Range

In this section read about the bassoon and contrabassoon. Read about the instrument's capabilities, listen to extracts by composers including Stravinsky and Sibelius, and watch Philharmonia bassoonists demonstrating various techniques; from the basics of bassoon fingering to playing trills, tremolos and vibrato.

This page details the range of the bassoon and Meyrick Alexander explains this further in a video tutorial.

Range

A full description and demonstration of the bassoons full range.

Range

Nicholas Reader and Meyrick explain how to reach a low A on a bassoon. The contra's practical range is from the low Bb to around D4 (and usually has a low A extension). The bassoon requires a tube to be inserted to reach the low A, and the low Bb is unavailable if this extension is used.