learning clarinet

[hammersax]

for you doublers out there, how did you go about learning to play the clarinet. when i first started playing 6 years ago i had to learn on the clarinet and now im interested in relearning. whats a good horn to start with and how long should it take to adapt?

[Jack W.]

I swore I'd never learn clarinet unless I were dragged kicking and screaming, which I nearly was -- I landed a pit orchestra book in a local show that called for clarinet in addition to flute, piccolo, and alto sax (which I could already play). I hear tell that it is better to start on clarinet than on saxophone, and my experience is that this is true. Clarinet seems much less forgiving than saxophone, not so much in terms of getting a sound of some sort out of it, but in terms of getting a nice sound, centered and controlled and in tune. But when everything is working properly, what a sound!

As for which horn to start on, I've heard that the Yamaha student plastic clarinet (is it the YCL-250 now?) is one of the best to start on. You may prefer to pick up a wood clarinet instead, having spent some time on the horn before. (The wood vs. plastic discussion on this forum has been worthwhile.) If you know what you're looking for, now is the time to buy a wood clarinet on eBay, as they seem very depressed on the market right now. I just picked up a fairly nice example of a pre-Leblanc Noblet on eBay about two weeks ago for a pittance.

[hammersax]

thanks for the advice, exactly what i was looking for

[Gordon (NZ)]

I am a reasonably accomplishd doubler - fl/pic/clar/4xsax.
I also service and hence play a few hundred clarinets per year.
I consider that for a doubler the difference between a correctly adjusted student, plastic Yamaha instrument, and the various makes of professional wooden ones is negligible. My audience would not notice if I played plastic instead of wood.

[L1]

I've just acquired a Yamaha plastic clarinet (Model 20) and I'm amazed at how good it sounds and how much it resembles a Buffet R13 (which I also have) in appearance and feel. It has some very minor keywork differences (the main thing that I noticed is that the right and left pinky keys are not interlinked like they are on the R13, but the Yamaha has weighted the keys so that they perform similarly even without the interlinkage). I also have a new Vito plastic clarinet and the Vito has a little bit more of a darker more wood-like sound; the Yamaha is a little brighter and a little more free-blowing. The keywork also feels pretty good on the Vito (fits my small hands a little better, but this is a minor difference). I'm still trying to decide which one of the plastic clarinets l like better.

The Yamaha Model 20's can be had for about $150-250 on eBay. They are one of the best bargains. I've already bought 2 of them and donated one to the local school band. I was going to donate the other... but I may just keep it for myself!

[John Scorgie]

hammer --

All of the above posters are, IMHO, 100% accurate. Let me add a few points which I feel are often overlooked by sax players atempting to learn clarinet.

More important than the clarinet is the mouthpiece. It is critical that you start out with a good middle of the road mpce. After you get comfortable with the clarinet, you can experiment with different mpces if you so desire. My personal favorite is the Hite Premiere which you can buy at your local music store for 30 bucks or so. The big mail order places also carry them. Low price but high quality. An ideal doublers mpce. Designed to use a Vandoren 3 or equivalent strength in other brands.

BTW, it was formerly thought in some quarters that it is necessary for a doubler to play clarinet with a pointed chin and a tight "smile" embouchure rather than one or the other of the accepted sax embouchures which are more relaxed. That is how I was taught clarinet nearly 50 years ago, and that is what the Teal book says, probably because Larry Teal learned clarinet from one of the old "smile" players (Albert Luconi of the Detroit Symphony???)

Try to find a mouthpiece/reed setup which will give you somewhat the same "feel" as you have on your saxophone(s). That is, somewhat the same degree of resistance so that you can minimize the differences in blowing the sax and the clarinet. If you play medium soft or medium reeds on your sax, this may require slightly stiffer reeds on the clarinet. The key is to control your clarinet sound by shaping and varying your air stream rather than by pinching and biting. (If you are familiar with the overtone exercises in the Rascher Top Tones book you will know what I mean.) Try to keep your clarinet embouchure as close as possible to your sax embouchure, and make your adjustments with your air stream and shaping of mouth, tongue and throat.

Easy to say; not easy to do. Takes lots of practice but is well worth it. Your sax playing will also improve. A coach who plays both sax and clarinet AND gets a good sound on both will be invaluable at the start.

How many doublers have you heard who get a nice full sound on their sax(es) but a pinched, nasal, wimpy little sound on the clarinet? IMHO the chief reason for this is attempting to play one embouchure for sax and another (too tight) for the clarinet, often coupled with a softer reed on the clarinet than is used on the sax(es), and a less than ideal clarinet mouthpiece.

Good luck and let us know how you are coming along.

[Gordon (NZ)]

"Try to keep your clarinet embouchure as close as possible to your sax embouchure..."

I certainly would not recommend that!

Sax, especially for pitch and tone control - requires a larger area of lower lip contact with reed, so: Bunch up lip and don't pull the lip over lower teeth, place reed on lip, then upper teeth and close lips.

Clarinet, especially for tone and for high notes - requires a much shorter area of contact between lip and reed, so: pull bottom lip thin over lower teeth, place reed on lip, then teeth, close lips like a rubber band.

But I am largely self taught. Perhaps more experienced players will confirm these basics.

[BATMAN]

I wouldn't recommend you play saxophone and clarinet with the same embouchure. If only for pitch reasons. All the following is assuming you are playing classical saxophone and clarinet....

Gordon has the basic idea. The cushion on the bottom teeth for saxophone is not nearly as tight as on clarinet. The support for the embouchure comes from the facial muscles, the "O" as shown in the larry teal book. The general embouchure is more rounded, and the oral cavity is more of an "oh" position. The entire "ring" musculature of your face is what holds the mpc. You should not be biting, and you should not use jaw pressure.

For clarinet, the cushion over the lower teeth should be fairly tight. General embouchure feels tighter, and the muscles that will REALLY be working here will be the sides of your face. If you're doing it right, the sides of your face will fatigue if they are not strong. The "smile" is like an over exaggeration of this particular effect...but it's not necessarilly the correct embouchure. Contrary to what many say, you don't have to "smile" when you play clarinet! The oral cavity is more of an "eh" feeling overall. For high clarion and altissimo, more of a "eeeh" or "heee". The main support comes from the sides of the face, and the lips are held like rubber bands around the mpc. No biting and no jaw pressure. Yes, the general embouchure for clarinet is MUCH tighter.

I probably made no sense in the above, it's difficult to explain what I mean without being able to show you...but I will make a point and say that clarinet and saxophone should not be played the same way. They were not designed to be interchangeable. A clarinet embouchure on saxophone will have a tendency to play sharply and a saxophone embouchure on clarinet tends to be flat. To truly play each instrument as intended, a lot of time must be spent mastering the correct embouchure and technique particular to each instrument. This is not to say that it is not POSSIBLE to play clarinet with saxophone ideals and vice-versa, but that ideally one should know how to deal with them both on their own terms.

But, I played and still play clarinet first (classical, mostly jazz now....) so I am a firm believer that to play it requires more than just a modified saxophone sensibility. It is NOT a saxophone!

Get yourself a good mpc, a well adjusted instrument, and work on long tones, and SLOW scale practice. This will seem very tedious, especially if you have a higher proficiency on saxophone. But, it's worth it. It is a very unforgiving instrument and aside from the double reeds, is VERY picky about having the proper embouchure, reed, mpc setup in order to get a "good" sound. I'm not even talking about classical vs jazz sound issues....but just a good sound!

good luck!

[SuiZen]

I switched to sax, because I don't like the clarinet fingering. Do others find the fingering differences an issue?

Bill

[Jack W.]

Sorry in advance for long post. If my limited experience is worth anything, I have to concur with the thoughts that the clarinet and saxophone embouchures are noticeably different. I tried doing what was suggested above, using a fairly open clarinet mpc with fairly soft reeds. I did eventually learn to play most of the range, at least up to G4 or so (which I figured was high enough thank you), but was always dissatisfied with my sound. Finally I started experimenting with more closed mpcs and harder reeds, and taking my teacher seriously about the differences between the sax and clarinet embouchures. Bingo, my sound cleared up and became well centered almost overnight! I still can't claim to be anything special on clarinet, but at least in my case this is what worked to give me the sound I wanted. I dare not and cannot claim that this will be true for anyone else.

I also agree on the scales. When I first started on clarinet, someone (I think MojoBari?) suggested that I just start running scales up and down the horn in all keys, come what may, and that the time would not prove wasted. It was a pain but he was right. :) One thing that helped immensely is that I took a show gig playing 2nd clarinet in "My Fair Lady", this is not a doubling gig like I prefer, but clarinet only for the whole show. The lady who played 1st clarinet is a frequent pit colleague of mine, whose main instrument is clarinet, and on my other side sat the oboist, another frequent pit colleague of mine whose main instrument is clarinet. Needless to say, I got my butt kicked -- and by the end of the show the improvement was noticeable.

As for the fingering system of clarinet, it is weird at first but one does get over it. It helped me to realize that the clarion register is fingered like flute or saxophone for the most part, and the chalumeau register is fingered like alto recorder for the most part. The altissimo is a bit helter-skelter in fingering, but it is on flute and saxophone too! :)

[BATMAN]

technique on clarinet is just less forgiving than on saxophone. At a high level, all instruments are equally difficult, but clarinet is just that much more difficult to start "playing fast" and etc etc.

learn your scales. This is very important for all instruments, but for clarinet, it is even more crucial. Mainly for the benefit of muscle memory...since the registers do not have the same fingerings. But if one gets past the issues with mpcs and getting a good sound, then the next big hump is technique. Do things slowly and pay close attention to finger position, action, etc.... again, clarinet is less forgiving than sax or flute because of the tone holes.

And a word on mpc choice...it would be ideal to start with a middle of the road mpc and middle size reed. A B45 with Vandoren #3 or M13lyre with a Vandoren 3.5 would be good choices IMHO. The most important thing to learn is proper embouchure and breath support...and these middle of the road setups help make that a little less painful. Avoid extreme setups (ie a super closed mpc with Vandoren V12 #4 or pretty open mpc with Vandoren 2.5 or less) until you can consistently produce a good sound. Once you have proper control of the clarinet in all registers, then maybe a larger or smaller mpc will work.

But don't worry so much about mpcs till you can play the horn! Just get a good playing one, and you should be set :)

[Anonymous]

ok, you guys have convinced me...I'm going to get my wife's old Bundy clarinet fixed up and learn to play it. Great thread, thanks!

[Jack W.]

Welcome to the Dark Side, Mike. :)

[Gordon (NZ)]

On two occasions I have been blown away by the sound of the clarinetist beside me in the theatre pit. One turned out to be a plastic Yamaha, and the other a (bakelite?) Boosey & Hawkes Regent.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the Dark Side, Mike. :)

Uh, thanks, I guess...

I ordered a Hite Premier from ww&bw yesterday...I've been trying to work up the nerve to do this for a while. One day, I may even buy a flute! :roll:

[Nefertiti]

I just got back to playing the clarinet again after 15 years off. I have to put in a word for the Morgan pieces. I have a RM28 that I absolutely love. Great piece. Dark focused sound. Great for a doubler!

[Jazzophone]

I'm doubling for a musical too -- got a plastic Signet clarinet to use for the duration, and it's working pretty good. I've got to agree with the posts above though: clarinet is WAY less forgiving than saxophone! I find after a rather short practise session my face is already tiring. Takes a lot of work to firm up your face for the clarinet.

I'd highly recommend saxophonists to start off on clarinet: I didn't and am regretting it. The fingerings might screw you up at first, but in the end it's really worthwhile. If you learn on a less forgiving instrument first, the sax will come a lot easier. It's really hard for me because I've been playing tenor for just under three years and am only now starting clarinet. Loads of screw-ups there.

all in all though clarinet is a great instrument ... learn if you can!