Customer Reviews

My First Weissenborn: Bassoon

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mr. Schmidt should be ashamed of his association with this particular puff piece.

Basically, this book consists of some random long tone and scale exercises, some arbitrary random studies from the Weissenborn bassoon method that have been poorly re-typeset, and a mishmash of solos that aren't really related to the rest of the material.

This book is neither fish nor fowl: It's not a beginner's book, so "My First" is a misnomer of a title.. it's not a method book like the Weissenborn book is... it's just a trainwreck with no pedagogical or other value.

The solos aren't bad, but aren't worth the price of admission. If you're already dropping 7 dollars on this book, just pony up for the full Weissenborn where all the etudes are in progressive order, and there's plentiful additional supplementary material.

I figure there are some non-double-reed-specialist band teachers who might use this as enrichment material for their bassoon students, and that this could be an introduction to Weissenborn's work for someone who's cut their teeth on a cruddy band method, but honestly: If you're going to go through the trouble to learn the bassoon, find a good teacher who'll start you up right with the real thing. This is, again, just a waste of money.

Also, just a minor quibble: There's a Buffet-Crampon French-system bassoon on the front cover of this book. If you want to learn the French bassoon, Maurice Allard's "Method pour Basson" is a better choice than _ANY_ Weissenborn.

The cover has catchy artwork. The pages are of quite adequate paper and all notes are clearly printed. Let's face it, when it comes to a beginner bassoon music book, "My First Weissenborn" is a classic. If you enjoyed this review, please check out the ones I wrote reviewing the fabric care instruction labels on sweaters I purchased from the Land's End website.