Bagpipes, baritone oboe, English horn in F, heckelphone, oboe, and oboe d’amore are all members of the double reed group of woodwinds, as are bassoons. There are two types of bassoons: bassoon and contrabassoon, or double bassoon. Contra usually refers to an instrument that is an octave lower than its name, as is the case here. Both types of instruments are non-transposing. A bassoonist is a musician who plays the bassoon.
A bassoon is made up of five parts:
The curved metal tube that connects the body to the double reed is known as a crook or bocal.
The wing joint, also known as the tenor joint, connects the crook to the long joint and runs parallel to it.
The double joint, also known as the boot, is a u-shaped tube that connects the wing and long joints and houses the right hand’s hand rest.
The long joint runs parallel to the wing joint and is the longest piece of tubing.
The instrument comes to a close with the sound of the bell. A longer bell can lower the instrument’s range by a fraction of a second.
The instrument evolved from the baroque bassoon, which was most popular in the 18th century and had a similar shape but fewer keys. The German Heckel and the French Buffet bassoons are two modern models.
Both the bassoon and contrabassoon are used in orchestral and band settings. The part at the beginning of Russian-American composer Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), Part I, “L’Adoration de la terre” (Adoration of the Earth), or as the grandfather in Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf are perhaps the most famous uses of it in an orchestral work. In French composer Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, during the Entr’acte before Act II, and in Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s overture to his opera Le Nozze di Figaro, there are also memorable passages (The Marriage of Figaro).