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With a single reed, your saliva can contact 100% of the surface area of the reed. When you soak a double double reed in your mouth, however, you're only getting to 50% max of the surface area of the reed. Soaking in a cup of water allows you to get soak the whole reed evenly. Some single reed players soak in water instead of saliva just because it's more ...

I asked my father, who was Principle Bassoon in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for 30+ years. Here's a paraphrase of what he said: "Single-reed players do moisten their reeds with water. I actually knew a clarinetist who kept a whiskey shot glass of water attached to his music stand that he used to moisten the reed during concerts; he'd dip his finger ...

Good question and an important one --rather than offering my own personal views I suggest that one start by listening widely to other players, and not only bassoon players. For example, the fluctuation in pitch that is so characteristic of vibrato on the cello or violin may not be as attractive on the bassoon ---listen to terrific players and start to form ...

French horn is the only instrument that is traditionally split 1-3-2-4; everything else is going to be in order from top to bottom regardless of how you split up across staves. As far as conventions for staff usage, a lot of that depends on the overall instrumentation. The standard for symphony orchestra scores, generally, is no more than two voices per ...

Being a 2nd (out of 3) generation oboe player, I've asked (and been asked) this question from time to time. [The most recent one was last year when my son started taking the oboe.] The best answer I get is that about half of the oboist swear by soaking in water, and the other half swear by soaking in saliva. The one thing they do agree upon is that there ...