I used to play a lot of contrabassoon. Since leaving the university system I don’t really have regular access but I make a good reed and played pretty well at a time.

Contrabassoon has some odd fingering issues. I compiled a fingering chart from Susan Nigro and Roger Soren (who play on very different contras, but they share some consistencies). Hard to find good fingering charts for contra, so I’ll put this one out there. Hopefully my nomenclature is helpful. “a” is the first/lower vent, “d” is the upper vent. Everything else is consistent from bassoon keys.

Contrabassoon Chart