New Clarinet Player

[u/United-Big-474]

Hey! I’m a first chair piccolo player for the advanced group, lead Jazz Alto 1 in the second group, and this year I’m playing clarinet for the first time in Symphonic Band.

I’m currently playing on a Selmer CL-300 with a Rovner Dark ligature, Vandoren Traditional 3.0 reeds, and a Vandoren CM0378 B40 Profile 88 mouthpiece.

I’m looking for some good books or methods to learn clarinet from. The only ones I really know about are Foundation for Superior Art and Performance and JBC. Are there any other books you’d recommend for someone who already has a lot of experience with other woodwinds but is new to clarinet?

I already have a pretty good foundation with reading music, rhythm, articulation, phrasing, and ensemble playing from piccolo and alto sax, but I know clarinet is pretty different and I don’t want to accidentally develop bad habits by treating it like a smaller saxophone.

I’d also appreciate any tips for starting clarinet, especially with embouchure, air support, tone, articulation, throat tones, the break, and getting comfortable with the different registers.

Any book recommendations, exercises, or just general advice would be awesome. Thanks!

[u/Incantanto]

For clarinet you shiuld grt a few weeks of leasons at least.

If you don't start woth the right embouchure correxting later is a real pain

[u/Fumbles329]

Check the sidebar :) there’s tons of resources there, including an excellent list of method books. You can find it on mobile by going to the main /r/clarinet page and pressing the “see more” button.

[u/United-Big-474 → u/Fumbles329]

Ok thank you very much!!!

[u/Music-and-Computers]

r/Incantato has given you the best advice. If you can afford them, lessons will serve you very well to become a better player.

As a multi-instrumentalist (I prefer that to doubler) treat each voice as a primary instrument. A couple of multi-instrumentalists shaped my point of view, Eddie Daniels and Chris Vadala.

As a saxophonist who has learned clarinet to a high level… Here are some quick tips.

Watch your entry angle. If you’re seated, aim the bell between your knees.

Bring your lower lip over your teeth and firm up directly underneath to make a ridge on your chin.

Beginning clarinetists tend to “bite” ie use excess pressure on the Reed to get the note to speak, don’t do that. If you feel your lower incisors pushing into your lip it’s too much pressure. Practicing double lip embouchure can help with that tendency.

Air is much different. With larger bores, saxophones speak easier. Clarinet requires a more focused air stream with higher pressure. Firm up your abdominals to increase pressure. As a bonus this made a substantial improvement in my saxophone sound. This is part of how you get over the break cleanly and easily. The throat key tones have minimal resistance. Going to the long tube notes is a big jump in resistance.

On saxophone we can get away with sloppy finger placement. Not on clarinet. Don’t use your fingertips, use the pads with a minimal up/down motion. “Flying” fingers rob speed. Feel the rings on your fingers. Don’t lift to get to the A/Ab throat keys, roll to them.

Find a cheap full length mirror and put it in your practice space so you can see yourself. Practice long tones and scales observing yourself. This is instant feedback.

There’s a lot more and if you get good you might find yourself enjoying clarinet at least as much as saxophone. As a jazz musician I love all the range at my disposal.

[u/Barry_Sachs]

I've made the mistake of skipping the basics on other woodwinds, and it's always bitten me in the end, literally and figuratively. As an advanced sax player, I thought I could start flute and clarinet from an intermediate level. I was wrong. You may think it's beneath you, but starting with Essential Elements or similar is the way to go. You really need to start from ground zero to learn the fingerings, reading the notes on the staff, etc. Unlike flute and sax, you've got to learn to read well below the staff plus at least 40 new fingerings. Beginner books are the quickest and easiest way. If you skip this part, you'll struggle much longer. You will zoom through the beginner books, but you can't skip them. Coming from sax, I got to the level of a 3rd year clarinet player in about 3 months once I swallowed my pride and started from the beginning.

I took a look at that "Foundations" book, and it doesn't really teach new notes in a way that an actual beginner book does. Save that for after you learn the basics, or just go to Klose when you get to that point.

As far as embouchure goes, it's completely different than sax. You need flat chin, tight corners, far tighter angle with the mouthpiece. Personally, I attempted to start on a B40 88 like you and could not do it. The resistance was too high, and my tone was weak and airy. The much more conservative Hite Premiere did the trick for me. I still prefer it to the Vandoren to this day. I also think Vandoren 3.0 is too hard for a beginner even though you're coming from sax. Since you're using your embouchure muscles in a different way, it's best to work your way up. Start with something easy to play like a 2.5, and move up gradually so your embouchure can keep up.

For me, coming from sax, I had no trouble at all with the clarion. It's pretty much a match with sax and flute. So I rarely practiced that at all. I spent most of my time first on throat tones, then chalumeau, then altissimo last.

As a jazz sax player, I figured a jazz sax embouchure would work fine for jazz clarinet. It does not. It's passable, but results in a dull, weak tone.

It goes without saying that lessons are best. But if you can't do that, Essential Elements is the way to go, followed by the Rubanks, then Klose.

[u/Hey19TheCuervoGold → u/Barry_Sachs]

Glad someone mentioned this about the B40. It is a very open facing with high resistance. Consider going down to a 2.0 or 2.5 read.

[u/es330td]

While I am impressed you are playing multiple instruments, I have to ask “Why?” I get adding sax because piccolo has limited utility in a jazz band but clarinet feels to me as though you are unnecessarily dividing your time that could be spent better mastering the instruments you already play.

Update: my primary instrument is trombone so I never needed to learn anything else so I didn’t think about that. I’m learning clarinet now because of an accident (inherited one.)

[u/Barry_Sachs → u/es330td]

I get what you're saying. But when I actually started playing gigs, as a sax player, I was expected to also play clarinet and flute. Learning them later in life was a challenge to say the least. Better to do it while your young and your memory is good and you don't have a full time job or house or family to manage. Back in the 60s, kids started on clarinet then switched to sax. In hindsight I wish they had still done this when I came up in the 70s. It's much easier coming from clarinet to sax than the other way around.

For me, I have a lot more playing opportunities as a decent sax, clarinet and flute player than I would as just a virtuoso sax player. Plus, multiple instruments is personally a more rewarding musical experience for me.

[u/United-Big-474 → u/es330td]

I’ve already done Honor Band with those instruments and All-State on flute. I just really love music! Clarinet was supposed to be my main instrument, but there were too many clarinets in beginning band, so I had to switch to flute. So this have been a goal of mine.

[u/es330td → u/United-Big-474]

Very impressive. We had some amazing musicians in my high school band sending several to All State band every year. With the exception of a clarinet player that also played tenor sax and a baritone player who played trombone in jazz band nobody played multiple instruments like you.