A long time ago, in a high school far away, I got bored with the clarinet and picked up an old bassoon in storage. Still playing clarinet for marching band (I'm not that silly!), I started playing the bassoon in symphonic band. After high school, since I didn't have one of my own, I dropped it.
Many years later, after college and moving to California, I remembered the bassoon and sort of missed it. I was never very good (and the instrument itself was probably not in very good health), but it was still fun. There was something about the awkward, big, clumsy, wooden thing which sounds like a very big frog. A friend of mine revealed that she too used to play, and she seemed interested in picking it up again too. So we split a cheap one off ebay.
That's when I lost control.
I now have four bassoons. I enjoy both playing them and repairing them. So I look for ones that need a little work but have something different or special about them, and fix them up. I also enjoy the technical aspects, such as developing reeds.
Since moving to Princeton, I have started playing in two groups. The first is a great community band, of pretty good size, and well established here. That is The Blawenburg Band. We have about 30 concerts a year, including our big anniversary concert which we practice for all year. The second group I play with is a sight-reading orchestra. This is a very cool group to be in. It's casual, small (about 15 people), and gives us a chance to play lots of different pieces of a different nature from the concert band music. Oddly, we have had Christmas concerts the last two years. (It's odd because we only see a piece once (if at all) before the concert.) Still, it's for a good cause.
I'll be putting up more information, pictures, sheet music, and more, once I get that stuff organized.
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