons in a box. What made that even more impressive is that there was contrabass bassoon in the mix. Pretty expensive instrument to take on trips.
It’d be really cool if y’all played Turkish march and then Bravura. And it would be also really cool if it was done by a military marching band (specifically from Kingwood) and the bassoon part wouldn’t be cool if it didn’t have the legendary Patrick Jia in it.
If you fall over accidentally:
Your throat: 😱
In my school I just had to join front for marching season
A few years ago my school had a bassoon oboe duet for marching band, I wasn’t there that year but I hear it was pretty cool
Interesting, liked the presentation.
I clicked "I'm feeling lucky" on the RUclips app and it took me to this video randomly... Wow, I learned a lot about a topic I had no idea existed 😂 here is a like 👍 and a comment for engagement!
2:33 I was taught to carry my bassoon differently. On the long joint there's this ridge in the metal rods that connect the low B and Bb keys to their tone holes/pads. I place my thumb under this ridge and wrap the rest of my fingers around and over the A thumb key. I believe this is the safest way to hold a bassoon because it's closer to the center of balance than anywhere on the boot joint. The only situation in which it might be unsafe is if the tenons of your wing joint and long joint are too loose which is a separate problem in and of itself.
bassoondan
My idea was a Marching Bassoon. It's different than a Normal Bassoon because it's alot stronger.
British military bands, and those of commonwealth countries do have bassoons as well as French horns, including the Household Cavalry Band which often plays mounted on horses. Incidentally the saxophone was actually invented for mounted military bands in France.
That thing of walking from one room to another describes me going g from the band room to the stage
I was going to be in a big parade tomorrow but we aren’t going because it’s supposed to rain
Have not heard someone call the Fr. Horn substitute for marching a Melophone since 1969 (first year in high school marching band, before that I marched with a french horn) the next year it was called a euphonium.
In high school our double reed players switched to clarinet or the the Glockenspiel (bells).
3:56 Glad to see THAT reference is still kicking...
The bassoon movement part is so relatable.
This question has always been in my head because I never seen a single bassoon player in any marching band
I am the only bassoonist in my school district that covers 6 schools! 3 of which are high schools and middle schools.
Our school is just like "meh, if you wanna march with a double reed we're not stopping you" Hence why I'm a marching oboe :P
We have marching violins too and judges love it at competitions
I need a video of your band. That sounds so cool
@@ArsonnFrog lol well last year we didn't have any violins or double reeds in the actually good band that wins all the sweepstakes, but we're in Varsity this year so I don't have videos of that yet.
Here's a video of us last year in Junior Varsity though: ruclips.net/video/PpOzMEjrU2E/видео.html
(I'm probably doxing myself with this but oh well)
If you want to see actually good marching, just search up varsity :)
Marching cellos 💀
Marching double bass
i did see one show where they had a bassoon(not marching, just playing a solo on a mic) and it was actually pretty cool
In 1976 we had a single bassoon player in the marching band. Montebello HS, Montebello, CA. Good times.
I marched flute and then bells. Reeds cost at least $4-5/each, 45 years ago. When you found a specialty shop that carried them. #ForrestsMusicBerkeley
From experience, Basoonist make FANTASTIC tenor sax players.
I judged the Tupelo High School Band from Mississippi three years ago in West Tennessee
and they opened the show with a bassoon quartet. Yes, you heard it right-a bassoon quartet.
I have also seen a band or two from the panhandle of Florida marching bassoons.
Me, playing the bassoon in a marching band
This is why Im almost glad I play brass
The "moving with the bassoon" part is so real, I hurt myself laughing 💀
Sound is a big one, even flutes, clarinets, bass clarinets, and saxophones can struggle with sound as the brass are overpowered. Besides Bass Clarinet, the other instruments have high pitch we can pierce through, but yeah you ain’t hearing Bassoon unfortunately. I play bass clarinet but Tuba got marching band (tho used to march soprano clarinet) and you can barely hear bass clarinet sometimes.
They don’t want to make the other instruments jealous
I was always told that double-reed instruments would be too awkward to march and play with, plus they wouldn't be audible enough. Therefore I joined the drumline and made friends and memories there, while still playing bassoon during the concert season.
I actually showed up as a woodwind tech to camp and had oboes and bassoons outside. I told them to take those things inside where they belong and I would sort it out with the band director. We had some extra mellophones, pit, and bass clarinets.
And yes, some drill had to be rewritten. I did it. If I change something undesirable to me, I'm gonna also work it correctly.
My HS had the option to march cymbals or play in the front ensemble for the double reeds. I really enjoyed learning cymbals and ended up marching a couple seasons in DCI.
When I started doing marching band at the college level (my freshman year... It's now MUCH different at ASU), the band t-shirt said "Pride, Sweat, and a Great Farmer's Tan". I can attest I did have a great farmer's tan. Still do to some respects, even though I work primarily indoors.
The german army bands actually march with bassons. Just looked it up before because i couldn't remember if they march with it(they even have a high need for basson players and french horn players as said on their internet site). But these are professionells so i think are verly unlikely to fall over
Some Japanese bands can march bassoon but their comps are no where near as big as American marching comps tho
This is a rare exception.
$30 reeds and $80k instruments? *laughs in violinist paying $80 per string set and 10M instruments*
Huh, never thought about it before, but what you say totally makes sense. I love the bassoon sound, but I guess I can settle for getting it in wind quintet chamber music, the odd concerto, and old Frank Zappa records. Thanks for the education.
A friend told me her son started on bboe for his first instrument. Once he got to marching band age, he learned the clarinet. Now that he is the age to be in the jazz band, he wants to learn sax. I say, start kids on the doubles early. I learned to be proficient on saxophones in high school, but didn't get the opportunity for bassoon or the other woodwinds until college. I did finally get to play bassoon in the concert band for 2 years.
I’ve seen bassoons in marching band before. Very very rare. And needs special rigging compared to orchestral use.
Too quiet for the audience to hear bro.
Amen brother. I was a bassonist in the College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean band in the mid-80's. Indoor concert? No problem. Marching outdoors? Switched to either euphonium or trombone. There's nothing quite like having that cane double-reed bouncing against your gums while you're trying to keep pace.
6:43 my band this year and last year has had a bassoon solo lol last year it was in a tango part in this year it’s in the opener
You are right. Marching with the bassoon is very hard. That's why I learned the cello. 🤣
My coaches have the worst sandal tanline, we still have tubas, and this is very accurate
There are instruments that are just too awesome for marching band.
"Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons
Each bassoon having it's big, fat say"
- The Music Man
At my school in 6th grade everybody starts on a basic instrument like percussion, clarinet, alto sax, flute, trombone, trumpet then in 7th grade brass can move to tuba or the other trombone I forgot the name, then woodwinds can move to tenor or berry
sax, bass clarinet, bassoon, and then I’d you can march with your instrument you move to your first instrument because you already learned how to play it, it works well for everyone because if we don’t need those instruments they can hop on the other instruments at anytime
Meanwhile, you have Bassoon in the British Grenadier Band marching up and down London LOL
My HS band director never told me it was hard to march with an oboe so we had oboes, bassoons, even bass clarinets on the field. Great concert sound. First oboe in the University of Texas Longhorn Band to march. There were 4 of us at one point!!!
Def taught and marched at schools with bassoons and oboes. I think they make these wicked synthetic reeds now to help keep down the reed cost and our schools got them for a discount for the students. But I highly recommend the students to switch to a low brass instrument, partially because more brass more betta. and builds up their lungs
In high school, i played oboe in concert band and bari sax in marching and pep band
Tuba player here. Transporting the instrument is half the fun.
“Hey honey, let’s go bassooning this week-end” - Garrisson Keillor, The young lutheran guide to the orchestra…
I played Bass Clarinet, for marching band the band director got the school's alto calrinet repaired lol I did play the bass for football games when the alto was out for repair ... and I got to play it at Graduation . I will say chipping the reed while matching was a common thing... but happned to sax and regular clarinet as well so
My high school band director had the bassoons join my section (bass clarinet) during marching band season
They would have to make a Special Version designed for Marching Band but interestingly a Single Reed Mouthpiece would help
There was, in fact, a double reed instrument like the bassoon designed for marching band use! It was called the Sarrusophone, but unfortunately it never caught on, possibly because the safety issues were never solved.
@@bobbyjeffsupremelordofcraz3532 What if it could catch on by making it safer?
@@bobbyjeffsupremelordofcraz3532 They need to improve its design to make it safer.
whats the song at 0:41
I was a trombone player in marching band, and I actually have two trombones one that I use for practice and football games and won that was only used at competitions and during concert season.
Played bassoon during concert season, and tuba during marching season 😁
I've always noticed how our all the clarinet players in my kid's marching band run indoors when it starts raining.
I saw one amazing band use a bassoon in their marching show. Their show was Rite of Spring by Stravinsky, which a bassoon is crucial. However, they're bassoon player didn't march, they stood in the pit section the entire time, and I believe it's because they were mic'd up. It was fantastic though. Band was Pomona High School in Colorado, circa 1997.
Oh crap, now that I think about it, it may have been a bass clarinet. Memory gets fuzzy after 25 years.
their bassoon
We have a bassoon solo but it’s stationary on a podium and it sits there
I recently spent a day at a shop where they had two from a local school on site for cleaning and adjustments. I don't think the school even knew what they had.
and at my school theyve been given a whole song as a feature
My friend in HS marching band ONE TIME played his concert wooden clarinet outside in bad weather. The black color began to bleed off and before much damage was retired from the field. He got a cheap plastic one for marching
My sister played clarinet first then learned bassoon and loved it
Something quite interesting is that an instrument was developed to become essentially a marching band equivalent of the bassoon. It was called the Sarrusophone, and had quite a striking similarity to the Saxophone and Tuba's precursor, the Ophicleide. Although I quite like its sound it unfortunately never caught on -possibly due to the design failing to address the safety issues of marching with a double reed.
This is hilarious, man
I have a 1950’s tenor Sax. I love it.
I had a few concerts in Europe that we were playing outside and with my black composite bassoon. It expanded and multiple keys didn’t work for the majority of the confers 😢😢
My band director made my friend come watch the whole first half of our football games so she could play one minute solo in "Variations on a Korean Folk Song". (Since she was the only one at the mic, she took the 10 second horn part of the solo too).
Then she...went home. And did I mention despite us having timpani, we could NOT get them down to even our own home field. But...in my case I actually volunteered to join the drumline on crash cymbals (Despite normally only covering timpani and CONCERT bass drum...Which is NOT ANYTHING like the 5 to 7 basses my HS band called for...