Author: lydian
Date: 2023-05-11 19:59
When there is a family of instruments like clarinets in all different sizes, they're obviously going to make lower or higher notes according to their length. Hundreds of years ago, somebody had the idea to make the fingerings across the whole family exactly the same, no matter what actual pitch was produced. This left the transposition to the arranger/composer. So all the player has to do is play what they read, and the correct note will come out. The alternative is for the fingering system to be different on every instrument. So a Bb clarinet player would only ever be able to play a Bb clarinet. An A clarinet would have an entirely different fingering system. Many would have written music that's in different clefs, difficult keys or would have so many ledger lines that it would be essentially unreadable.
There are also clarinets in C, Eb, A, Ab, and D (probably others as well). If these all weren't transposing instruments, you'd have to learn different fingerings for each. Since they are transposing instruments, you can use exactly the same fingerings as your Bb clarinet and read music written for each type of clarinet without doing any transposition in your head. Transposing instruments are a wonderful thing.
Beginners often have a hard time accepting this system. I've tried to explain it many times, but it rarely works. So all I can say is, that's they way it is, get used to it. It beats the alternative by a mile.
As for your issues of playing out of tune, that's due to your lack of skill and experience.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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