contrabassoon
Quick Summary
The contrabassoon is a large woodwind instrument that sounds an octave lower than the bassoon. It is the bass voice of the woodwind family and is frequently used in large musical scores. The modern contrabassoon, developed around 1870, features tubing that doubles back four times and often has a metal bell pointing downward. Its predecessor, the first useful contrabassoon, was developed in Vienna and occasionally used by classical composers. The bassoon itself is a 17th-century development of earlier instruments like the sordone, fagotto, or dulzian.1
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