Holding all three reeds, Goldie walks into the bedroom and proceeds to lie down on each of the three beds.   Highly introspective, she contemplates a deeply existential question: how to reconcile her passive-aggressive nature with the adorable image that she’s been cultivating as a pedagogical avatar in a nerdy treatise about bassoon reeds.  She recognizes that the narrative portrays her as an archetypal bassoon student.  

She can’t decide which bed she prefers.

Common sense suggests she ought to choose the mid-sized bed and mid-sized reed, but that very week her orchestra has scheduled Peter and the Wolf, Tchaikovsky’s 4^th Symphony and Le Sacré du Printemps. So, she decides to keep all three reeds.  Exhausted by all the rumination, she falls asleep, is discovered by the bears and summarily chased from their house.  Well, it’s a fairy tale so we can’t have a mauling…

Goldilocks needs the perfect reed.  Why did she keep all three?

Bassoons themselves are an evolutionary oddity; they often prefer pressure controlled valves whose input/output response is maximized to a particular register.  I’ll say that in English.  Anyone who has spent years in a symphony orchestra knows that particular musical challenges are best met with a certain kind of reed.

Like it or not, the low register is more efficient with a flatter reed.  As we move up the octaves, response, tuning and sonority tend to improve with gradually sharper reeds.  It’s a bit like using a #3 bocal at the bottom, a #2 for the mid-range and a #1 for the high register.

Papa Bear’s reed likely has a larger MCA value (Chapter 11) and offers nuance, dynamic range and efficient response in the bottom range of the bassoon.  Mama Bear’s reed best suits the ‘money register’ of the bassoon where so many of the important lyrical solos live.  Baby Bear’s reed has an even smaller MCA value, ensuring better success with the highest register.

I generally avoid playing the Pathétique symphony on the same reed as Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G.  In fact, I often wish I could simply swap reeds as I ascend and descend the large tessitura of the bassoon!  But wait a minute! Solo repertoire for the bassoon jumps ALL over the place.  I agree, and we always try to make a one-size-fits-all reed for much of our work.  Nobody walks into an orchestral audition and switches reeds for every excerpt [all this can be a good strategy in limited circumstances!].  But when we’re not performing the Jolivet Concerto and want assurance of predictable control in the orchestral environment – for pianissimo low E or crack free attacks in the altissimo register – we have to adjust our reeds to be reliable for the task at hand.

Let’s delve a bit deeper into the Bears’ individual behaviour.

Baby weighs 150 lbs.  He’s not a teenager yet and his voice hasn’t broken.  He can easily attack high E’s with reliable control, but he tends to stay sharp and dynamically constricted in the bottom half of the bassoon and his staccatos are not always clear.

When it comes to the preferred amount of embouchure ‘effort’, bassoonists have widely differing preferences.  Many build reeds that require minimal effort and can sing effortlessly, especially in the upper half of the bassoon range.  Others naturally use a lot of embouchure and are happy to do so.  There are great players at the extremes of both of these camps. I think that most bassoonists have reed making lives that flow back and forth towards one end of the spectrum or the other.  Many students develop without really exploring and understanding the advantages and disadvantages to each approach.

Experienced bassoonists know how frequently we wish our reeds were flatter, sharper, darker, brighter, more open or more closed. The MCA theory can help you navigate this journey, and give you some guidance about developing your own designs and trims.  Although it’s just a conceptual tool, the theory embodies the dialogue between bore resonances and pressure valve behaviour. The wod ‘compliance’ describes how the membranes of reeds fulfill their responsibility for any given note, dynamic and musical nuance.  That complex meeting of output acoustical needs and input response mechanics determines whether our reeds serve our musical needs.  We’ll look more closely at the relationship between tuning and tone in future chapters.

In the next chapter I’ll present some ideas about the behaviour of harmonics in the structure of the different bassoon registers and the role embouchure and air pressure plan.  In preparation, I’d like to suggest an experiment that may illuminate the role of your embouchure.

Take several reeds – Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear if you can find that much range in your reed box.  Place your lips over the first wire so that your embouchure has no contact with the top and bottom blade membranes.  Play ascending chromatic scales on your bassoon from low Bb up to high D.  The bigger reeds, those with a larger MCA value, are going to give you problems around Bb 4 [top of the bass clef staff].  Reeds smaller MCA values – sharper reeds – may allow you to play much higher into the 3^rd register.  If your reeds are tending to be small and sharper, an easy way to get a Papa Bear response is to remove the 1^st wire.  Alternately, takes pliers and open the reed up to create more internal volume. If your reeds tending to be large and flat, tighten the 1^st wire, clip the tip, narrow the sides or do anything to reduce dimensions or raise the pitch of the reed.

Your natural instinct when larger reeds start breaking up in the tenor range is to blow harder.  Indeed, increased blowing pressure will allow you to get a few more ascending notes to function.  When the upper half of the instrument starts breaking up, you’ll  first get a drop down into the lower register and likely have some ugly multiphonics as well.  Smaller sharper reeds may allow you to play up to the altissimo register, but they will typically feel constricted in the bottom register.

This experiment will help you to evaluate where you might be on the spectrum of Papa Bear through to Baby Bear reeds.

Chapter 13 – Stairway to Heaven