The clarinet is usually considered to be the alto or tenor of the wind
section. However, the various sizes of clarinet extend the
range of the clarinet family to cover soprano and bass registers.
All clarinets use a single reed, are made with a cylindrical
bore, and are transposing instruments.
Here
are the written clarinet transpositions.
About clarinet transposition:
Clarinets in Bb and A:
Clarinet in Eb:
Bass Clarinet:
Two rarer instruments that are sometimes used: the contrabass clarinet and
the basset horn
Here is a clarinet solo from Stravinsky's Petrouchka and
an Eb clarinet solo from Stravinsky's Rite
of Spring, followed
by three melodic fragments played on the bass clarinet:
In these pages, the clarinet and bass clarinet are demonstrated
by:
Mark van der Wiel, Clarinets
Michael Harris, Bass Clarinet
Use the navigation bar above to explore the clarinet pages.
The icon will launch a movie
of Mark or Michael explaining a relevant point of clarinet technique.
The icon will give
an audio clip, which will either play automatically or open
a new window.
The icon will play an illustrative music example
from the Philharmonia's recorded archive.
Be sure to visit the 'player's tips and tricks' section for
some very useful advice about aspects of clarinet writing.
