We shouldn’t be carpenters. The bassoon has the odd distinction of being the only instrument in the orchestra that requires every finger to play. Think about it for a second. You could lose your right thumb in a tragic birdhouse construction accident and you could still play the clarinet. Pianists continue to play their instrument with only one hand. A bassoonist needs all of his/her fingers (and thumbs – see “Fact” #4) to play a chromatic scale up a single octave. Somehow this doesn’t fly as an excuse to get out of shop class in high school, though.