About Ellen Barnum

Ellen Barnum is the Instrumental Music Coordinator at SUNY Buffalo State College where she also teaches bassoon, Aural Perceptions, Music Theory, and coaches chamber music. She also teaches bassoon and music literature at Canisius College and has an active private bassoon studio. In addition to her college teaching Ellen maintains an active freelance career performing in Buffalo, NY, including the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Shea's Theater, and the Buffalo Chamber Players

From Ellen

When I first started playing bassoon in the early 1990’s, short reach bassoons were not common, so I began playing on a “standard” bassoon. This would not be an issue for many people, but I am only 4’11” and while my hands are fairly wide, my fingers are short and my pinkies both bend inward at the top joint, a condition known as Clinodactyly. This makes reaching the lower right hand front f# and a-flat keys a huge challenge.  

My Püchner bassoon (serial 72xx) was playable with my smaller hands, but I struggled to reach the high c and d keys and did not have much flexibility and ease of movement with my ring fingers on either hand or my right-hand pinky. In fact, I could not reach my little finger f# key without thrusting my right shoulder forward and would often slip off my a-flat key because I could only reach the very tip of the key. I also had a lot of trouble consistently covering the left-hand c tone hole completely.

After two years at Peabody, I was increasingly frustrated by my lack of improvement and was at a loss until my teacher, Linda Harwell, suggested I consider keywork modifications. I had no idea such things were possible, but I called Peter Landy in Brooklyn and made an appointment to discuss my options. I made two visits to his studio where he took photos (back when you had to use film) of my hands with the bassoon from every possible angle, both with my very stretched out hand position and again with my hands in a more comfortable position where I could not actually reach the necessary tone holes and keys. The summer between my junior and senior years at Peabody was a long one, since I handed off my bassoon to Peter in June and got it back in August, but he was able to problem solve all the reach issues I was having by customizing pretty much every key on my bassoon. While I have since purchased another horn, I keep this one as my back up since I can’t really play anyone else’s bassoon.  

The impact of having bassoon with keywork custom fitted to my smaller size was a true game changer. All of the struggles I had with technical fluency related to my fingers became something I could fix. While I hadn’t ever developed tendonitis, I did have problems with my ring finger joints locking which makes it impossible to play. While this was oddly not painful for me, I am sure that it was not healthy in the long term. I believe that size should not be a limiting factor in playing bassoon, it has to be a consideration for both smaller and taller folks.