 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John Gould
Date: 2001-10-08 23:27
I've played both for many years. My major instrument is cl, but I've played sop for 15 years. I find that if I have a sax gig coming up that my clarinet practice has made it much easier to be ready for any soprano saxophone playing. In other words, I'm much more comfortable accepting a sop gig while devoting 80% of my practice to cl. (prior to being notified of the job) than the other way around. HOWEVER: that being said, I find the most challenging aspect of soprano playing is tone, and stability (both intonation and timbre) in all registers.
One can listen to Dave Liebman, Wayne Shorter, Steve Lacy, Sidney B., Branford, Kenny, etc. and come away with different but equally valid musical perspectives on how the horn should sound. I've come to the conclusion they're BOTH hard to play at an artistic level, and due to time constraints, I have to allocate my practice to cl as mentioned. If those constraints didn't exist, I would certainly devote more of a 50/50 ratio to the horns. And, there is a long list of great sax players who started (and still play) clarinet: Phil Woods, Eddie Daniels (excellent tenor- pick up some early Thad Jones and his album Real Time), Bob Mintzer, Steve Wilkerson, Alvin Batiste, etc.
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Author: Fred
Date: 2001-10-08 23:27
There may be more serious intonation issues with soprano sax.
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Author: Sara
Date: 2001-10-08 23:38
I play both and I would say it is a toss up. If I had to say I would say clarinet at the beginning leave because of the fingerings, and I do not know past that.
Good Luck!
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Author: Peter
Date: 2001-10-09 01:36
I play both.
When I first started learning the clarinet, I found it easier than when I (later) first started learning the soprano sax.
I found the soprano sax easier to play with respect to fingerings, which are much less complicated than the clarinet, which is in octaves instead of 12ths. But I found hitting certain notes clean more difficult with the s/s, and the lower register of the s/s is a bear to tame.
I found that a combination of having a better quality instrument, a Selmer S80-C* mouthpiece and a Vandoren Flexible LC811 ligature helped me a lot, especially in that lower register.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-10-09 14:24
I do not find sopranos 'bears' in the low octave if they are adjusted to be leak-free.
But a clarinet's low notes do sound more reliably.
The pitch can be easily lipped up or down with a soprano, whereas on a clarinet it is much less variable.
The lipability of the soprano sax may be a disadvantage to somebody with a poor 'ear' for pitch, but for other players it can be a considerable advantage - both for lipping in tune with others and for sliding onto notes for effect.
I hate playing a page of pp music in a cold pit on clarinet. Not enough warm air goes through it to ever warm it so it is flat and very difficult to lip up. Not a problem with sop sax.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-10-10 08:04
1. Sax firngerings are easier than those of clarinet because their fingerings are
based on octave and 12th harmonics basis respectively.
(All saxes have the same fingerings.)
2. Soprano is not a Sax beginner's sax. Usually recommended is to start by alto.
3. Soprano Sax has an intonation problem. To avoid this a perfect mouthpiece to
match you and sax is a must. There are even people who cannot play
rectangular bore mouthpiece and only play round bore ones.
4. Soprano sax pads are far bigger than clarinet and needs a perfect adjustment.
If you buy a brand new Selmer, you will find it leaky most provably.
5. For jazz American Selmer Mark VI is a adored horn.
It has different materials from that for Henri Selmer in France.
Even Steve Lacy now concentrates only on Soprano sax giving up other saxes.
This means how soprano has difficult intonation problem.
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Author: Robert Gifford
Date: 2001-10-10 22:02
Clarinet is harder to start, Soprano Sax is harder to master (just by a little bit IMHO). I also think its a whole lot easier to tell a bad Soprano Sax player than a Clarinet Player, mainly due to the intonation problems. All in all Soprano Sax technique wise isnt that hard, but sound and tone wise it is.
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Author: Mike B.
Date: 2001-10-11 14:56
At least for a soprano sax, the Mark VI isn't all that adored.
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