r/Clarinet

I don’t know if this subreddit is the best place to ask this question but I am a high schooler that isn’t currently in my school band due to personal reasons but I want to play in an ensemble. How do you find places or ensembles to play in?

Hello all,

I used to play clarinet relatively seriously in my youth but completely stopped after college. I held onto my Yamaha CS since then and now my son is coincidentally started playing in middle school and he’s actually enjoying it. He uses a rental now since I didn’t know how serious he’d want to be and I think he’s hooked so looking into getting my old horn overhauled back to a workable condition as I know it was a great instrument for him to use in the future. Looking for a high end professional.

Can anyone recommend a technician? I looked at old threads and seems to be many years ago since people mentioned anyone.

Thanks in advance.

I been playing Bf clarinet since 6th Grade and I have been enjoying it a lot since then. During my 7th Grade year after Halloween Season, my band was starting to choose our bass clarinets and they needed to have them before Christmas. I decided to signed up and i try and fell in love with it. I been a huge fan of the lower notes of the clarinet so that could be the reason of why I loved bass so much. Anyways, they chose me and this girl one year older than me to play bass music for Christmas but with normal clarinet because they were supposed to gave us the instruments after Christmas break. After the concert, the band directors told us that we were not gonna be able to play bass anymore because they were gonna switch two bass clarinets from concert band to our symphony band. I was so mad after that because I felt that the band directors betrayed us. My friends told me that it was common that 8th Graders were chosen to play bass so I thought that next year I would have a chance.
8th Grade year arrives and I was so excited because I felt that this was my year for becoming bass. Halloween season ends and auditions starts. We need to clarify also that by this time I got moved to Concert band because I fail my audition to remain in symphonic. In concert, I didn’t expect that 7 kids (mostly 7th Graders) were trying to audition for bass clarinet. After my band director finished to talk with them, he decides to talk with me in private. He told me sincerely that he didn’t look at me as a bass clarinet player and that I could suck on the instrument. The reason was because our clarinets were trash this year, I was always 1st Chair and he noticed that. He told me that they needed me to remain on bf clarinet so he told me that I was gonna be the last one to audition for bass. SPOILER ALERT: I never auditioned for bass. By the end of Christmas, he finally announces that this stupid 7th grader and this bad expression 8th grader were the chosen ones for bass. I was so mad because I never auditioned and he told me that he didn’t see me as a bass player.
I been thinking in quitting band because they always treats me bad and I don’t have many friends on it. Next year, I will be a freshman and I think that maybe it could be my third chance to become bass player. What do you’ll think? Should I keep trying, or do I just stop trying and quit instead?

i used to play when i was in middle and high-school, and im currently in college and want to bring back that hobby, but cant really afford to drop a bag on a clarinet. does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap clarinet? not looking for the most amazing quality, but i also don’t want it to basically be like a plastic recorder lol. preferably $300 or under, if that’s even realistic 😭

I would say I am pretty good at clarinet, and am first chair of a good school (Im a teenager). I can play every octave with good tone quality, and in tune.

But does anyone know a way to play lower than a low E? Ive tried pressing my tongue to the tip of the reed but can only reach around a quarter tone lower with my current clarinet. Simply curious, I dont actually need to use it for anything, I just saw a video of someone doing it the other day and I thought "Man it would be cool if I could do that too!"

Thanks for any help available.

This is a follow up question to my recent post that included a photo of my student with poor hand position. Thank you very much to all the folks that responded with helpful comments. Many people said that a neck strap is recommended and would be very helpful. I definitely will ask them to get one. My question is, how many clarinets are ready to connect to a neck strap? Does the instrument have to have some kind of little loop there for the strap to hook into? If the instrument doesn't have that, what can be done? I'm curious as to why a neck strap for a young beginner isn't seen more often. Every saxophone student has one, as they should. The clarinet is lighter, obviously, but still, many many young students struggle to hold the instrument. A neck strap seems like an easy fix.

I got my clarinet yesterday and Im just trying to play the C major scale and I can not for the life of me play a B. I tried an alternate fingering and still can very rarely get the sound out without it being like an octave too high when I get to that note I've seen every piece of advice I can find and I still don't get it, its hard to cover all the holes and idk how to fix my embouchure and reach the buttons so quickly or at all im just so mad

I used to play clarinet (plus bassoon, and oboe) in highschool and grade school, and recently I have wanted to start playing again. The only problem is live in a apartment in the middle of downtown. The building does have a small patio, however it is right next to people's windows.

I dont want to annoy/disturb, especially because I know ill be bad at first because it has been over 10 years and obviously due to that my facial muscles arent as strong any more to have have good embouchure.

Any advice? and yes i know there isnt any mutes for clarinet, because its not really possible.

Thanks in advance.

Hey everyone, I’m trying to finally transition away from binders of paper music for my clarinet practice and rehearsals, but I'm running into a hardware issue and could use some advice.

I’ve been trying to use my 11-inch iPad on my music stand, but it’s just not working for me. The glare from room lights is brutal, and it really aggravates my dry eyes (I even tried a matte screen protector, but it barely helped). On top of that, an 11-inch screen feels a bit too small to comfortably read dense technical passages from a standard playing distance.

I really need a larger screen, but my absolute priority is finding a display that reads more like actual paper so my eyes don't burn after a 45-minute session.

While doing some research, I saw a few mentions of the TCL NXTPAPER line, as well as some e-ink tablets. Has anyone here used those, or have any other eye-friendly setups they use for reading charts?

I'd really appreciate any advice before I drop money on another device!