Hi, I'm Luke Whitehead,
and this is the contrabassoon.
The contra is made of over five metres of tubing,
which is turned out of maple.
It's made in various sections
to achieve the folding over of the instrument
with little U-bends as you can see
at various points.
This is topped off with a lead pipe
which runs up to the crook.
The crook forms the link
between the instrument and the reed.
You can have different lengths of crook
which vary the pitch and intonation
of the instrument slightly.
And it also has a large effect on the quality of the sound.
The double reed basically consists of two halves
which are fastened together using wire and thread.
And the two blades of the reed, which is this bit here,
vibrate together when air is passed through them.
So on its own the reed sounds like this.
(reed vibrating)
But then that creates the vibration
within the tubing of the instrument.
(contrabassoon music)
I make both contrabassoon and bassoon reed for myself,
which is quite an involved process,
and can be very frustrating at times.
And can, on occasion, become the bane
of our lives as double reed players.
But in order to achieve the sound and response
that you want individually as a player,
it's much better to make your own.
The low end of the instrument is very rich, resonant.
It goes down to the lowest note which is bottom B-flat,
which is the B-flat right at the bottom
of a grand piano keyboard and sounds like this.
(contrabassoon playing low B-flat)
The top end is slightly open to discussion.
It's roughly the same as the bassoon.
So in terms of written pitches, you can play the top C,
which you hear at the opening
of "The Rite of Spring" in the bassoon.
(contrabassoon playing middle C)
But one of the interesting things about the contra
is that it's actually notated
an octave higher than it sounds.
So this in effect middle C on the keyboard.
(contrabassoon playing middle C)
To begin with you pass air through the reed
which causes it to vibrate.
There are various stages in the process
which involve a lot of breath support from the abdomen
to create a steady column of air.
Essentially the lips are just used to control the vibration
and also to form a seal around the reed
to channel the air into it,
and then the tongue is used
largely to articulate the start of notes
by lightly touching against the tip of the reed.
When you use the tongue to create short notes,
you can play very crisp staccato.
(contrabassoon playing staccato scale)
Or by maintaining the air flow
without interrupting it with the tongue,
you can create a much more smooth legato.
(contrabassoon playing legato scale)
Apart from using vibrato like any other wind instrument
to either help project or warm the sound,
you occasionally are asked to play,
for example, flutter-tongued,
which is very distinctive sound on the contra.
(contrabassoon playing flutter-tongued)
We do have to play trills on the contrabassoon.
For the most part they can be achieved
using the normal key system,
but there are a couple which are too awkward
to perform without extra show keys
which one would have added to the instrument.
For example, trilling from a D to E-flat
in the middle of the bass clef stave.
(contrabassoon trilling)
We have a special key for that.
Occasionally whether it's a particular conductor
that wants a very quiet effect,
sometimes if your reed is posing difficulties
with playing quietly enough, you do mute the instrument.
And it's usually done simply by putting a duster
or some sort of cloth into the bell
which muffles the vibrations.
(orchestra playing Stravinsky's The Firebird)
Some of the best and most effective contra writing
is where it's added to, for example, the trombone chorale.
Brahms uses this quite a lot,
and it creates a different resonance
to for example, the tuba,
due to the harmonic structure of the sound.
Also, because it's capable of quite punchy staccato attack,
It's often added to the double bass section
to give extra punch and clarity to that.
For example, in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
in the last movement.
(contrabassoon Beethoven's 5th Symphony)
And occasionally it gets solos as well, which is nice.
There's a short but quite important solo
in the final movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony,
which uses the low soft timbre very effectively.
(contrabassoon playing Mahler's 9th Symphony)
Playing at the very bottom end of the instrument
particularly when you have to play fortissimo
requires a lot of air.
You just have to put an awful lot
of air through the instrument.
And so you may well find yourself
having to breathe every two or three bars
in those occasions.
Higher up, the instrument actually requires less
because you create a resistance
within the reed by using your lips,
which reduces the air flow
and also there's a much smaller amount
of tubing to cause to vibrate
to play these shorter, higher notes.
When you play softly, the demands are different
because the real problem with breathing
when playing softly is that you may not use enough air,
and so your body's natural reflex, which is to breathe,
you have to learn to fight
in order to maintain a calm steady air flow.
One example of that is the opening
of the Strauss tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
where the contra has to play a very quiet low bottom C
for possibly upwards of 20 seconds
with only double basses scrubbing for support,
which is a challenge more because
of maintaining a level of calm
and fighting this reflex to gasp for air.
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(orchestra playing Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique)
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