"Tootylicious!&qu ot; (Clarinets)

Member Name: hugnluvable

Product:	Clarinets
Date:	11/09/01 (1172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lovely sound, lovely looks, lovely!

Disadvantages: um, you can look like a goldish on heat playing it sometimes!

Q: What’s worse than a clarinet?
A: Two clarinets!

Heh – well that’s what a few musically minded comedian wannabes say – and usually they are brass players! Hey! No offence to brass players but there is a sorta brass-woodwind divide in concert bands and orchestras, but that doesn’t deter me from carrying on playing this fantastic instrument. And the childish banter is surprisingly very amusing – especially when some people take it quite personally when they’re told they look like a goldfish on heat when they play! (Yep someone came up with this comeback and the clarinet player walked out of the rehearsal in a huff!)

In fact yes you can look like a goldfish on heat when you play the clarinet – but sometimes that’s unavoidable. Don’t let this put you off of playing though.

I have played the clarinet for almost ten years now, and I don’t look back and regret. I started hating to learn it though – all because of my first clarinet teacher who didn’t really take to me. Instead she treated me as thick, keeping me behind everyone else in our class. I remember being stuck on this Gavotte for about 4 weeks whilst another girl (her favourite) was steaming ahead. I always remember leaving primary school, with some pride in myself though – I achieved all distinctions up to Grade 3 when everyone doubted me – plus I had higher grades in keyboard as well.

So really the clarinet was a second instrument to me when I first started. But it started to take over and become my first now I’m studying music at university. This is possibly because I love playing it and there were so many social opportunities compared to playing the keyboard/piano. When you play a woodwind/brass/string instrument you don’t seem to be alone all the time. There are so many ensembles that you can take part in and make some fantastic friends with. And there is always the
chance to perform on your own –which is an amazing feeling that you’ll want to have over and over again. The good thing about ensembles etc is that you are getting even more practise than you think you are having. Not only are you practising the instrument itself – you’re learning to communicate with others, how to organise and have fun at the same time. Although it does inevitably take a lot of hard work!

The clarinet belongs to the woodwind family and is said to be one of the easiest instruments to learn yet the hardest instrument to play. This is true, as you start it seems quite simple but as you develop upon the higher notes it gets a bit more difficult. As you play between high and low notes you need to be able to control your omnisure (the part of your mouth that controls how hard/soft you blow into the mouthpiece). This is the hardest part of playing the clarinet and needless to say – if you blow too hard or too softly with any note you’ll get a rather dire “SQUEEEEEEEEEEAK!” – not very nice for the parents I can tell you! But it’s natural to squeak when you first start (and also when you’ve been playing for like 9 years – humph!) so don’t let that sound dishearten you!

If you have the urge to play a brass instrument then think twice about playing the clarinet. My clarinet teacher would kill me if he saw me playing a trumpet (and its not cus of the woodwind-brass divide!). The reason being is that there is a whole different way into blowing into a trumpet than there is a clarinet. And this way of blowing (like doing a tight raspberry through the trumpet mouthpiece) can ruin your omnisure – jeopardising your clarinet playing future if you have dreams of becoming the next Acker Bilk. The most recommended wind instruments to play if you play the clarinet (or if you play a woodwind instrument) would be the; Flute; Bassoon, Bass clarinet or one out of the family
of Saxophones. People tend to go for the Sax – its another reed instrument and it follows the same jazzy route that the clarinet also has.
The good thing about playing a clarinet or any other woodwind instrument, as opposed to Double Bass/Cello/Tuba, is that its comes in a neat compact case that isn’t too conspicuous. And it wont hit people as you walk down the school corridor with it, or on the bus – yet the case is quite hard so it can hurt someone if you want to hit them intentionally (not advised though!). As you open the case you see five cylindrical pieces. You fit these together to form the clarinet – a tall, slim, slender and sexy body that is just tootylicious (bootylicious get it? Oh never mind!).

If you want a clarinet either for your child or you aren’t too sure if you’re going to keep it up there are music shops that offer a rental scheme. This is when you can pay for it monthly and after a year decide to buy it or carry on renting! Chappell of Bond Street (Milton Keynes or London) is a well-known shop that rents but they specialise in Yamaha and have a limited supply of other makes. If you don’t want what Chappell’s offer then try John Myatt’s in Hitchin - Bedfordshire. Myatt’s specialise in woodwind instruments and is where my parents bought my first clarinet. Well, they started to rent it and then had the choice to buy it outright in instalments. Needless to say I wanted to carry on playing and so the clarinet was paid for and officially mine when I was 11.

I always remember the first time I saw my clarinet. It was sitting on the dining room table in it’s case where my parents placed it and knew that I’d look in it out of childish curiosity (I was 9 at the time) I was so happy when I saw it and couldn’t stop hugging my dad! It was a plastic Vito – PLASTIC? You ask in astonishment? Yes – plastic – its best to begin on a plastic cla
rinet – it’s lighter in weight and easier to blow through. To me it was a lovely instrument – and yet some people seemed to look down upon it – because the make wasn’t “Buffet” or “Yamaha” people thought that it wouldn’t last very long or play that well. People say that the tone on it is lovely when I play it. That’s the most important factor of playing a clarinet – yeah you need to know the right fingerings and get them right but getting the tone as well is the most difficult part. It takes a lot of “long note practice” to perfect the tone of the clarinet. Long note practice exercises the omnisure and gets it used to the vibrations that blowing on the reed creates so then you can control what sort of tone you produce. I played my GCSE performance on this plastic clarinet and got up to Grade 6 on it. But then I found it too easy and light to play – I wanted something more voluptuous and heavier with a bit more meat to it.

So for my 18th birthday I was bought a Yamaha Clarinet. It is made out of Grenadilla wood and its my baby! A wooden clarinet is heavier and a lot stronger than a plastic clarinet and it produces a much richer tone. My clarinet should have cost £699 but because I worked for a music shop I got quite a cool discount! I was never told how much my first clarinet cost but it was around £200ish. Each make of clarinet varies from one to the other so its best to shop around for the one that’s best for you. Prices can vary – from £100 for a second hand one up to £2000 for a professional ebony custom made clarinet – I think I’ll stick to my wooden one for the time being!

Clarinets can last for an extremely long time if you take care of them – my Vito is 10 years old now. If you own a wooden one you’ll need to put some bore oil through it on a cloth from time to time to moisten the wood and prevent it from cracking. B
ut don’t oil it as soon as you get it. I did this and ended up having to play in my A Level exam with a crack which went halfway down the top joint (it was too oiled up because they already oil them in the factory before distribution). Lucky enough it was under guarantee and so I exchanged it! And with any clarinet you need to pull a “pull through” cloth through the pieces after each use to keep it clean and dry so that the cushions or cork wont disintegrate and the metal keys wont go rusty or – ugh! Mouldy!

You’ll need to buy accessories such as; pull through cloth (to keep it clean), cork grease (to keep the cork between joints moist and easy to join), bore oil (if you have a wooden clarinet). And its optional to buy; thumb rest cushion (that you put on the thumb rest so your thumb wont hurt too much after holding it for a long time); mouthpiece cushion (a stick on cushion for sensitive/chipped teeth- like mine, or to make the tone sound a bit nicer as well!) In some cases you might need to buy new parts like a mouthpiece or ligature (holds the reed in place) due to wear and tear – or you might like to buy a new mouthpiece to make the clarinet sound different. A crystal mouthpiece the last time I checked cost around £30 (I want one!)

Another vital accessory is the reed. You need this in order to play the thing! There are different makes such as; Rico, Rico Royale and Vandoren (Vandoren is the most recommended!) And there are different thicknesses of reeds depending on how hard you blow (it vibrates onto the mouthpiece). As your omnisure advances you’ll need a thicker reed. Strengths start at ½ and go up to around 5 (impossible to blow into!) Reeds cost around £1 to £2 depending on what brand you buy and its advised to start on a 1 – 1 ½ sized reed. If you honestly don’t know what size to buy before your 1st clarinet lesson then buy a couple of different sizes – your teacher should know w
hich one is best.

Fitting it together is quite straightforward and you hold the top with your left hand and rest the thumb rest on your right thumb to support the clarinet. You hold it a bit like a recorder. Only awkward thing when you play in a band or something is that your clarinet is in a different key to others (brass have the same problem). So you’ll need to keep an ear on that – and when you get better you might be asked to transpose and play different notes to what is on your sheet. One solution is to play an A clarinet which is exactly the same as a B flat clarinet – only it sounds in a different key! But enough of that technical stuff already!

If you are teaching yourself a good book to buy is “Learn as you Play the Clarinet” by Peter Wastell (Boosey and Hawkes publisher). This teaches you everything about how to play the clarinet – things like how to play it, how to mantle and dismantle it, how to read music etc. I would strongly recommend it and its usually used by clarinet teachers in lessons anyway – either way still a handy book to own if you want to learn the clarinet. It costs around £5.99 and another book for the same price is called “Abracadabra” – it’s the same concept as the “A Tune a Day” set but a bit more interesting and useful. For teachers contact your local music centre or music shop and they should be able to help you find someone. If you’re looking for someone to teach your child there is usually a peripatetic teacher from your local music centre who visits his or her school every week.

So that’s it! The clarinet. Every time you listen to a piece like “Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto” or Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” remind yourself that two of these long, tall, dark and sexy instruments aren’t too bad! In fact they’re lovely and I would recommend any Acker Bilk wannabe or buddin
g recorder player to start! Remember – even is you do give up learning at least you know that you had the chance and tried!

HuGz
xxx

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