Music Composition DUMmIES

Bass flute .............................................................................................

The bass flute looks almost exactly like a concert flute, except that the barrel

is a little wider — just wide enough to drop the actual notes played a full

octave lower. When composers write for the bass flute, they often write on

the treble clef, a full octave higher that what will be played (Figure 14-11).

Bassoon ...............................................................................................

You can just tell from the name of the instrument that the bassoon isn’t some

high-pitched squeaky thing. Nope, the bassoon is the beautiful fog horn of the

orchestra pit.

Bassoons are notoriously tricky to play, so be kind and gentle when arranging

music for your bassoonists. A great deal of wind has to be forced through the

tiny metal tube that makes up the mouthpiece of the instrument, and playing

the bassoon is akin to trying to blow up a great big beach ball via the tiny

rubber valve.

The written range for the bassoon is B%1 to E%5 (Figure 14-12).

Double bass/contrabass ....................................................................

The double bass, or contrabass, is the deepest-sounding bowed instrument

of the orchestra. It may look like it belongs to the violin family of instruments

(violin, viola, and cello), but it is actually considered to be the only surviving

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Figure 14-12:

Range for

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Figure 14-11:

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176 Part IV: Orchestration and Arrangement