I value your opinion as wind instruments players about the opportunity to play yourself my beautiful instrument, the bassoon.
My guess is how interesting would be for you to play the bassoon if its fingering would be much easier, similar to the flute or sax or a piano.
I had a degree in bassoon, but it was not my job for the life, and instead I worked in the Information Technology arena in sales & marketing roles.
I'm now retired and immediately went back to the music love, playing bassoon as amateur in a symphony orchestra in Milan, Italy and playing jazz as well.
My love for the bassoon takes me to dream a quite more spread practice of the instrument, that in my opinion has an "access barrier" caused by the tremendous complexity of the fingering that requires several years of study before mastering the "technique" of the bassoon.
Surely the price of the instrument, the impact of the double reed mouthpiece are other real barriers. But the fingering complexity is there.
I met a few instrument players in jazz or pop music, able to play both flute, clarinet and sax, that would love to play the bassoon as well in their concerts, if it was easier to practice.
But how common is this desire? Would anybody here be interested at it?
I'm sure you may guess that I have already a project in mind to realize this. And you would be right!
I'm close to a prototype of a bassoon with robotic fingering support that would provide a simple fingering, while maintaing the natural wind acustic timbre, absolutely natural sound without any synthesizer!!
I am now in doubt if several musicians would value this or it's just my idea, looking at a vision where many more people can approach the bassoon!
Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback!