 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ClariBone
Date: 2005-08-25 00:09
Hello
I searched the BBoard, and couldn't find anything related to this topic, so I'm posting!! Why did you guys decide to play the clarinet?? I'll start with my story... My mom took me to the local music store the summer before my 6th grade year. I'd always wanted to play the trombone (and until a year ago never got the chance. Now I have the same love for my clarinet as I do for my trombone!), but didn't want my parents to have to fork over a lot of money. Then I saw the clarinet. It was PERFECT!! It looked really complicated and exciting, so I chose it!! Now I have earned superior markings at Missouri State Solo competitions (3 years going on 4), made the MO All-State Band, and am preparing to enter college as a music ed. major!! Now its your turn!!
Clayton
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-08-25 00:37
My mom does tell me a lot how when I was very little I would always talk about wanting to play the clarinet. My mom was a elementary band teacher who also worked with the high school marching band (she now is an elementary music teacher). She started on clarinet when she was in 5th grade and was switched to trumpet in 6th because the orthodontist said it would be easier to play with braces than the clarinet. My dad played the clarinet through high school and my grandma and great uncle also played the clarinet. When I got to the summer before 5th grade I had French Horn mania. I wanted to play FH and I was actually very good at it-my mom knew the junior high band teacher very well and I got to borrow one of their FH's for the summer. Then when we went and chose instruments I played the clarinet mouthpiece and got a very good sound out of it right away. It was a spur of the moment decision when I chose the clarinet. I think I chose it because my dad, who died when I was 3, played the clarinet.
Well throughout elementary I got by on "natural talent" and I never practiced my clarinet except for 2 auditions. Then in junior high I made the top band and was sitting in the 1st clarinet section. I still never practiced and I got to high school and I started to take lessons. I had taken maybe 3 lessons before our All-District tryouts and I hadn't practiced the music very much and I didn't know most of my scales, but I somehow turned out to be 32nd best out of like 200 in 9th grade (I was 7th chair in our top band at school and I had somehow gotten the 4th best from our school at that AD tryouts) Then in 10th grade I decided I actually wanted to make the top 24 and so I practiced more than the year before and I got 10th best out of 200 (I was 3rd chair at school and I had gotten the highest chair from our school at AD). Then I vowed to myself that the next year I would make All-State Band, so I practiced a lot and I did make it (16th best with a mediocre/bad audition). After making All-State Band, I realized that I really love playing the clarinet and it wasn't just the thing I was good at. I now want the clarinet to be what I do for the rest of my life. I like seeing myself improve and although I can get frustrated when I'm in one of those advancement lows, I still love it. I've made most of my friends through band and I get lots of enjoyment out of playing the clarinet. I now am a senior and I have set some very high goals for myself and I'm thoroughly looking forward to college!
Like you Clay, I'm in the MO All-State Band, am preparing to be a college music ed. major. I got superior markings 2 out of 3 years (My sophomore year I got so nervous and I freaked out and lost all of my breath support-it was horrible) at State Solos. We are a lot alike... except the whole trombone thing! lol!
I decided to make mine a lot longer...
Post Edited (2005-08-25 17:37)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-08-25 00:54
Hmmmm . . . I remembered a posting and found it. I just didn't feel like typing up my story all over again (as you may be able to tell by my posts, I type quickly and end up typing a whole lot before I realize I should probably stop . . .)
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=92307&t=92253
My reason is in there, and it's all still relevant aside from the "Math Major - Music Minor" part. I decided right now to go career UPS and try to get a music major as a PT music student in the future while working for them and having them pay for my degree (one of the perks of being part of UPS).
You guys might wanna consider adding your stories to that thread and having the mods delete this one. That most of the stories are all together in one thread.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-08-25 01:42
TKS for the link Alexi, I looked to see if I responded, didn't then, but will now. As best I recall from "T'was many years ago", Pinafore??, 2 reasons, cost of inst, ?$25?, recomendation, NO "thin lips" for tpt playing. Who knows how tpt would have turned out ?? Am happy ! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: archer1960
Date: 2005-08-25 02:09
Going into 6th grade back in about 1971, I knew I wanted to play in band, but wasn't sure what instrument. My uncle, who is only about 4 years older than I am, played clarinet, so I figured I'd try it as well, and found that I liked it a lot. I stuck with it all through high school, but never got very good because of so many other things taking my time (3 sports, computer club, academics, etc).
Because I didn't have very quick fingers and did have lots of air <grin>, my band directors at two different schools asked me to play the low woodwinds: bari sax in 9th grade, and Contrabass clarinet in 11th and 12th. That was a lot of fun; I actually got heard, which didn't happen much when I was in the 3rd clarinet section.
I don't think I ever picked it up once going through college (Electrical Engineering major takes a lot of time), but when I went to OCS in the navy after graduating, they were recruiting for the OCS band, so I played there using one of their instruments. That was SOOOO much better than having to march around with those heavy fake M-14's! We got to march in the oldest 4th of July parade in the US, and I met my wife while on liberty one night after playing at a reception for some visiting naval officers from some South American country (don't recall which one).
20+ years later, I've still got both the wife and the clarinet!
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Author: bflatclarinetist
Date: 2005-08-25 02:16
Simple, because my band director chose our instrument; we didn't get to choose our own except we got to make our top 3 choices then she narrowed it down. Well at first I didn't want to play the clarinet. I wanted to play the saxophone cause I thought it was the "cool" thing to do. So when she said my name, then "clarinet" I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in my head. But by the second year I fell in love with it and now I play it with a passion.
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Author: marzi
Date: 2005-08-25 03:01
because i wanted to play music, but not violin- fingers on strings yuk, and the school orchestra wasn't setting a very good example besides, defintely not brass either , so it was flute or clarinet, and clarinet won due to its register versality. our elementary students seem to have more choices these days, even starting with french horn which didn't happen when i went to school..
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Author: OpusII
Date: 2005-08-25 08:43
Because I was terrible on other instruments....
But being serious, my parents found it necessary that I learned to reed sheet music. So I joined the local music band where they did educate me. After a half year they asked for a choice of instrument... I really didn't want to play, but my uncle asked the question and I was a little bit afraid to say no instrument ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif) . So I made a quick decision (My uncle, 2 cousins and my brother played already the clarinet) and decided that a wanted to play the clarinet.... That was about 16 years ago...
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-08-25 09:54
I chose to study clarinet as I didn't like the Associated Board syllabus for saxes (if I wanted to play baroque flute sonatas then I'd have carried on playing flute, being my objective), also playing in Big Bands doubling on both clarinet and flute is a minimum requirement, so I thought it was more worthwhile to do serious study on clarinet as I'm always out playing baritone and alto sax anyway, and gained enough experience on them. I also thought I need to get the bit of paper saying I'm qualified on something, and the clarinet syllabus at least had music specifically for the instrument, and it was an easy instrument to get around.
I had an excellent teacher who's now teaching at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and within the two years I had started with him I got a Grade 8 with distinction - and planned to go further, but the lack of money and the fact I couldn't get funding put that on hold, and I pretty much stopped playing clarinet in 1991, only to play a few bars here and there as there wasn't much call for clarinet on the bari sax chair.
After nearly 15 years of not playing clarinet, I'm now playing mainly for my own enjoyment, and to gain experience (or better still - not to let this side of my personality go to waste) I took the solo clarinet chair in my local concert band as none of their players are much cop, and it's amazing just how much I remember, the other players are all adhering to their fingering charts as opposed to going the practical way around things.
So I do have to put it down to having an excellent clarinettist as a teacher that knew his way around the instrument, rather than the usual non-first study clarinet playing one that doesn't know all the tricks.
But my main instrument is saxes (bari, alto, sop and tenor in that order of preferrence), clarinets second (Bb/A, bass, basset horn and Eb), cor/oboe third and flute/alto fl./piccolo fourth. I'm toying with the idea of contrabassoon after trying a 1930's Heckel - and Amati do a good and affordable one!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2005-08-25 14:15)
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2005-08-25 10:25
Haha I started that thread! It's nice to know that I was on the right track back then, and that I achieved what I wanted to. Oh, and that I am still playing for the right reasons!
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-08-25 11:10
Well... I had played piano for a year in eighth grade when I was homeschooled, so I thought that was cool. So, I was going to go into a public high school, and my mom was the one that suggested being in band. So, I was like, "yep!"... She wanted me to play French Horn, but I didn't want to play French Horn. I at first chose the flute, but couldn't get a sound out (turns out you have to blow across instead of down. lol.).. Anyways, this girl on my rec. softball team played clarinet in band, and so I decided to play clarinet like her. No one in my family is really musical at all. They said my aunt played clarinet in high school, but that she wasn't any good. I took their word for it, I wasn't about to ask her.
Anyways, first time I picked up the clarinet it took me about an hour to get a sound out ^_^. lol, I had no clue how to play. Once I got a sound out, the fingerings were easy enough, at least the C major scale was. I've been playing for 2 years now.
Now I'm still on my journey with my clarinet, but I have made superior rankings at solo and ensemble before, I wasn't able to go this year though (darn it). I was only 10 off from making mid-state last year. Of course, none of the clarinets at my school made it. So... We'll just see how this year works out. Hopefully it will be for the best.
Post Edited (2005-08-25 11:11)
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-08-25 11:12
I started playing the Clarinet as my favorite uncle played, and I liked the girl who sat 1st chair clarinet. She didn't like me very much after I beat her pretty quickly. My school system started instrumental music in 7th grade.
Originally played the Trombone for 3 months before that and was really bad at it - not a brass guy at all.
I still like the sound of a brass quintet much better than a woodwind quintet.
Post Edited (2005-08-25 11:12)
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Author: rockymountainbo
Date: 2005-08-25 13:35
i've been playing guitar and other instruments for 20 years. for some reason i have been drawn to the sound of the clarinet. many people say it could be an inherent unconscious draw to it due to my Jewish up-bringing.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-08-25 13:45
There was a programme on the BBC - 'Music In Auschwitz' - Emmanuel Ax and Maxim Vengerov being two of the big names in this. The soprano in Gorecki's 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' was in tears during the performance.
One piece featured a clarinet soloist accompanied by an accordion and brass group (who doubled on Shofars) - that must have been difficult enough emotionally to do, but they were all playing outside in freezing conditions.
And I still wonder how the accordion player did all those pitch bends - I never thought that was possible.
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Author: hrvanbeek
Date: 2005-08-25 13:55
Back when I was in 6th grade (at a Catholic school with a total of 60 students, grades 1-6!) we got a music teacher to teach all instruments. My cousin had played clarinet in high school but didn't continue after she graduated so my mom bought that plastic Vito for me and the rest is history. It seemed to be a perfect fit. Genetics may have played a part since my great grandfather played clarinet in an Iowa polka band when he came here from then-Czechoslovakia. I still have one of his march-size music books with marches and polkas they played.
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Author: jmsa
Date: 2005-08-25 14:09
At age 13 I wanted to play the Sax so my parents talked to my next door neighbor who was dating Ronald Reuben, which was in the early 1960's. He advised my parents that I should start on clarinet and then transition to Sax. He became my teacher. After two years of Clarinet lessons I transitioned to Tenor Sax, which only lasted for one month only to find that my true voice was in fact the Clarinet.
jmsa
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2005-08-25 14:53
I thought the case looked cool. I'm not kidding. You could take band in 6th grade, and Signet 100s were the clarinet of choice at my school then. I decided against band that year, then had case envy when I saw all the clarinet players carrying those cool cases. So the next year I joined band determined to play clarinet. The fact that I became rather good on the thing was strictly secondary to how cool I thought I looked lugging the case around.
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-08-25 15:28
Two instruments interested me during the presentation to new band members: clarinet and french horn, with their rich tones.
Clarinet won out because it was more “me.”
Also, brass instruments looked confusing. I wondered, “How do you play all the notes with three valves? Or, if you play trombone, where do you put the slide? Besides, I already had played tonette in fourth grade, so woodwind fingerings made sense.
Later I wanted to switch to sax for the cool factor. My Dad would let me, because he knew kids are fickle.
Good thing I didn’t switch; I got to play sax anyway in stage band my senior year.
Fast forward: Post midlife crisis I ended up teaching clarinet and piano. I dreamed of someday getting an alto sax as a second wind instrument. Guess what? Someday came and I bought a bass clarinet instead.
Blumberg: Woodwind ensembles can begin to sound boring after a while. Orchestras with only strings can sound boring; even string players admit it. Brass bands aren’t boring. “It’s them peck horns that does it.”
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2005-08-25 15:55
I wanted to study violin because it was said to be difficult (did I know at age 9, that you should find the simplest way in life). But my dad played (actually still does) in a wind band and didn't really like the idea.
So he convinced me that clarinet was the 'violin' of the wind band, and so I went for it.
It was quite a surprise when I saw the reed, because in our language we use the same word ('riet') for a 'reed' and a 'straw' to drink (don't know if this is spelled right, anyhow I mean the plastic tube you can put in a bottle to drink), but 'learned' (actually have to) live with it :-)
PS. never regret my choice, seem to be a clarinettist afterall
Post Edited (2005-08-25 15:57)
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-08-25 16:34
Why, indeed?
I started on piano in the fourth grade. I LOVED the piano. But we were poor folk. My parents couldn't afford a piano (they said) and in fact, only got me the lessons because the one-and-only music teacher in our small (6 students per graduating class) country school offered to do it for free, and our neighbor would let me practice at her house.
Disaster struck a few months later. The music teacher's only son was killed in an automobile accident, and she was not emotionally able to continue teaching. And we moved to a somewhat larger community the next year.
So my musical development went on hiatus for a few years. My beloved auntie gave me a flutophone, which I spent HOURS playing in the privacy of my own room.
As I began seventh grade, for some reason my folks decided I should be in the band. I don't know why. I never particularly wanted to be in the band. I wanted to play the piano. But my dad had a music-teacher friend of his come over and assess my physiognomy vis-a-vis musical instruments. He pronounced me well-suited for the clarinet, and that was it.
This was back in the mid-1950s, when there were a lot of old military surplus instruments around. My dad's friend (who just happened to be a very fine clarinetist) came up with this one-piece metal military jobbie for me to use. I have no idea what it was. It was probably a very decent clarinet. But I HATED it. I wanted (as Ralph has so eloquently explained, above) one of those uber-sexy little cases with the wooden clarinet that came in pieces. I was already a good three years older than the other kids in beginner band, and I was simply mortified, in the way that only a 13-year-old can be mortified, at having to expose my terminal uncoolness this way.
So, the clarinet and I kinda got off on the wrong feet. Nonetheless, I overachieved as usual, and within a year, was the first chair player in the "regular" band, and within a year of that, became the clarinet section leader (and solo chair) in a 150-piece all-county band.
At that point, my folks arranged the loan of a very nice Selmer professional instrument for me. It was a gem. But then we moved again, and I had to give it back. They replaced it with my very own wooden clarinet in the cute little case -- a no-name probably made by LeBlanc, if the case was any indication -- that was hands down the WORST clarinet I have ever played. It had a huge, honky sound, keys that bent for no apparent reason, and had to be checked every day for missing or loose screws.
When I was a junior in high school (now having moved into a school with over 100 in each graduating class), the band director urged my parents to let me audition for a lessons scholarship being offered by the symphony in a nearby city. I will spare you the gruesome details, except to say that the high point was when my mom got a traffic ticket for driving too fast the wrong way on a one way street in a snowstorm in a strange city, trying to get me to the audition on time, and ever after blamed me for it. After that, it was just a matter of time and graduation until I hung it up.
Curiously enough, after taking an undergraduate degree in English and a M.A. in American Studies, I continued now and then taking random music classes at a variety of schools until, many years later, I had managed to amass 126 credits in musicology and music theory. I also went to Lutheran Seminary. Thus armed, I worked for 20 years as a minister of music in four different churches. I came to believe that for me, conducting choirs was basically a really hard way to play the piano.
Somewhere along the line, I picked up a 1926-vintage Buffet (Serial 1T405 -- still my favorite instrument), and started playing again. This led to a modern R-13, and joining a community band, where, after a few traumatic weeks, I was well at home in the 1st clarinet section, sitting with two clarinet performance majors and a former major military band player.
That was two years ago. Perhaps it was my belated success as a clarinetist, as well as time's winged chariot barking my heels, that led me to do something else that I had always wanted to do: take up the oboe. As of October, I will have played the oboe for two years. I play the clarinet infrequently, if at all, nowadays. I am the "principal oboist" for the community band and for the wind ensemble at a small liberal arts college in our area, and I just did a well-attended full public recital on the oboe. I have found my voice, at last.
See, all you young people on this board, there IS life after high school! If I could do it, so can you. And probably better and faster.
Cheers,
Susan
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Author: Dori
Date: 2005-08-25 16:37
I wanted to play in the school band ever since my mother took me to the concerts where my older brother played trumpet and trombone. It didn't matter what instrument, but I leaned toward flute because "all the girls played flute". I'm not sure I even knew what a clarinet was when my mother suggested it. After bringing it home from the music store, I wrote in my diary that night: "It looks complicated, but I want to learn to play it."
A year or so later I decided I liked clarinet better than flute, but knew that if I had played flute then it would be the other way around. The only time I regretted it was when I sat next to someone who was very nasty to me, (He was an adult in Community Band.) but that was nothing compared to 39 years of enjoyment. Year 40 will begin on Thurs with the first band rehearsel of the new season.
Dori
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Author: mikeW
Date: 2005-08-25 16:48
I came to it rather late (in my 30's). I had played sax and oboe in school, returning to the sax after a few years off and was slowly working my way into the local big band scene. I would occasionally get a phone call that would go approximately, "I need a sax for tomorrow night. Are you available?" "Yes," I would say. "Oh, have you got a clarinet? There's some clarinet in the book." "No." "That's too bad. Sorry."
After a few calls like this, it dawned on me that they only asked if I had a clarinet, not if I could actually play the clarinet. So I got a clarinet. To be on the safe side, I mucked around with it until I didn't usually sound like an amorous goat looking for some action. And this worked surprisingly well: I'd get the call, show up, and there would be 4 guys who just happened to have clarinets and one guy who probably spent the few minutes a day he wasn't practicing the clarinet kneeling before a shrine to Artie Shaw and praying for more time to practice. And everyone nodded and thought, 'hey, those guys are pretty good.' Until, of course, that dark and dreadful day when Artie wasn't on the gig...
Post Edited (2005-08-25 16:54)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2005-08-25 17:33
mikeW wrote:
>
> After a few calls like this, it dawned on me that they only
> asked if I had a clarinet, not if I could actually play the
> clarinet. So I got a clarinet.
Thanks for the daily chuckle, I can always depend on this board for one of those.
I had a very different 4th grade teacher. In fact, when I became aware of such things as an adult I wondered looking back if he had Asperger's or something similar, but I wonder too, if he did, why he would have chosen classroom teaching as a career. Anyhow, he barely made it through the year, but he did teach us recorder and gave me a nice wood recorder as a prize at the end of the year. I liked that and somehow got the impression when he showed us band instruments that clarinet was a logical next step. I decided I wanted to play in the band.
The other thing was that the principal clarinetist of our local symphony lived two blocks away. He was a Julliard man and a former military clarinetist, and it was amazingly easy to get to lessons two blocks away. I didn't want to be in beginning band because I already played a little and had four years of piano background as well. So, I started lessons the summer before 7th grade so I could make the intermediate band. He passed away two or three years ago, and I still miss the guy. he always had a glass of wine for me and a cookie for my kids when I visited in later years. And he taught me to love the clarinet.
Barb
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-08-25 19:02
Have we met before in person?
I met someone else a while back who's relative dated Ronnie.
That, or he just got around a lot ........ 
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Author: missclarinetist
Date: 2005-08-25 19:48
'Because I fell in love with the clarinet the first time I saw my cousin playing it' .. And the rest is history!!!! I love the feel of the wood and the silver keys ...
I started out in band, advanced into all-state youth orchestras and advanced into university orchestras.
Well, my music history begin when I was six with the violin. It didn't go well for me but I'm picking up the instrument again at college. I'm sort of relearning the violin now as a beginner and the viola at the same time. At the age of seven, I started the piano and at 13, I wanted to play the trumpet for band but it didn't suit me, so the band director asked me what other instruments I thought of playing, and I told him the clarinet (since my cousin played it) and I was stuck with it!
By the way, I'm still learning the violin .. Any clarinet/violin musicians out there on this Bboard?
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-08-25 20:59
Because my older brother had started playing clarinet and decided to quit after three years --- thus I was offered his instrument -- and since I'd already twice quit piano lessons, my parents weren't going to spend any more serious money on frivolous instrument choices for their second son -- so clarinet it was.
And when, less than a year later I somehow broke the center tenon of the old Vito (gee, imagine that), I was too embarrassed to tell me parents, so I fixed it myself -- thus getting my start in instrument repair......
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