A self gifted, Clarinet

Beginning to make some sound, hope not noise!

It wasn't a planned buy, neither was it an impulse buy. Among all the musical instruments, the woodwind category has always fascinated me. I also possess a few including, a indian classical flute, a harmonica and a turkish flute.

I always thought my next buy then would be a Saxophone, the sound and looks of which are my favorite. During the last week of 2013, in my usual Wikipedia and Youtube expeditions about Saxophone, I came to conclusion that with the number of keys and variations that are possible in a Sax, it will not prove to be a good-first-buy from that category. I still wanted to possess it. Closest to a Sax in its sound then is a Clarinet, which probably has a little less keys and controls to learn. In the next 30 minutes of that thought, I had ordered a Clarinet from Amazon, and 3 days from then, I held it in my hand. And Boy, am I not loving it!

Clarinet basically has 5 main parts which are disjoint when not in use.

• Mouthpiece (Self Explanatory)
• Barrel (Just below the mouthpiece, from the top, as in the picture)
• Upper Joint
• Lower Joint
• Bell (Bottom horn shaped part)

Another very key part which doesn't feature in the package of a Clarinet when you buy is, the Reed. Reed is a thin strip of cane (wood) which goes on top of the mouthpiece and which is responsible for producing the sound importantly. Clarinet reeds come in variations, numbered 1 to 5 (including the half numerals), the numbers indicating the hardness of the cane wood. 1 is the softest and 5, hardest. Softer the reed, easier it is to make a sound but is delicate and difficult to control the pitch variations. Harder ones requires more effort, but the pitch doesn’t vary too much by blowing dynamics. For beginners, it is recommended to use 2, 2 1/2 or 3 numbered reeds. And once you learn playing on them more, you can bring in variation using harder or softer reeds.

There is more, about the perfect mouth position while blowing to make the right sound, which is called Embouchure. But I will write about it once I get better at it than what I am now.

So far, I have loved playing my Clarinet or making sounds of it. Hope to quickly advance through and start playing the first few notes.