 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SquidwardOnDrugs
Date: 2025-09-04 17:57
Hello fellow nets,
I need some advice on the topic listed above as I recently was selected to be Principal Clarinet in a local youth orchestra, but I have only ever played in band ensembles.
How should I go about blending with strings and the rest of the orchestra?
Thanks for all the help you guys have given to me over the years btw, really excited to pursue music in college next year!
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Author: Ed
Date: 2025-09-04 20:07
Whether playing with woodwinds, brass or strings, use be able the make small adjustments to air, embouchure, voicing to color your sound. There are times when the unique tone of the clarinet is desired, but other times when you will want to color your sound and projection to fit your tone into that of other instruments.
While you are practicing, try to adapt your tone to be more covered or bright, work to highly focus your tone or make is slightly more diffuse, try to get different shades that might more closely mimic the tone of other instruments so your tone is not limited to one flavor.
Most importantly, just use your ears and have fun!
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Author: m1964
Date: 2025-09-05 00:11
I would pay attention to tuning - if playing in tune, you will "blend in".
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2025-09-05 00:21
In band you, and I suspect a fair number of other clarinetists where the "band's violins," in large part carrying your share the melody of at least a fair number of musical selections that might have been adapted from their original orchestra scoring.
In orchestra the limited number of clarinet players like you may warrant a greater need to project (but by no means am I suggested that you play loud for loudness' sake, just that you are heard) and an even higher degree of familiarity with the music in front as might have been the case in band, as there aren't players apt to hit the notes you miss from error or simply taking a breath, or you them.
Nothing I say implies that you didn't also take the band literature seriously, just that you'll be more exposed now.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2025-09-05 14:56
Eyes and ears.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
Independent Woodwind Repairer
Single and Double Reed Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes
NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-09-05 22:54
SquidwardOnDrugs wrote:
> Hello fellow nets,
>
> I need some advice on the topic listed above as I recently was
> selected to be Principal Clarinet in a local youth orchestra,
> but I have only ever played in band ensembles.
>
> How should I go about blending with strings and the rest of the
> orchestra?
You have a more independent role as principal clarinet than you have in a band clarinet section. You need to be sensitive to what the other principal woodwinds are playing, especially to tuning with them in unison and octave doublings, since the woodwinds form a distinct choir.
Karl
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Author: J. J.
Date: 2025-09-05 23:05
Listen and look to them more than yourself, and you should be fine.
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Author: Jarmo Hyvakko
Date: 2025-09-06 12:51
First and foremost: blending in woodwind section. Clarinet is the bridge between flute and doublereeds. You should fill the gap between the softness and roundness of flute sound and the edgy brightness of oboe and bassoon. Play unisonos with the flute with a very fluffy sound, with the oboe offer her a velvet pillow under her sound. With the bassoon the practicefield is Beethoven's symphonie's unisonos: play soft enough but not forgetting that you are on top, find a sound that both blends and states: I am here!
Balancing with strings is a matter of culture in each orchestra and each conductor. The whole woodwind should be able to move up and down as a team. So play as if you were playing an unisono with the flute! And wait for further advice from front...
Technical POV: focusing and colouring the sound is balancing between embouchure and support.
In embouchure be sure that you NEVER tighten and loosen it by biting the mouthpiece, always by squeezing and loosening your lips.
In support be sure that you conciously inhale using your abdominal muscles. Good tip: imagine a spot about an inch below your belly button. Concentrate on that and breath calmly. Do this every time you remember it for the rest of your life!
Variating the focus of your sound is very much variating the balance between embouchure and support: if you loosen your lips you need to blow more air and and you blend more. If you tighten the lips you must blow less and your sound becomes brighter and more focused.
How to do it in tune: what ever sound production exercises you do, do them with a tuning machine: not staring the pointer of the machine, but putting the sound on: either the sound you are working on or the fifth of it and try to stay in tune with it!
Jarmo Hyvakko, Principal Clarinet, Tampere Philharmonic, Finland
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Author: Ed
Date: 2025-09-06 17:10
Quote:
How to do it in tune: what ever sound production exercises you do, do them with a tuning machine: not staring the pointer of the machine, but putting the sound on: either the sound you are working on or the fifth of it and try to stay in tune with it!
Absolutely! You sometimes see people who are using the tuner by staring at the needle. The objective would be to train your ears not your eyes!
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2025-09-06 18:08
Hello Jarmo. Thank you for that advice on HOW to color sound. Over the years, I've seen many suggestions to vary sound color and observations of individuals who do it, but almost never any advice on how. My own guessing along that path has indicated that changes to embouchure pressure seem to require intonation correction using the tongue.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2025-09-06 20:59
Squidwardondrugs:
It is not my intent through comedic double entendre to minimize your question, but "blending" got me thinking about the idea of actually using the kitchen device of the same name used to concoct the variety of culinary items it's known for making, and the noise/distraction such a device might cause among a musical ensemble.
And then I realized that I actually had a real life frame of reference.
A colleague recently brought this device to a rehearsal:
https://www.silversteinworks.com/airswab/?srsltid=AfmBOorIcKxXqfzAOEPA_4UdCA1DVAJ-dpVGdkfxGv9MnNteNEA3vRfC
and powered it up during a break.
Clearly his actions weren't upsetting: it's not as if he activated it mid musical phrase, but its noise did catch the attention of the masses.
Mike Lowenstern sorta of spoofs it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekwiBmfdO6w
"...you don't want to disturb anybody with your swab...." too funny!
Post Edited (2025-09-07 17:24)
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Author: graham
Date: 2025-09-06 21:52
Use recordings and follow your part when listening. Mark points relating to how your part goes with other instruments. Where you need to be prominent, pencil mark accordingly. Where you need to listen to another instrument and let them shine, write that in. If you notice something about articulation with other instruments mark that in.
The good orchestral player hasn’t merely learned their own part, but also knows what the other parts are doing.
graham
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