The bassoon already has a large amount of machinery to move the control surfaces to the center.
Look at this image showing the front and back: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/FoxBassoon.jpg
It's played with two hands, one above the other.
The fingers of one hand directly close the top set of holes you can see on the left view and the hand wraps around the instrument putting the thumb in the center of that array of keys on the view of the other side. The same thing happens for the other hand.
Someone with child sized hands couldn't wrap their hand around, though I suppose they could at least reach the five normally-open directly operated holes and thus play roughly seven notes (plus some more from over-blowing). Seven notes is probably enough for some PDQ pieces!
Usually people can't start bassoon untill they are 10-12ish so they are sufficiently big to play. Howarths of London have for the past 7-10 years been making mini-bassoons which you can start from a good few years younger. More to the point they are hilariously funny to play. particularly if you have massive hands...
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No
Date: 2009-12-30 07:47 pm (UTC)Look at this image showing the front and back: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/FoxBassoon.jpg
It's played with two hands, one above the other.
The fingers of one hand directly close the top set of holes you can see on the left view and the hand wraps around the instrument putting the thumb in the center of that array of keys on the view of the other side. The same thing happens for the other hand.
Someone with child sized hands couldn't wrap their hand around, though I suppose they could at least reach the five normally-open directly operated holes and thus play roughly seven notes (plus some more from over-blowing). Seven notes is probably enough for some PDQ pieces!
Re: No
Date: 2010-04-27 10:45 pm (UTC)