Clarinet

What it means

The clarinet is a woodwind instrument with a single reed that vibrates against a mouthpiece, and a cylindrical, that is, evenly wide, bore. This construction sets it apart from most other woodwinds and gives it an especially wide range of over three octaves as well as a strongly variable tone color between registers.

Musical use

The clarinet developed in the early 18th century from the older chalumeau and was gradually extended with more and more keys, until the so-called Boehm system in the 19th century enabled a reliable, chromatically complete playing method. It is a fixed part of the orchestra, the wind band, and many chamber music combinations, and plays a central role in klezmer, where its capacity for glissandi and expressive ornaments is especially exploited. In jazz too, for instance with Benny Goodman, the clarinet had prominent appearances.

The clarinet should be distinguished from the oboe and the bassoon, which are played with a double reed and are conically bored, and from the saxophone family, which likewise uses a single reed but is made of metal and conically bored.

Performance practice

On the clarinet, practise a stable, relaxed embouchure, since the single reed reacts sensitively to lip pressure. Use the large tonal differences between the low, middle, and high registers deliberately as a means of expression, since they are a central expressive tool of the instrument.