I. Montage
Cane Selection and Preparation
1. Choose tube cane; Fröhlich:  a) the diameter of the tube should be about a pouce
       (1 inch or about 25 mm)
  b) thickness of the pith needs to be as thin as possible

2. Saw tube cane to length of 130 mm
 Choose the portion of the tube that is flat and round

3. Split tube into 3 pieces, cut out the portion of the cane (4 or 5 mm) with the branch  growth.
 
4. Soak cane for about 24 hours (change water if necessary)
 Fröhlich: soak cane for about 4-5 hours before gouging

Gouging
5. Use flat gouge: cut down edges to remove excess cane quickly

6. Gouge with #5 gouge: entire length down to 1.80 mm

7. Cut notches:  Cut center notch
    Cut end of scrape notch 15 mm from tip
        Cut first wire notch 34 mm from stock

8. Gouge with #6: Gouge thickness
   Center of cane     .50 mm     End of scrape, first notch, 15 from tip  .85 mm
   8 mm from end of scrape    1.10 mm
   First wire notch, 34 from stock   1.40 mm
   Tube              1.60-1.80 mm

Shaping
9. Cut center line on easel and fold

10. One can shape by hand or by using a shaper.  Shape using a knife then   sandpaper to the following width dimensions
    Tip    18 mm
    First wire   12 mm
    Back    11 mm

Forming Blank
11. Score and cut through back

12. Beveling back 10 to 15 mm of cane

13. Install wires; at first use .7 mm thick wire, then change to .8 thick
 Ozi:  First wire: 30.5 mm from tip
  Second wire: ca. 7 mm behind first wire
 
14. Wrap with string and treat with steam

15.  Re-align blades if necessary

16. Install 3rd wire about 4 mm from stock.

17. Place on mandrel and let dry for 24 hours

18. When reed is thoroughly dry, re-tighten wires, dip in melted beeswax and install  turks head.

II. Reed Finishing
1. Cut tip; start with a total reed length of about 64 mm

2. Using a knife or file, form the U-shaped profile about 15 mm from tip.
 Use what I call an en biseau  cut.

3. Play reed frequently using the reed tests below; continue to remove cane until
 reed performs and responds as desired.

4. Clip back tip if reed is flat or high register does not respond.

Dimension Summary

 Length of tube cane   130 mm
 First wire from stock    34 mm
 First wire to second wire   7 mm
 Third wire from stock   5 mm
 

Gouging Thickness Summary

  1.60 1.40  1.10    .85          .50      .85     1.10    1.40     1.60
 
 

    E   D    C     B       A        B      C      D        E
 

A. Center, this is where the cane will be cut after it is folder
B. End of scrape 15 mm back form tip
C. 8 mm back form end of scrape
D. First wire position
E. Tube
 

Reed Tests

1. When played with a middle range air/embouchure balance, reed and bocal
 alone should produce a C (a =  415 hz).

2. Play octaves; the three Gís are a good test since these notes are in the low,
 middle and high range of the bassoon.

3. Play Bb2 and Bb3 using the forked simple fingering.
 The octave should be relatively in-tune, although this octave is normally a bit  too wide.
 

Materials

Cane, in tube form
Sandpaper
Bed for gouging
Easel (1" dowel works well)
Scraper
Nail rasp
Brass wire, .7 and .8 mm
File
Shaper
Gouge
Razor blades or utility knife for scoring and beveling
Knife for scraping  blades
Mandrel
String for forming
String for turks head
(Plaque or tongue)
Beeswax

Address
Hand Gouges; Gaignard-Millon, Machines et Outillage
   24, Rue Jules-Vallès
   75011 Paris France
   Fax 33.01.43.71.51.35

Tools;   Georg Rieger GmbH
   Postfach 1446
   D-76554 Gaggenau Germany
   Fax 49 072 25 76828

   Tony Allcock
   217 Curzon Street
   Long Eaton
   NG10 4FG  U.K.
   44.0115.972.6377

General Principles

A historical performance system is a reed with a bassoon attached.
A modern performance system is a bassoon with a reed attached.

Reliance on Cane Quality (density)

En Biseau   This is a reed design has little or no spine or heart.  It also refers to a type of scrape that is chiseled down into the cane.

Historical Manner of Playing the Bassoon

A historical reed is just one component of a complete manner of playing a historical instrument.  It should be noted that this system makes higher demands on the player, particularly in the area of Air/Embouchure Balance.
 Historical instrument
 Historical reed
 Correct Air/Embouchure balance
  Reed slanted, see Ozi 1803, p. 1, p. 2; Cugnier, Essai page
  Placement of lips on reed, see Cugnier in Essai  page 332 "
  Proper amount of lip pressure on reed
  Proper throat opening
 Historical fingering

A historical manner of playing supports:
 Flexibility of pitch
 Ease of playing ornaments
 Proper tone quality  (see Cugnier, Mordant).
 Technical facility, thanks to simple basic fingerings

"Must Know" Historical Bassoon Reed-Making Bibliography

Fröhlich, Joseph, "Fagott-Schule,"  in Vollständige Theoretisch-Musiklehre...,
 1810 and 1829.
Ozi, Étienne, Nouvelle Méthode de Basson, Paris: 1803, Minkoff Reprint, 1974.
Smith, David Hogan, Reed Design for Early Woodwinds,
 1992: Indiana University Press.  ISBN 0-253-20727-4
Waterhouse, William, The New Grove, London: 1980 sv Bassoon.
White, Paul, The Early Bassoon Reed in Relation to the Development of the
 Bassoon from 1636, University of Oxford Dissertation, 1993.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Criteria for Historical Bassoon Reeds
(not order of importance)

1. Play at the proper pitch level for a particular instrument, usually 415 hz.
2. Be flexible enough in pitch to do the following:
 a. to play trills using simple fingerings.
 b. to play forked fingerings in-tune
 c. to play in a "well" temperament or a less severe mean-tone temperament
 d. produce in-tune octave
3. Be able to play in the second octave using simple fingerings.
 For example, being able to play Eb3 with 1-3 fingering, and E3 with just 1
4. Play at various dynamic levels.
5. Play with proper tone quality (see Cugnier, Mordant).
6. Play with a range of Bb to A3, with desired attack
[7. Play with no hole on the bocal or at least with a very small one.  By very small I mean less than .5 mm.  This one is in parentheses because I am not sure it is possible or really necessary.]
 
 
 

Goals or Challenges of Historical Reed-Making

1. Being able to play with desired tone quality and dynamic level are always difficult, even with modern reeds.
Usually the darker the sound of a reed is, the more difficult is the response.
Historical reeds tend to be on the bright or buzzy side, I think that the desired sound before the 20th century was much brighter than what we are used to today.

2. Being able to make a reed that will both play softly and comfortably in the high register.
 
3. Making a reed that is flexible enough to play the simple trills and at the same time being able to use the simple fingerings in the tenor range.

4. Making a reed that will do all the above criteria that is not extremely taxing on the embouchure.
 The area behind the scrape needs to be thick to give the reed    strength, as the heart does for a modern reed.

5. The problem with spliting.
 Since historical reeds are made from the dense area near the fiber band, the  reeds tend to be brittle and will crack easily.  This problem seems to be made   worse by using a plaque.  This could be why neither Ozi or Fröhlich speaks   about using a plaque.
 
 
 
 
 

What Makes a "Historical Bassoon Reed"

1. Use of contrapente, where most of the work in making a reed is done on   gouge, very little profiling and scraping.
This I think is most important because, but the sound of a reed made from fibers closer to the "fiber band" is different than if it is made of the less dense material.
2. The profile should be one that the ratio of center of palette (scrape) to the sides is  about even.  In other words, there should not be a pronounced spine (arête) or  heart.
3. Shape or form of reed; tip width, width at first wire, shape of blade.
In the primary sources and on the original reeds that have come down to us, one will find that the shapes and dimensions vary a great deal.
 In fact, one could say that there really wasnít one model or design that
 was universal.  However, two very basic shape/dimension designs seem  to be seen most often: 1) the "tulip" design discussed by Ozi and
  2) the "straight side" designdiscussed by Fröhlich and others.
4. Dimensions and wire placement; this includes total length, length of scrape.
 

Characteristics which are not important to the design of a
 Historical Bassoon Reed;
 -if one uses Duco cement
 -if one uses a third wire (at end of tube) or not
 -if one uses string or a Turks Head on tube
 -if one can see bark near tip

Similar characteristics of original Bassoon reeds

Most all of the original reeds that I have personally seen are similar
 in the following ways:
1. Relatively flat at the first wire.
2. The scrape is what I call en biseau  and what I mean by that is when the scraped part of the blade is cut at a very deep angle as soon as the scrape starts.  In other words, if the scrape does not go down into the cane gradually as in a modern reed, but is deep into the cane very quickly.  This en biseau  means that there is very little heart or spine.
3. The gouge is thinner at the tip, which also has implications on the heart.
This lack of a real heart (the relation of the center of the reed to the sides or a thicker center spine of modern Heckel system reeds) is a very important characteristic of an historical reed.  It gives the reed its sound and playing characteristics.  This characteristic  makes the "feel" of the instrument totally different than a reed based on a modern model with a spine.  If there is an area of the reed that gives it strength, it is the area behind the scrape.  This area between the end of the scrape and the first wire becomes quite thick quickly.
 
 
 

Why many baroque bassoon players give up on historical reeds and  prefer more a modern reed design:
1. The sound on historical reeds is of course different, brighter, more like a French system bassoon sound.
2. I think that in general to make a historical reed do all the requirements that I listed it needs to be harder than a modern model reed.  This is of course takes some getting used to since the piano response is not as predictable and endurance can be a problem.
3. When one plays historical reeds, one has to use a more "engaged embouchure" and by that I mean one has to use a more flexible embouchure.  Each note must be made by the Air/Embouchure balance.  Or...  You are consistently changing your embouchure pressure on the reed to make a note play in-tune or play in a particular register.  However, this flexibility one of the advantages of the historical reed, it makes the trills and ornaments easier to perform.  For example, one can play a Bb or B above the staff with the same fingering.
4. At first, if one does not take the time to learn how to play on these reeds, some things become difficult because the system is "less forgiving."  For example, making a very soft entrance on a low note in an orchestra. So in effect, if one plays on an historical reed, one has to re-learn to play the bassoon, especially in the area of "breath-leading," and many players are not in position to do this.