▼ This document explores the most common problems and challenges related to posture, weight distribution, and hand placement faced by beginning and advanced bassoon players. Eleven professional bassoonists who play with some of the top orchestras in the country shared their knowledge and experience dealing with the instrument’s complex ergonomic challenges. Solutions to these challenges were also researched and gathered from sources dedicated to instrumental playing, such as guides for teaching instrumental playing, medical sources concerned with the performing arts, and method books available to the students. This project analyzes and explains in greater detail the postural habits that players develop from the time they first hold a bassoon, in the process exploring how these commonly found habits hinder bassoonists from an ergonomic, technical, and biometric perspective. Understanding the importance of practicing good posture can be the difference between tension-free, consistent and technically proficient playing and hitting a wall to no avail. Advisors/Committee Members: Ostoich, Mark.

▼ This study focuses on the utilization and execution of extended techniques in the bassoon works of Sofia Gubaidulina: the Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons, the Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings, and Quasi Hoquetus for viola, bassoon, and piano. There is an historical background presented for the development of extended techniques for woodwind instruments, focusing on the bassoon in particular. Furthermore, the extended techniques used in each of Gubaidulina’s bassoon works are described and performance suggestions are provided for these sonorities. Each extended technique is supplemented by fingering options and ideas about changes to embouchure pressure, air pressure, and embouchure position in order to successfully achieve each effect. The study is designed to assist performers in their negotiation of contemporary techniques that are unfamiliar and make Gubaidulina’s works more accessible to bassoonists. Advisors/Committee Members: Milligan, Terence.