Written by Nora Post
A few years ago, I decided that an aging baby boomer project might be just the thing to add to my life. Someone else might decide to hike the Appalachian Trail or buy a sailboat, but I wanted to take up a musical instrument that I had never played before. One thing led to another, and I gravitated to the bassoon. As a writer, I have interviewed some great bassoonists including Loren Glickman, Leonard Hindell, Susan Nigro, and Arlen Fast. I found myself intrigued by what made them tick. They are a very different breed from oboe players like me, and I find them fascinating, not to mention inspiring. What if I gave it a try?
I went about this in a couple of steps. My first project was to find a good teacher. The principal bassoon with the professional orchestras in my area is Melissa Brown. Melissa got her DMA with Frank Morelli and she was a great choice for me. We tackled Weissenborn, Orefici, Milde, and Jancourt together. My other task, of course, was to find an instrument. Being a Howarth oboe dealer for decades, I called Nigel Clark, the then-owner of Howarth of London. “My dear,” he said in his classic British accent, “You have to buy a Heckel. They are the eighth wonder of the world because they only go up in value.” I explained that since I was only a beginner and had no idea if I was going to stick with it, a Heckel seemed a bit excessive. Of course, it was completely out of my price range, too, but never mind. “Well,” said Nigel, “If you don’t buy a Heckel, you should buy a Püchner.” That settled it and I bought a beautiful Püchner. For European bassoonists, if you don’t play a Heckel, you often (but not always) play a Püchner. That’s where Nigel was coming from—a very European perspective. His advice turned out to be perfect. I love the sound of Püchner bassoons, so that was it for me.
Along the way, there were a couple of moments of doubt. I remember early on when I got to the fingering for the middle C# in the Weissenborn book. I looked at everything my left thumb had to do. It had to be a misprint. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure all of this had my name on it. I survived, but I have to admit that C# still gives me fits. My bassoon and I also made some very rude noises together, but I managed to hold my nose and live through those moments of unexpected sonic excitement. Making the transition from oboe to bassoon had some challenges, too. Flicking will never really be intuitive for me because with the oboe, you just put down the octave key and that’s the end of it. Done! The fine art of half-holing on the bassoon is something I need to negotiate with the instrument every time. Will things cooperate or not? In the back of my mind, I am never 100% sure. On the oboe, the half-hole key is a metal plate that is either open or shut. You either half-hole or you don’t, it always works reliably, and that’s it. So, I find the fingering challenges of the bassoon to be the big bugbear. Everything else is relatively manageable.
Something that turned out to be helpful was that I had observed a lot of my more serious non-professional adult oboist customers over the years and had learned a lot from them. Probably just osmosis. One of them, a retired country lawyer, once told me about his practice habits. He practices one hour a day. I asked him why he never practices more than that. “Simple,” he said: “After an hour, it’s all downhill.” So, I took Mel at his word, and an hour is my max. If I have a really good day and something sounds absolutely terrific, I will sometimes stop at that moment, convinced that I will never sound that good again! It’s the mentality of stopping while I am ahead.
Somewhere along the line, I was asked to join a professional bassoon quartet, and that lasted until the pandemic closed so many things down. Everyone (except me) had studied with players in the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, with master’s degrees from Juilliard and Northwestern. They all played Heckels, and two of the three Heckels had originally been owned by members of the New York Philharmonic. My informal nickname for the group was Three Heckels and a Püchner. Needless to say, it was a real trial by fire for me.
I had avoided making bassoon reeds because I had spent so much of my life making oboe reeds and wasn’t particularly interested in reinventing the wheel. I was buying wonderful Latvian reeds from Miller Marketing, and I was very happy with them. Then Justin Miller told me about the reed-making system he and Bulgarian bassoonist and master reed maker Krassimir Ivanov had designed together. It was a different approach to making reeds, and Justin asked me if I would be interested in learning their system. He and Krassimir were looking for an open-minded guinea pig, and they were thinking I might be that person. I said yes, and it turned out to be an awesome decision from my point of view. The three of us met up at Krassimir Ivanov’s home in Albany, New York, and I got quite the day-long expert tutorial for the KJI Reed Making System. It was everything from soup to nuts. Fortunately, I was pretty comfortable with everything right away, since I have a lifetime of oboe reed making behind me, and I work with tools all day in the oboe business. I own what can only be termed a truly embarrassing assortment of pliers, for example. My stash of oboe screwdrivers for every conceivable occasion is beyond embarrassing. Naturally, the day that UPS delivered a large box with all the tools for the KJI system was one of the best days of the year for a tool geek like me. All my bassoon tools live in two rectangular wicker baskets, completely separated from all the oboe tools. If I want to make some bassoon reeds, I just grab the two baskets and I am ready to go. A third basket has a Rimpl profiler that Krassimir set up for me. The profiler simplifies things and makes everything quicker and easier—a nice plus for me. The KJI Reed Making System is designed to be straightforward to use; it got me thinking that having a highly complex system of making reeds is no guarantee of success. If something works well and happens to be less complicated, well, why not give it a try?
While I was getting familiar with making bassoon reeds, I watched some YouTube videos and realized that there are as many ways to make bassoon reeds as there are bassoon players out there. So, keeping an open mind was essential. It seemed like everyone had a different way to make a reed, and that there were at least 947 different ways to make a bassoon reed. Perhaps the answer is to learn as much as possible about what works for someone else but also to understand that may not necessarily be the way the next player gets their best results. All of this was a humbling as well as an incredibly educational eye-opener for me. Incidentally, by way of full disclosure, I do everything with a knife, so I don’t ever use files. This is the oboe player in me, but I have seen bassoonists who do everything with a file and never use a knife! I can’t even imagine doing that. Yet another reason to keep an open mind on everything…
For me, the KJI Reed Making System was a game changer. I didn’t realize that playing on reeds someone else made—no matter how good—was limiting me. Making reeds was a real breakthrough, and I think the biggest difference was that I could finally control the nuance of response in a way that had not been possible before. It was like opening a window that had been nailed shut. The KJI System gave me a simple, easy-to-learn process to make high-quality reeds. The system is engineered to be very consistent, and there are several specially designed tools intended to help the player achieve reliably good results. From Krassimir and Justin’s point of view, in the more traditional approach to making bassoon reeds the cane is forced into the player’s predetermined idea of what form it should take. The KJI way of making reeds takes a different approach, aiming to preserve the natural curvature of the cane, giving each piece of cane the freedom to behave exactly the way it wants to. The KJI System tries to preserve maximum vibrations and dampen them only as needed. A thinner gauge wire is often used, and the reed dries more naturally. The cane is gouged, shaped, and profiled dry, so that every piece is identical dimensionally. The only remaining variable is how hard and dense each particular piece of the cane is.
I have watched YouTube videos of great bassoonists saying their reed making success rate is about 20% on a good day. But with the KJI System, the success rate is at least 80%, and sometimes 90% or even higher. At first, I thought a number like this couldn’t be possible. But then I talked to the oboe reed-making guru Dr. Stuart Dunkel. Until he sold his business a few years ago, Stuart was knocking out 900 professional oboe reeds a month. His success rate was always about 95%, and he said that percentages above 90% are very achievable. He also didn’t waste any time on reeds that had problems since he had to get so many reeds out the door every month. Stuart once told me that if finishing a reed took more than two minutes of his time, he put the reed in a large drawer with the other problem reeds (I saw the drawer and it was filled with probably a thousand reeds). Then he went on to something else.
Knowing that the results will be good, reed-making is enjoyable since I know I am going to come up with reeds I can use. If I make five reeds, I can pretty much count on four of them turning out well. The success rate of the KJI System is important for another reason, too. We are living in a world where we receive text and email congratulations and bravos for everything from confirming a dental appointment to paying the cell phone bill. Awesome, they tell us. For young musicians growing up accustomed to such constant positive feedback, how would they feel at the end of an afternoon devoted to making six hopeless reeds? Where would their attaboys be coming from then? As we know all too well, many things are competing for our attention these days. Short attention spans and limited focus can work against success with difficult musical instruments like double reeds. In our overscheduled busy world, for example, this could make the difference between a young player sticking with the bassoon or not. Looking toward future generations of double-reed players, I believe that anything that makes reed-making simpler and easier without sacrificing quality is important. No one wants young musicians to become discouraged and abandon their instruments.
The KJI way of making reeds could be ideal for young bassoonists, high school bassoonists, amateurs, and non-majors. It’s also perfect for players—from beginners to professionals—who either don’t have the time or don’t choose to commit the time to all those hours at a reed desk. The KJI System could also be a huge leg up for the college and university double reed positions where an oboist must teach both instruments (including reed-making for the bassoon). Given the current environment of dwindling support for fine arts and liberal arts in higher education, double-reed professors who teach both instruments may well be the wave of the future. The KJI Reed Making System could be invaluable in helping oboists succeed at teaching bassoon reed-making.
Using me as an example, I never worry about bassoon reeds now. I can make whatever I need, so there is no stress. Zero. Occasionally I make a reed that behaves badly, of course. Using Stuart Dunkel as my model, I just ditch it and go on to something with more potential. No fuss, no muss. As for the finished quality of what I am making, several professional bassoonists have asked me to make reeds for them, so my reeds must be reasonably acceptable—or at least so I am told. But for the moment, I am taking my cue from Arlen Fast and the legendary late Norman Herzberg. I am happy if my reeds have good response, intonation, and sound.
All in all, taking up the bassoon has been a great adventure. It’s been a very challenging and humbling voyage, and I have spent time with some wonderfully talented people who have been incredibly generous with their knowledge. I am so grateful to all the many people who have helped make my colorful bassoon journey possible. I am especially indebted to Krassimir Ivanov and Justin Miller, who have become vital resources as well as valued friends throughout this adventure.
Thinking about all the bassoonist players I have now met reminds me of a comment that the late bassoonist Loren Glickman made when I interviewed him some years back. We were standing in his kitchen. First, he told me quite candidly what he thought of oboe players, and I think it best to keep that one to myself. But then he told me that he had never met the bassoonist he didn’t like. Having taken the plunge into the bass clef side of the double reed world, I am now thoroughly convinced that Loren Glickman had it completely right.
About the Author
Oboist Nora Post received her B.A. in Experimental Music Studies from the University of California, San Diego. She received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University, where she was awarded New York University’s prestigious Walter Anderson Fellowship for doctoral research. A student of Heinz Holliger, Ray Still, and Michel Piguet, Ms. Post has premiered works by Xenakis, Hiller, Wuorinen, Foss, Feldman, Ferneyhough, Moran, Babbitt, Takemitsu and Cage. Post was chosen to be the first recipient of the American New Music Consortium Award, given in recognition of her contributions to contemporary American music. She has recorded for Erato (EMI), Orion, Arabesque, and CRI. The author of numerous books and over 200 published articles, her writings appear in journals including: Interface—Journal of New Music Research, Perspectives of New Music, Musical America, The Double Reed, Galpin Society Journal, and the Darmstadter Beitrage zur Neuer Musik.
