 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Kirk
Date: 2001-08-09 21:48
This may be an interesting post, I hope. :-}
Why did you choose a clarinet for your musical pleasure ? I started playing plastic flutes called "tonettes" in 3rd grade thru 6th grade and started playing a clarinet in 8th grade band. I chose it because I grew up in New Orleans listening to Pete Fountain and his jazz group. Acker Bilk was also one of my favorites. Clarinets always seemed like such a needed part of the band ensemble and I liked the melodies played.
I started with one of those all metal ones that the school furnished because my parents couldn't afford to buy me one. Also, Glenn Miller and George Gershwin were my favorites too. 25 years later, they are still my favorites and hopefully one of these decades I will play like I heard in the recordings.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Meri
Date: 2001-08-09 22:05
Simply put, my familiarity with Macedonian music, and not remembering being attracted to any other instrument I was familiar with when I chose it in 7th grade. It's been almost 11 years since.
Meri
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2001-08-09 22:28
Probably because my cousin was first chair clarinet in her high school band and she offered to give me lessons while I was in fourth grade.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: John Gibson
Date: 2001-08-09 22:39
Dad wouldn't buy me a trumpet!!! Started clarinet....took lessons from an old...old man named Anthony Russo who was in the Houston Symphony.
Got to where I loved the clarinet and could play reasonably well for a kid. Then discovered rock and roll....became a drummer and played professionally in San Francisco for almost a decade.....hadn't picked up a clarinet in over 30 years...
when a guy from church mentioned the need for more instruments...already had a drummer....so...and I really think GOD talked to me....because I came up with clarinet...yeah right...after 30 years! So a couple days later....I again get this
"voice" in my head that said "CLARINET!"....figuring it was GOD....I thought I better start looking....went to the internet to do some research and the first web page I pulled up said "The Clarinet...God's Instrument". You want to talk confirmation! So I began going to music stores...looking...knew I wanted a wood rather than plastic....found a Normandy 4. Refused to try it out....went back a few days later....still there along with a Buffet R-13. Couldn't afford the R-13....but decided I might want to try the Normandy. Came back a few days later with my son to give me moral support in testing the horn. Tried it and was surprised to find...I could play it!!! Then...tried the R-13. Son said...that's the one you need...it just sounds better. Well I bought the Normandy because it was $250 as opposed to $1000. Practiced at home for about a month and went back to the store for some adjustments....manager told me the store was going out of business...and was I still interested in the R-13? Then...as GOD would have it....told me...all he wanted out of the Buffet was what they had in it....I asked what that was....and he told me....$250. I could simply trade the Normandy "straight" across!!! didn't even have to think about it....it's a beautiful clarinet made in 1967. That was last November and I can now play better than when I was a kid diligently practicing everything old man Russo taught me. I'm still not "into" reading music....am much better by ear and playing along with records....at 50 years old I now have another love in my life. Although my wife hates hearing repititious scales etc.
Sorry to be so long winded....but that's why "THE CLARINET" for me.
John Gibson
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: William
Date: 2001-08-09 22:40
During the summer vacation before I was to begin fourth grade, my parents took me to a meeting at our grade school where the topic was, "Join the Band." My school had never had a band program so the audience contained kids from fourth through eighth grades and this was all new to us. The instrument company had all of the common instrument assembled and laid out on tables for display. I was interviewed by a salesperson and proclaimed (after he counted my fingers and looked at my teeth) to be "able" to play the instrument of my choice. My Dad was pushing for the trumpet, but only three valves didn't seem that big a deal. I looked at the entire display and picked the instrument that looked the most complicated and interesting--a bright, shinny metal clarinet with gold colored keys. No play testing, or "what kind of sound do you like?" questions--just the "contraption" that had the most keys and seemed, by its looks alone, to be "the instrument for me!" I went home with a metal clarinet (no gold keys--the 9th grade girl got that one) that afternoon and assembled it on our porch with the mouthpiece upside down and made my first sound, a glorious resonate sqwauk that resounded throughout the countryside. Later, I was instructed on its proper assembly and embouchure and became more successful, but that is my story of how I came to play the clarinet. I did eventually learn to play the trumpet (it's a no-brainer instrument compared to the clarinet), but thats another story.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ashley
Date: 2001-08-09 23:08
The director talked me into it when I was in 5th grade. I wanted to play flute, but 3 others had already picked that, nobody wanted to play clarinet..so I was relegated to clarinet..Even though I couldnt get a sound out of the thing the first few times i tried...I wanted to switch after a few months, but the director said clarinet came too naturally to me for me to switch....I wanted to switch to something different up though 9th grade...I was thinking sax, my director (different dir.) was thinking bass clarinet. so I was handed a bass clarinet. I willingly put my clarinet on the top shelf in the band closet..and didnt start playing it seriously again until just last year. (Bad move, my embouchure isn't the greatest now).
Incidentally, my director had to talk me into playing tenor sax for jazz band last year...I didnt really want to. I relented, got the hang of it, and played tenor for jazz band and alto for marching. (The director that talked me into clarinet in 5th grade and sax in 12th are the same person - she taught elementary when I started, left to go to a different school, then took over as high school & middle school director when i was a junior)
I guess she was right when she wouldnt let me switch back in 5th grade...
~Ashley~
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Christoffer
Date: 2001-08-09 23:18
Folk music of Greece, Bulgaria and Macedonia was what finally pushed me into the clarinet business. I've played the recorder for years and wanted to "upgrade" ... struggled in vain to play the greek bouzouki, realized that strings and me were not compatible and picked up the woodwind that was so widely used in this kind of music - also because it allowed me to play a lot of classical stuff too. I guess the decision came when I heard an old gypsy play the clarinet on the street in Piraeus.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ~jerry
Date: 2001-08-09 23:37
Really some nice stories.........especially yours, John G.
Never played an instrument (and actually I still can't) in my life and as I recall, back in the dark ages of '40s & '50s in Jr. High, I thought the boss horn was the trumpet.............the clarinet was a nerd's instrument.
Well just call me nerd (or more mature) because after picking it up last Sep., I cannot seem to get anything else accomplished around here because I'm sort of "possessed" by this licorice stick.........anyone know a good priest?
~ jerry
Still in Clarinet Boot Camp
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-08-10 00:25
I go back to the late Depression days (not the glass, but the late 30's) and we had little money to spend on musical instruments. In the fourth grade was when we were invited to take lessons on various musical instruments. Dad had a neice who had an old wooden flute, one with part holes and part keys, and I tried to learn to play that monster. My music instructor said that this was going to be impossible to do so Dad looked for something else. My elementary school principal, Mr. Fischer, said that he would sell his son's metal clarinet to my Dad for my use with the understanding that Dad would sell the instrument back to him when I was through with it. That was 62 years ago and I am still playing the clarinet. We returned the old metal clarinet to Mr. Fischer when I was in the 11th grade in 1947. By the way, the price of the instrument was $25 and we paid it out at $5.00 a month. Dad's salary around that time was about $90 a month, and that was pretty high for pharmacist back then.
Bob Curtis
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2001-08-10 00:44
When it came time to start a musical instrument in fourth grade, I wanted to play trumpet. My parents, however, who had seen Louis Armstrong on TV alot (and apparently never seen Maynard Ferguson) pronounced that I would never be very good because my lips weren't fat enough. Ditto for trombone or any other brass instrument. The only rental sax in town was already spoken for and flute (in those days and as far as 10 year-old boys were concerned) was for girls, so clarinet was about all that was left. Sometimes you just get lucky.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: John Gibson
Date: 2001-08-10 00:50
Jerry....
I too find myself "possessed" by the clarinet. It just seems like such a personal thing. No one else to help you "make it work". A real one on one. I recently (last week) became a grandfather....and am "threatening" my son that I'm on my way to California to play for baby Logan!
Bob...
Great story. I find the clarinet to really be a tempermental piece of machinery.
A mistress that needs constant attention. I have been looking for that elusive metal clarinet. Would love to have a good one to care for.
John gibson
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Danielle
Date: 2001-08-10 02:06
Picture a little, tiny, 9 year old girl with huge glasses, hair in a braid down to her waist, and 3 years of guitar lessons under her belt. Her music teacher, on the first day of 4th grade, shows her grade the instruments they could study. He plays a selection from "peter and the wolf" on the clarinet. It sounds beautiful- like silver-, to her. I'm 14 now, and madly in love with the clarinet. Shoulder-length hair and contacts, but inside, I'm still that 9 year old who wants to sound "like silver." I'm trying the best I can....
Danielle
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mike Harrelson
Date: 2001-08-10 02:09
It was the summer before the 5th grade and there was a beginning band class for six weeks prior the the start of school. I had decided I wanted to play trumpet and that was that. However the band director had each person try each major instrument and the only ones I could get a sound out of was clarinet and sax. Open G popped right out like I had been playing it forever. To this day I don't know if I'm a clarinet player because of "talent" or because the band director didn't want to teach a brass emouchure to a kid that couldn't get a sound out of a trumpet. I'm now 56 and after a lifetime of clarinet and sax I'm teaching myself trumpet - that band director was right, I'll never be a trumpet player (at least not a good one).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2001-08-10 02:20
Bob Curtis said: "I go back to the late Depression days (not the glass, but the late 30's) and we had little money to spend on musical instruments." I'm of the same good vintage. My brother (the 'serious' musician) got first pick and took Basoon (and later on Tenor Sax). Me, the family clown, not serious about anything, got a clarinet. My brother joined the Navy as a musician at about the time in 1940/41 when the Big Bands were breaking up--playing with a bunch of guy's from Stan Kenton's old band. Me? I went into the Navy in May '42 as an Aviation Radioman. The clarinet still stayed by my side and was a "fun" thing on many Naval Air Stations in small jazz groups etc. Later I picked it up again in 47-49 playing in the newly formed Anchorage Alaska small symphony (mostly pick-up amateurs with a few Air Force musicians for "stability.") This was what most would consider a "community band" at the time. Put it down again and went overseas as a Department of Defense civilian from 1958-1980. Retired and picked it up again just this last year. More fun than ever before and I'm still not a "serious" musician. I'll bet my old metal "Regent" has traveled to more countries than most of YOU %-]
Bob A
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-08-10 02:20
I chose clarinet since I liked Gervase de Payer. My tone is almost comparable.
I chose flute since I liked Marcel Moyse. My tone is not comparable but resembles that of Aurel Nicolet(I do not like his too 'square' tone).
I chose saxophones since I liked Marcel Mule. My tone is comparable. But I dislike too much vibrato playing.
I chose trumpet since I liked Maurice Andre. My tone is disgusting.
Reginald Kell said something like 'Since Heifetz can do that by violine, I too can by clarinet.' I like this. Seeking something different from other famous players is
really a fun although the reality does not match my hope.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-08-10 02:21
I chose clarinet since I liked Gervase de Payer. My tone is almost comparable.
I chose flute since I liked Marcel Moyse. My tone is not comparable but resembles that of Aurel Nicolet(I do not like his too 'square' tone).
I chose saxophones since I liked Marcel Mule. My tone is comparable. But I dislike too much vibrato playing.
I chose trumpet since I liked Maurice Andre. My tone is disgusting(for the time being I hope since I started it in Dec.1999).
Reginald Kell said something like 'Since Heifetz can do that by violine, I too can by clarinet.' I like this. Seeking something different from other famous players is
really a fun although the reality does not match my hope.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Pam
Date: 2001-08-10 02:45
I don't remember actually choosing the Clarinet at the beginning of 5th grade. My mom had one that she had used in school, so it became mine. Somewhere along the line I have become totally smitten with music and the clarinet. I LOVE making music with the clarinet. It is so versatile. You can play jazz, classical, gospel and polka all on the same instrument!
I think in general though that I just love music. The clarinet is my first and best instrument, but I also play or am learning piano, flute, handbells, (have played in the past trombone and bass clarinet). My husband says that all I need now is to attach cymbals to my knees and there ya go!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jim
Date: 2001-08-10 03:42
I never did choose the clarinet, my mom did. I wanted to play the violin, strings were a big deal in the school system, and my elementary school actually had an orchestra, not a band.
Mom however was a big Benny Goodman fan having come of age in the 40s and she lived in Atlantic City where she saw him play a few times. Also, I think she was sweet on Pete Fountain as well, this was the time that he was on the Welk show.
Anyway, she convinced me that I'd be teased for playing violin and that I would miss marching band (she also loved a parade, any parade!) and the clarinet was more adaptable musically. All of this wisdom from a woman who never played or sang a note.
Mom wasn't always right, but she was about the clarinet!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: SALT
Date: 2001-08-10 03:59
Originally in fifth grade I chose flute but at the end of the year I decided I didn't want to continue with it the next year.......a couple weeks into sixth grade my parents asked why I wasn't doing band and I told them, "Because I don't want to play flute and we don't have a clarinet" (we had the flute already because my sister had played in grade and middle school.) so we went to a local pawn shop and picked up my Artley for $175 and took it to a local music shop to get it checked and adjusted etc. all they had to do was adjust the bridge key(I guess the previous owner didn't know too much, they had bent it) I bought a starter kit for five bucks(reed holder, cleaning swab cork grease, etc.) some reeds and a book that we used in band class and off I went to band after teaching myself the basic notes over the weekend. the next year I told my parents I wanted to learn sax too so I could do jazz band(our teacher said clarinets weren't a jazz instrument, that changed when I got to high school) they said "no, you're just going to keep changing your mind and we'll have to spend lots of money on lots of instruments."
It would have been a wonderful investment because now I'm going to major in Music Ed. (I go off to the dorms in 2 weeks!) and clarinets aren't used in the pep band at my college. I'm going to borrow my friends brothers sax, as he's not going to continue with band this year, so that I can play in the pep band(it's so much fun!) anyway, I've rambled enough, now you know my life story!
SALT
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinet713
Date: 2001-08-10 03:59
I'm not completely sure if I chose the clarinet or if my mom did, but all I remember is that because my best friend at the time was playing an instrument, I had to as well! You know how 4th graders are!! I rented my first clarinet, a Bundy. I remember when my mom brought it home and it looked so beautiful sitting in the case! I had NO idea how to put it together, but my mom showed me. Then my twin brother insisted that he put the reed on and he broke it! I also remember playing with the mouthpiece on BACKWARDS for the first week or so and my teacher DIDN'T even NOTICE!!!!!!!! Kind of makes you wonder where the heck he went to school!!!!! Anyway, after that my mom got me my own clarinet at a yard sale for $80-another old Bundy. A couple years later in 9th grade I got an Artley. I played on that until I was a senior in HS and thats when I got my Buffet. I have always loved playing and when I was young that's basically all I did. I definitely was a clarinet NERD!!!!!!!!!!! But now I am proud to have that title! :-) When I was in 4th grade people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I always said a clarinet performer-because I had never heard of any famous female clarinetists!! Now I have such a strong desire to create music and be a part of keeping a composer's music alive and I just can't imagine doing anything else!!! And the sound of a good clarinet always makes me either laugh or cry!!! (laugh because I love the sound and it makes me giddy or cry because I can't play right now!!!!!)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: willie
Date: 2001-08-10 04:41
I actually started out on drums in 7th grade since my mom played the trap set in my dads jazz/swing band and I had a big headstart on the other kids. Now back in the 60s, Evel Kneivel was THE MAN! A bunch of us made a ramp to jump some garbage cans. I made a beautiful jump and cleared all six cans, but I didn't have a landing ramp like ol' Evel and that English 3 speed folded up like a wet pretzel. Well its hard to play drums with both arms in casts, but I could still wiggle my fingers, so I switched to euphonium. There weren't any extra horns for me to take home and practice on but they had shelves full of old metal clarinets. I've been playing this ever since. I'm now back to playing a metal clarinet again. My pride and joy now is a Leblanc contra alto.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Francesca
Date: 2001-08-10 04:55
I went to the music store in hopes of coming home with a sax. I wanted to be just like Lisa Simpson and Bill Clinton. Alack and alas (at the time) my soon to be band director was there and pointed me towards clarinet because that's what he played. I ended up loving the sound after hearing him play, so I brought home a Buffet E-11. Two years later, my director gave up music and became a computer tech and I switched to bass clarinet, never to look back at the soprano again. (Until now because I'm going to college.) Not terribly interesting, but that's my story.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2001-08-10 05:06
My mother was afraid that trumpet would deform my lips. My dad had played trumpet briefly while a kid but never took to it. These two factoids made the idea of learning a brass instrument discouraging.
Flutes were for girls, and violins were for sissies, or so I believed. My dad liked Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw (although what he really liked was opera). So I was regaled with stories about jazz clarinet.
I had some talent, some discipline to practice, could follow instructions, and enjoyed the praise of my parents and teachers, so I stuck with it from elementary school through high school. But already by high school, I was losing interest. I discovered I was only a better than average player, not great, and that was discouraging. I could never be first chair. And I learned that Benny was not where it was at. It was the late 60's - early 70's, and the clarinet was a has-been. I dabbled with a tenor sax but didn't really want to put the time into learning it.
About 25 years later, while doing some international folk dancing, I was approached by the band leader (who was also a dancer), since I was new. She wanted to know if I played an instrument; they were going to have an open gig.
I spent about three months getting my lips and fingers back into shape. I still sucked, though. It took a long time before I finally stopped sucking.
Playing celtic music with open bands for contra dancing was a more regular thing than being able to play Balkan stuff, however, so I eventually found myself buying a C - clarinet to facilitate that. My adult musical "career" coincided with a move to Philadelphia, where there is just a huge folk and social dance community, and a tradition of amateur musicians to play for them. I'm fortunate.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Azzacca
Date: 2001-08-10 12:08
To tell the truth, my best friend (like clarinet713) had chosen in the year before. I did quite a lot of things because she did them (I took French, Sychronized Swimming, Volleyball and Softball). She was a year ahead of me, and I wanted to be just like her... Course I ended up loving everything I picked that way.
I had a hard time of it my first year (couldn't play anything above middle Bb), but worked hard and got my "register key notes" working and became the one the teacher depended on to play second clarinet well.
In high school I started to hate the clarinet, but my mom said if I quit she would sell my clarinet (I know now she wouldn't have gotten much for it). Fortunately, my junior year my band teacher got an eefer for the band and there were only two of us who wanted it, me and the first chair first clarinet. I think Lance knew I was wanting to quit and gave it to me. I fell in love with it.
After high school I didn't play again until recently, and fell in love all over again (bought myself a used Yamaha YCL-72, and love it).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Roger
Date: 2001-08-10 13:08
In the 4th grade (this was circa 1958) the school offered free music lessions. I liked the idea of getting out of the classroom so I bit. Chose clarient stricly at random but liked it. Play it into the 8th grade. I attended a jr-sr high school and was put in the sr. band in grade 8. About that time the instrument played out or tore up===it was cheap stuff. (It was an old used wooden clarinet. The first clarient I had was a rental---a metal clarinet). My grandmother bought me a tenor sax so I switched to it. Lots of clarinets in the band, few saxes---more room for advancement.
I played sax all through high school. I was in the ROTC band in college and found playing a sax better than carrying an M-1. After college I got a deferrment to go to law school and the Vietnam War wound down by the time I got out of law school (1972) so I only had to do three months active duty for training. I still played in the sax.
In 1975--1976 I dated a lady with a child in grammar school who was playing clarinet so I gave him tips on playing and played the instrument so. In 1978 I bought a noblet clarinet and started playiing clarinet in earnest. (Sax being somewhat inappropriate in a lot of church music_
In 1982 I joined my church orchestra. I started talking lessions and eventually bought an R-13.
My wife is the mother of one of the college kids who played in our orchestra so in a very real way the clarient is responsible for me being a married man.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: IHL
Date: 2001-08-10 14:20
I started playing descant in primary (elementary) school from about year 4 until year 6, then when i got into high school, I joined the beginner ensemble. Now to tell you the truth, I had no idea what a clarinet was! The band teacher just suggested it to me, and I went, "umm, okay."
So now ive been playing it for at least 3 1/2 years, and I'm hooked!)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: The Other John Gibson
Date: 2001-08-10 14:30
I got a clarinet because my brother decided it wasn't for him. His idea of playing in band was to see who could get to the end of the piece first and he never seemed to win. I took to it right away and still play 45 years later.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-08-10 15:11
I wanted to be a guitar-playing rock star, but couldn't grow my hair long enough, so I took up the clarinet instead.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-08-10 15:53
Y'know, at 82 its hard to recall motivations in 1929, beginning of the Great Depression, [1st cl cost $25, from a cl-playing repairman], offer of free[school] lessons and their advice, maybe lips too "thick" for cornet, others?? Whatever, its been an integral part of my entire life, a little "profit" and a great amount of pleasure in finding its relation to science, my other "driving force". Don
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bill Fogle
Date: 2001-08-10 16:03
At a flea market I found an "Emil Jardin" with a mortal upper-joint crack and a plastic barrel. I bought the object for $65 because the tarnished silver keys against the red-black wood looked very beautiful---I could not play clarinet. That was 12 years ago. Clarinets and clarinet playing are now very close to the center of my life (the Emil Jardin is gone, however). I play and collect clarinets. It's a habit and an appreciation that will be with me for the rest of my life.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: javier garcia
Date: 2001-08-10 16:23
when I was young (16) I've heard the Mozart concert, a recording from the London Simphony with Jack Brymer, and I fell in love with the clarinet, then my first clarinet, a plastic Evette (very good) and lessons,and later my Buffet BC20 (wonderful).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-08-10 16:26
I have an interesting story to tell.
When I was in fifth grade I wanted nothing more than to play the oboe. Unfortunately I had a nasty overbite. My mom had heard somewhere that reeds were bad for your teeth, so she had me take up the brass section. By seventh grade, my mom had realized that reeds do not do anything bad to your teeth, but then it was way too late to switch and be serious about it- so we thought.
In eighth grade, my mom bought a student model flute so she could learn how to play it. She tried it and didn't like it. By then I was fed up with brass and wanted to try anything that was different. So I took the flute, locked myself up in my room for three days with a fingering chart, and came out sounding about as good as a just-finished-my-first-year student.
My parents were somewhat surprised.
Then came my freshman year of high school, where I had a new band director. He was a superb clarinet player whom nobody seemed to match. He inspired me somewhat. By coincidence it seemed, my parents got me a clarinet for Christmas. I locked myself up for a week and came out about like a second year student, practicing as strenuously as I could, but I had my limits, so my parents gave me a Bundy as a gift - they heard it was a student model better to practice on. I took to it quickly and got even better.
Later my freshman year, I made the "mistake" of letting my band director know I could play a little bit of clarinet. He recruited me into the clarinet choir - on EEb Contralto. He wanted to put me on the BBb Contrabass, but we never really stuck to that.
I've expanded my hoizons since then, including the saxophones in my list of instruments, but I never practice any of the instruments as much as the brass (since that's my forte, unfortunately) and the clarinet. I never did get my oboe, but the clarinet seems to be more fun anyhow, and I have just as promising a future with clarinet as I do brass.
I'm probably never going to ditch brass, since it has it's good points, but I'm going to keep clairnet as long as possible, even over the brass. I love it too much.
Interesting story, huh?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ginny
Date: 2001-08-10 16:32
I was for some span of time a classical guitarist. I remarried (oh yes, I divoriced first) and my second husband plays Balkan music. I had played clarinet as a child, but had no great passion for it, but I enjoy it more now. I started doing classical also. I did not care for wind ensemble when I tried that however.
My son was given no choice, his mother decided he would play the clarinet when he switched to the public school which offered band. Not quite as serious as an arranged marriage (or maybe more so, see above re: second husband.) I did consider his personality. He's pretty stodgy, not rock and roll wild, no sax, drums, etc. He's much too socialable to enjoy the piano as his only musical outlet (although he decided switched from guitar to piano when he was five.) Brass (at least at a kid level) seemed to overt for him, he likes subtlity. Violin seemed too city kid, flute too pretty, oboe too ugly... Overall he seemed like a clarinet kind of guy.
And as it turns out he's a very clarinet guy. He now thinks it was his choice. He loves the clarinet, it is one of his great passions.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Leanne
Date: 2001-08-10 17:52
I always wanted to play flute. The music teacher told me that I wouldn't like flute. She saw me as a bass clarinet person. I was in fifth grade, and I'm short now, but I was even smaller then. I really liked bass clarinet, I was even quite good at it, height wasn't even an issue. It was just simply too heavy to carry home. So I found my way to clarinet, and forgot all about my flute playing dream.
To this day, I love my bass clarinet more than any other instrument I play. It turns out she was absolutely right. It's scary how that works sometimes.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Dave Beal
Date: 2001-08-10 18:14
I originally wanted to play the drums, but so did every other musically inclined boy in the 5th grade, of course. The music teacher urged another choice, and since one of my friends had an old metal clarinet and planned to play it, I went along with him. I do recall expressing an interest in the flute at about this time, but my dad didn't like the implications of his son being a flutist. :-) Anyway, my friend quit the clarinet after about a month, but I stuck with it out of stubbornness, if nothing else. My friend, by the way, also showed up for our second class lesson with the mouthpiece upside down, apparently having practiced that way for a week; it must be a popular mistake. I satisfied my percussion desires by sneaking into the band room after the director had left for the day, putting on a record and playing along on the drum set until its owner, who was frequently running outside for cross country or track practice, would hear me, get mad and throw me off. I started taking saxophone lessons in junior high, because I wanted to play in the high school Stage Band. (Stage Band was a jazz big band by instrumentation, but not really jazz because no one improvised.) The Stage Band was, in my mind, the coolest musical ensemble in the school, and certainly the loudest. I made it into Stage Band as a sophomore and was assigned the baritone sax, because I was the only male in the section. And I still get the urge to go out and buy a drum set occasionally...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lynn
Date: 2001-08-10 19:41
In 4th grade I wanted to play an instrument and I didn't care which one. The music teacher said "You have skinny lips so you should play the clarinet". Not knowing what the heck a clarinet was, I sat back down at my chair. The kid next to me asked what I ended up with. After I told her she said "oh, that's one of those HUGE instruments!" So for the next week (until I actually got to see a clarinet) I thought I'd got the tuba. No offense to tuba players out there, but I'm 41 now and glad I got to play the clarinet all these years.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mandy
Date: 2001-08-10 20:46
When I worked in a local music store I had the opportunity to try all manner of instruments,(I already played violin ,guitar and recorder.)I started playing flute but while I found this very natural for me I only played for about six months Later after my son was born I felt like I needed some more interests so as I no longer had any instruments I bought a clarinet as I felt it gave my the closest feeling to singing which I love,I feel I can express the true spirit of a piece of music and myself through the clarinet.It is certain to be a lifelong relationship.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: 7
Date: 2001-08-10 22:59
If you go WAY back to 4-5th grade school days, I wanted to play the drums. I just thought they were cool. In the little bit of band we had at the school, I was the guy int he back banging away and the snare. But the think was such a big hassle to drag back and forth to school. I thought I should play something like clarinet so one arm didn't get longer then the other... but I stuck with the snare drum. Not very interesting in grade school band. Playing snare in that band left me ample time to clean my fingernails.
Fast forward to my teens.. I was a punk rock kid in Seattle. But while everyone was playing guitar via distortion, I turned to synths and piano.. then worked at building a recording studio. I started playing techno music as my main genre.
Now at age 34, I've got an array of about 20 keyboards, 3 drum machines, one electronic drum trap set, a guitar (which never agreed with me) and a complete recording studio. I started writing different styles of music, most recently jazz.
I always liked the sound of clarinet and I've always wanted to learn, but it seemed everytime I went into the music store in the past set on buying a new toy, clarinet never came to mind at the time. Or it did, but I'd see the $700-1000 price tags and think that's far too much money to spand on something I don't even know if I could play.
Not too long ago I wrote a nice little jazz tune on piano and thought a clarinet would fit into this nicely. I tried my best to emulate the sound with a keyboard and samplers, but it just didn't flow well. Not in my mind anyway. So at that point I figured I better buy one and give it a shot. I headed over to e-bay and started watching it for a few weeks to get an idea of what some of these student clarinets were going for. I finally bought a Vito Resotone 3.
I didn't even know how to put the thing together, but figured it out. Fingering on the clarinet was a natural for me and I think the years of playing keyboards helped. I just dove right in and I'm hooked. My wife grew up around musicians being her father is the conductor of Columbia Symphony Orchestra in Portland,.. she was impressed with the sound I was getting in the first few days (impressing my wife with music is hard.. so I took it as a compliment).
I love the expression I can get with the clarinet already. It's a far cry from my electronic background where expressing your phrase on a synth means tweaking a mod wheel or pressing harder on the keys for aftertouch effects. I love the sound of the lower clarinet register. It's such a smooth warm tone. It seems to fit with the style of music I'm writing now.
Granted, I've only been playing for a short time and I'm no Benny Goodman, but it's been great fun and I'm surely hooked. My wife thinks I'm obsessed. I can't stop sneaking out to the studio to play it. I've already bought my 2nd clarinet (just a funny metal one to see how it sounds) and a new motherpiece and ligature along with about 10 different types of reeds (makes and styles) to see what suits me best.
I'm already looking into getting a sax next.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lisa L
Date: 2001-08-11 00:09
I chose clarinet because:
1) I didn't think I'd enjoy playing a string instrument
2) Brass instruments were too big
3) I couldn't get a sound out of a flute
4) Saxophones seemed too big
5) I didn't know if I'd like double-reed instruments!
I'm happy with my choice!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Kirk
Date: 2001-08-11 00:36
WOW !! What a great collection of very interesting stories, and how very similar our experiences were and continue to this day. Even my wife says I am making great progress and that it will not be decades as referred to in my original note. {Bless her heart for fibbing !} Even my cat stays in the room while I practice, formerly he ran for cover when the "squeaky black stick" was in use. I have a book of holiday music and hopefully will have a recital for our community group in December for our yearend party.
Happy Clarinetting to all !!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-08-11 00:44
I guess like a lot of you what goes round comes around. i tried the clarinet in jr. high was lousy and quit. tried out other things i.e. recorder, guitar, radio, cd, tv and then came back to my roots.
i have been at this two years now and I'm better then when i started and my goal is to be better next year then I am this year.
see you at the fest.
bob
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-08-11 02:48
'Cause my son left his plastic clarinet at home when he went away to a music school. My wife told me to either sell it or learn to play it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diane k.
Date: 2001-08-11 03:28
I'll tell my story (embarrassing) and a friend's story (one of the funniest I've ever heard)....
1) My story: In our school a select group of kids got to start in fourth grade (everyone else started in fifth) - by some quirk of fate (probably a mistake :-), I got chosen to start in fourth grade. We weren't shown the instruments, just asked which one we wanted to play - I said clarinet because we had one at home. Having never seen a real clarinet, I didn't realize that the one we had at home was a toy. My parents (after calling the school to make sure this wasn't a terrible mistake - to say I was uncoordinated and the least likely to be chosen for early anything is a major understatement) pulled out every clarinet recording they had and we all sat and listened to it. That's when I really got hooked.
2) My friends story: It came time to pick instruments and her mother was quite adament: my friend was going to play the clarinet - the skinny silver instrument that you hold flat and play real high (her mother really told her that...). My friend tried to convince her mother that the instrument she was describing was a flute, but failed. In what was probably her last act of daughterly obedience, my friend went to school and asked for a clarinet. She brought it home and showed it to her mother, who promptly accused her daughter of lying and being disobedient. It took a call AND a visit to the school to convince my friends mother that that really was a clarinet. It turned out for the best - my friend won a music scholarship as a non-major in undergrad.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: beth
Date: 2001-08-11 14:57
Why clarinet....mom still owned her clarinet from her playing days, terrible overbite and grew up in a cash poor family.....
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-08-11 14:57
To All Clarinetists out there!!
What a fascinating collection of interesting stories. This could make great a article, perhaps even a wonderful movie-short documantary! I have enjoyed reading each one, and hope there will be more to come. I have noticed carefully the similarities in many, especially those who did not have a choice and still grew to love the instrument. (Thanks, John, for the nice statement.)
Bob Curtis
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: beth
Date: 2001-08-11 18:06
In 4th grade i chose flute b/c i was a little girl who wanted a 'girls instrument' and i thought it sounded pretty, and i wasnt too familiar with many of the other instruments except violin, trumpet, clarinet and alto sax. my mom said trumpet was too loud, i thought saxophone was too boyish, and i didnt like string instruments. that left flute and clarinet. my mom liked flute and told me to put flute as my first choice, and clarinet as second. i got flute. i almost quit flute as i couldnt play it at all, and i would've never picked up another instrument again...its scary now to think that i almost quit :] but by the end of 4th grade a could finally play flute, and by 5th grade, i was one of the best flute players in the 4th-6th grades b/c of hard work and lots of lessons over the summer. but i remember in band thinking 'all the clarinets get the good parts!' and 'they sound so cool!' and stupid kid stuff like that, and i wanted to switch, but my mom wouldnt let me. :[ then in 6th grade the HS band came down and played for us, and i thought the clarinet sounded so beautiful and it had so many solos, and they even tuned to it! i still wanted to switch and begged my mom to rent one, but she didnt think i could handle it. by 7th grade i was pretty good at the flute and had a very good understanding of music itself. we needed another alto sax for the jr. high jazz band, so my teacher asked me if i wanted to learn it. after again begging my mom forever and her saying no...then my teacher finally talking to her, she got me a sax summer into 8th grade. i finally learned it and played it in the jazz band. by the end of the year, i started playing tenor sax using a school horn and found my brothers old trumpet in the attic and taught myself a bit. finally my mom realized i had a bit of talent, and finally rented me a clarinet! yay. i had finally succeeded! i wasnt too fond of it the first few months...i wasnt used to reading low notes, jumping a 12th instead of an octave and that damn break! but soon i loved the clarinet. now in high school ive picked up piccolo, oboe (which has become my main instrument now), alto and bass clarinet, a little cello, ill be getting the schools soprano sax finally this year, and i hope to learn french horn this year too. but even after learning all these, Bb clarinet and oboe are still my favorite :]
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Katrina
Date: 2001-08-12 00:21
In first grade, I started piano. Didn't have a great teacher for technique, so never got too far with that in 8 years of lessons.
At the time to choose instruments (end of fourth or early fifth grade, I think), I wrote down three choices: 1) DRUMS 2) oboe 3) clarinet. I always loved the drums in the marching bands I saw at local parades. We got to try to play our first three choices. I already knew about how to HIT drums (not how to play...hehe), so that was no big deal. I heard someone else attempting the oboe, so that was right out! (At that time, I had never heard an oboe played WELL.) Then I tried the clarinet. It tickled my lower lip. I opted for drums after that.
However, while part of the percussion section that year, something happened. My band director seemed not to like girls who played "boys' instruments," and didn't teach us two female percussionists as attentively as he taught the males. (This was the ever-so-enlightened year of 1978-79.) After a year of that, I realized it wasn't for me. I talked to this band director and said I wanted to play flute or clarinet. (It didn't matter too much at the time which.) He said there were too many flute players. So the clarinet it was.
I took three months of lessons to try to catch up, and the piano lessons came in soooooo handy. At the beginning of sixth grade, I was 15th out of 16 clarinetists. By the end of sixth grade (with no private lessons), I was sixth chair. At the beginning of seventh grade, I was first chair. I guess the clarinet and I just clicked! I went on to get bachelor's and master's degrees in clarinet performance, and while I don't play classical music anymore, I teach students and I perform Balkan folk music with two bands. Makes me wish I had heard the Balkan stuff twenty years ago!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: joevacc
Date: 2001-08-12 02:55
In grade school I wanted to play drums or guitar, the band director refused me but offered me a bass guitar position. I declined and ended up with my second choice on the list, clarinet. (Guitar was not an option!) After eighth grade I dropped out of the school band and played in all the rock bands I could handle. About three years ago I bought a clarinet at a yard sale and the rest, as they say is history! I don't know how 20 years slipped by, but now I couldn't dream of a life without it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Swing Band Queen Katai Katai
Date: 2002-04-09 02:55
In 5th grade, I had already been forced to play piano against my will. I wanted an instrument that I could have fun with. I wanted to play trumpet very badly at the time, since I loved their sound. My mom hates flutes and would never have me play one, and I thought drums were boring, not being able to play the melody and all. The teacher told people not to play sax because there were too many, but he ended up in short supply of them later! My mom had wanted to play clarinet as a child, so I figured playing it would make her happy. To this day, she still hates my playing, particularly when I practice in the altissimo register...Now I almost play it even more than my sax! Course, with all the swing I listen to, it's only natural that I'd want to emulate those fine men. I remember the first day I got the clarinet. When I came home from school, my one and only clary was sitting in its case of the table. I didn't know how to blow, what went where, how your fingers went, what notes were which, or even the fact that you stick the reed on it! I've come quite far since then...in my humble opinion...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
