General, Reeds

Links to General (bassoon related) websites:

https://www.musicalchairs.info/ and https://www.musicalchairs.info/bassoon/jobs The site where vacancies in orchestras are advertised.
https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:180480/datastream/PDF/view is about Lewis Hugh Cooper’s theories on bassoon playing and teaching. This is an excellent site jam packed with serious stuff and should be carefully read by all serious bassoon students. (I am very sorry to report that Mr Cooper died in April (2007). I shall always treasure my copy of his massive tome ‘The Essentials of Bassoon Technique’ which he autographed for me many years ago when I attended a memorable lecture he gave).
http://www.oboeinsight.com/ Patricia Mitchell is principal oboe in the San Jose Opera and her extensive website and blog covers lots of stuff that is relevant to bassoonists. There is a
good entry covering orchestral etiquette (http://oboeinsight.com/instruction/musicians-etiquette/).
http://fagotizm.narod.ru/library_1-eng.htm A site which has a lot of free downloads of bassoon sheet music.
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~bhammel/main/bassoon/index.html A general web site with good stuff on practicing, a well illustrated page on reed making, a good fingering chart and much more.
http://www.heckelbassoons.info/bassoons.html A well informed and detailed page about Heckels including a long list of serial numbers including their histories – where they have been played and who has serviced them etc.
http://bassoon.org/ Resources and information for bassoonists.
http://www.foudebasson.com/ Site for fans of the French Bassoon – in French of course.
http://hansmons.com/dulcians/ For fans of the Dulcian (the precurser to the bassoon).
http://www.baroquebassoon.org/ For fans of the Baroque Bassoon.
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/compendium.html For all those strange beasts ranging from Sarrusophone via contrabassoon to Subcontrabass tuba in BBBflat.
http://www.koppreeds.com/harmonic.html Very heavy-duty article on bassoon acoustics.
https://cpcases.com/products/ Manufacturer of seriously robust flight cases.

Links to websites about Bassoon Reeds:

These are not reed manufacturers that I am recommending (although they may very well be fine) but sites that might be of interest to those of you who make your own reeds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQvnjYhF1CA a YouTube video showing how Robert Williams of the Detriot Symphony Orchestra makes his reeds. Lots of lovely equipment to drool over.
http://koppreeds.com/risk.html#section1 An article by James Kopp on reed making techniques.
https://www.drdowningmusic.com/  advertises / sells a book called Dr Downing’s Bassoonist’s Reed Doctor which appears to be well illustrated but, I suspect, falls into the trap of rather simplistically saying ‘scrape here to solve this problem’. But I haven’t seen the book so I may be wrong. There other booklets in the series on technique, fingerings, reed making, studies etc. They are probably of most use for teachers to give to intermediate students. They seem to be good value though.
http://www.canit.se/~chrisdav/reedadj.html Very good page about reed adjustments from Christian Davidsson of the Royal Opera, Stockholm. Very detailed, but again falls into the ‘scrape here to solve this problem’ trap.

I’ve put links to online fingering charts on the separate Fingerings page (sub-menu under ‘Technique”).