Experiencing Complex Articulations Physically

Various articulations such as staccato, accents, and slurs can appear in complex combinations. After understanding these concepts, it is important to experience and express them naturally through physical sensation. For example, when a staccato appears on the latter beat of a motif slur, stopping the sound with your tongue creates a choppy, angular expression. Rather than cutting the sound off completely, staccato should be performed by feeling the resonance of the note as you play, which produces a natural musical expression.

Causes and Solutions in Bassoon Performance

Here we explain in detail the causes behind the inability to express complex techniques naturally, along with their solutions. We introduce specific approaches for addressing challenges such as fingering operation timing, difficulty with octave transitions, and tonal unevenness issues.

Problem 1: Fingering Cannot Keep Up with Rapid Notes

When rapid notes appear suddenly, the problem arises that fingering cannot keep up and the performance gets stuck. Especially in passages requiring thumb key operations, the cause is often that the next note has not been prepared while playing the current note.

Solution: Always anticipate the next note with your thumb key operations. While playing D, position your finger over the C-sharp key so that you can simply press down and move to C-sharp immediately, enabling quick operation.

Problem 2: Octave Transitions Are Not Smooth

When descending from an upper octave, the problem arises that slurs are difficult to connect and the sound gets stuck. Particularly for transitions such as G to E, where the reed or instrument characteristics make it difficult to ascend with air alone, smooth transitions become challenging.

Solution: It is important to change the direction of your air stream. When descending from an upper octave, redirecting the air from the upper front teeth toward the lower front teeth enables a smooth transition. When the upper octave has an accent, blowing the upper note significantly stronger makes it easier to descend. Additionally, how you cover the hole with your index finger is important—covering the hole at the correct angle makes slur connections easier.

Problem 3: Tonal Unevenness Disrupts Long Tone Consistency

This instrument has significant tonal unevenness depending on the note, which means certain notes tend to suddenly pop out at irrelevant moments. This results in inconsistent long tones and a bumpy performance. Solution: Identify which notes tend to pop out and work backward to blow more into the other notes, thereby maintaining long tone consistency. The key point is the coordination of air control and fingering, where you blow a bit more into the other notes through reverse calculation and hold back only on the notes that tend to pop out.

1. ① Work backward with dynamics: Work backward from the forte climax and start from piano. When a forte passage is coming up next, play the lower notes with the awareness that they are beats 2 and 3 within a piano section
2. ② Anticipate with your fingering: Always anticipate the next note with your thumb key operations, preparing the fingering for the next note while playing the current one
3. ③ Change your air direction: When descending from an upper octave, redirect the air from the upper front teeth toward the lower front teeth to enable a smooth transition
4. ④ Control tonal unevenness: Identify which notes tend to pop out and work backward to blow more into the other notes, thereby maintaining long tone consistency

Understanding the concepts behind dynamic markings and articulations is important, but true improvement comes from experiencing them physically in actual performance and integrating them with fingering and air direction. By working backward from the forte climax and starting from piano, you can achieve a well-balanced performance in terms of volume. Always anticipate the next note with your thumb key operations, and when transitioning between octaves, change the direction of your air stream. Since the bassoon has tonal unevenness depending on the note, identifying which notes tend to pop out and working backward to adjust the other notes will help maintain long tone consistency. By putting these methods into practice, you will be able to express complex articulations naturally, resulting in musically rich and expressive performances. Bridging the gap from concept to physical sensation is the key to improving your bassoon performance.