Janet Polk

I started with the bassoon when I was in 7th grade. I had achieved my full height by the time I entered Junior High School, but my hands had stopped growing around the age of 10 or 11. Luckily, no one looked to see the size of my hands. I had been studying piano for several years and knew that I had trouble stretching an octave, but I didn’t ever think about that when playing bassoon. Only years later did I realize that I might be at a disadvantage.

The first bassoon I played on was something quite ancient and owned by the school. It was in sad shape and my private bassoon teacher insisted the school buy a new bassoon. The band director said they couldn’t afford it. Luckily, my parents were able to find the money to get my own Schreiber just before I entered 8th grade. In the meantime, the school also bought a Schreiber, but I was happy that I had my own.

In my junior year of high school, I started bassoon lessons with Emile Hebert, one of the outstanding free-lance bassoonists in New York City. After one year he suggested an upgrade to a Ponte. What is a Ponte, you ask? Mr. Hebert would find bassoons in Europe when he toured and bring them back to Charles Ponte in NYC who would fix them up and put the Ponte name on them. Mine was theoretically a “second” from the Heckel factory but that was never verified.

This instrument had a high D key which was my first. Mr. Hebert said that I really didn’t need it and that the High C key worked quite well for C5 and higher. That is an important point to remember.

My third bassoon which I currently own and use is the 7000 series Heckel.

All the bassoons that have been my own primary performance instruments happened to be smaller body instruments. Even at that, I had to modify some of my fingerings to make them work without pain. I was also lucky with my teachers, none of whom seemed to mind that I had to modify some of my fingerings. I am not even sure I knew I was making modifications. We never talked about it. If I was making it work, they were happy. Had I had a teacher who insisted that there was only one way to finger notes and that one must stick to it, I would either not be playing bassoon today or would be in extreme agony.