Clarinet, please play nice with the guitars!

September 3, 2006 1:57 PM

How do I play my clarinet alongside guitar?

Guitarinet? Claritar?

I play clarinet in a band with some folks who play guitar. When they play a chord, what corresponding scale or scales do I want to play? I think it may involve the circle of fifths?

I'm not clear on how many steps/tones/etc to shift my playing, and I'm looking for a general rule.

posted by bmct to media & arts (12 comments total)

Hmm. Do you know what key the song is in? Can't you ad lib from there?

If not, ask them to write down the chords they're playing, then try again.

If you still can't figure it out, there is a lot of sheet music available for popular songs. It probably won't have a written part for clarinet, but it will have the basic piano and guitar parts.

But most importantly, if they're playing the standard rock (pop, folk, country, etc.) that you hear on almost every radio station, it's almost all based on blues progressions. Read that.
posted by pracowity at 2:07 PM on September 3, 2006

It's a tough question to answer, actually.

Guitar is a concert pitch instrument. If the guitarists know their instruments, they should be able to tell you what sort of scale or chord progressions they're playing.

I'm guessing you're playing a Bb clarinet, so you'll have to transpose their scale and chord names a major second down; that is...if they're playing in C minor, you're playing in Bb minor. You can figure that out on the circle of fifths if you want, by moving counter-clockwise two steps (that is, C, F, Bb...) when translating from clarinet to guitar, and clockwise two steps (C, G, D...) translating from guitar to clarinet.

If you guys are beginners, you should tell them what keys to play in, since guitarists can transpose by simply moving up or down the neck.
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 2:10 PM on September 3, 2006

What kind of clarinet is it? If it's a Bb clarinet, you'll be shifting everything up by a whole step compared to what the guitars are doing. So if they're playing in C, you have to play in D.

If your clarinet is in A, you have to shift everything up by a minor third, or three half-steps.

If your clarinet is in Eb, you have to shift everything down by a minor third.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:13 PM on September 3, 2006

Big mistake on my part....if they're playing in C minor, you're playing in D minor. Forgive this guitarist...
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 2:13 PM on September 3, 2006

And, with all due respect to the previous two posters, listen to me and not them.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:14 PM on September 3, 2006

On lack of preview, MM corrected himself.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:14 PM on September 3, 2006

And you don't have to think about the circle of fifths or anything more complex than the interval between your instrument and theirs. The name given to an instrument is the pitch that sounds when that instrument plays C; so when a clarinetist plays C on a Bb clarinet, it comes out as Bb. That means you'll always be thinking a whole step higher than someone playing a C instrument, like a guitar.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:18 PM on September 3, 2006

Some other people talked about key stuff specific to the clarinet. Your question made it sound a little like that's what you're looking for, especially when you mention 'shifting.' However, you also sound like you're asking for some tips on scales themselves and such, so I'll try to give you some. These tips come from a guy who's an amateur jazz pianist; I picked up all this from fumbling through it myself with a band I ended up in by chance.

1. FINDING THE KEY. You don't say what kind of music you're playing. Nearly all rock/country/folk stuff, and a pretty fair portion of jazz, stays in a single key primarily. So the first thing you'll want to do is find your key. Now, there are a couple of ways to do this. (a) You can ask one of the guitarists. If they don't know (and a lot of time they won't) then you have to use another solution. (b) You can just listen for notes in the chords the guitarists are playing, and try finding scales that have those notes; if it sounds mostly major, try major things. It's good to be able to find the key by ear, so I recommend making some attempts. (c) However, if you're in a little hurry, or you want to do this the smart way, you can probably figure out the key yourself in your head. To do that, you first have to have the chords in front of you. Then, remember the first rule of music theory: music resolves. Whatever chord it resolves to is the key, so find the resolution. In folk/country/rock, resolutions usually look like this:

IV - V - I

...and in jazz, they usually look like this:

ii - V - I.

Those two kinds of resolution are what you'll almost always encounter. And if those fancy roman numerals make it seem complex, just remember, they're just symbols that stand in for real chords. So if you meet a song that has dm - E - A in it -- that is, a song where the chord goes up one and down five -- then the chord it lands on (A) is the key. (In fact, usually you can spot a resolution just by that downward movement; whenever you see the chord the guitarists are playing go down five, the chord they land on is probably the key.)

Like I said, rock/country/folk songs, and most jazz songs, generally stay in the same key. To change key, they have to resolve to the new key, in which case you'll see one of the resolutions listed above.

2. PLAY THE SCALE OF THE KEY. Which is to say, in simple terms: if the song is in C (major), then play notes from the major scale that starts with a C (or, since you're on the clarinet, a Bb, I guess) the whole time, even when the chords change. It's pretty much that simple. Things tend to sound better when you play notes that the other players aren't playing, but that can be a little complex to do.

3. ALTER THE SCALE OF THE KEY. It sometimes sounds really nice when you play notes that are outside of the standard scale. Specifically, there is a blues scale that you can slide into, which can accent things nicely sometimes. It takes a little experimenting with it to know what that'll sound like, but it's handy.

Anyway, there's a little bit you can do. I hope it helps a little.
posted by koeselitz at 3:43 PM on September 3, 2006

koeslitz has a good summary of what you want to.

The most important thing is to know what key the song is in, and know what notes are in that key. This is where scale practice pays off. Fortunately, in my experience its pretty unlikely that guitar players in particular will play in anything with more than 3 sharps or flats (for them), meaning that there's only about seven keys you need to be concerned with (B, E, A, D, G, C, F for you). Any maybe less than that.

The second most important thing is to keep moving. Playing dissonant notes is good, as long as there's direction, or tension and release to it. At first, this will basically consist of thrashing around until your riffs resolve through pure luck. With practice, you'll find some musical tricks you like, and will get to know the songs well enough that you can time your gestures to coincide with the others.

For inspiration, try listening to some Benny Goodman, or klezmer. Those will almost certainly be in a different style from what you're playing, but they can give you a feel for what sounds are possible in clarinet improv, how to interact with other musicians, etc.
posted by gsteff at 7:07 PM on September 3, 2006

Listen to ludwig_van. He is telling you exactly what you need to know :)
posted by Lotto at 6:41 AM on September 4, 2006

(In fact, usually you can spot a resolution just by that downward movement; whenever you see the chord the guitarists are playing go down five, the chord they land on is probably the key.)

Unless they're playing I - IV, or vi - ii, or iv - bVII, etc.

Finding the key is good, but won't really get you all the way where you're going, if you can do it correctly and if the piece you're in stays solidly in one key - and I'm going to have to disaree with koeselitz in that a good deal of pop/rock and certainly plenty of jazz veers outside of a single key/scale. You can know what key you're supposed to be in but still sound bad if your ear isn't up to it, as is the case for many of us starting out.

When it comes down to it, there are 2 different kinds of possible note choices for a melody in a piece of homphonic music (that is, music with melody + accompaniment): chord tones and non-chord tones.

Chord tones are, logically enough, the notes contained in a chord. These notes sound most consonant when played in the melody; that is, they sound resolved, and you can sustain them over the chord without sounding wrong. Note that this applies fully to the basic triad but less as you venture into more complex chords; it's fine to hang on a D over a Cmaj9 chord, but it will sound less stable than C, E, or G.

Non-chord tones are the spice; they add tension and motion, and generally our ears want them to be resolved. Holding an F over a C major chord will tend to sound wrong unless you resolve it to an E or a G. Sometimes, though, a non-chord tone can sustain over several changes before resolving for added suspense.

Anyway, in a sheer nuts and bolts sense, playing a melody over a chord progression is about how you mix up your chord tones and your non-chord tones. For some people it's totally an ear thing, and for others it's more of an intellectual thing. But that's how it works. You can say that the progression Dm F G7 C calls for the C major scale, but all of the notes in that scale don't always "work" the same way over all of those chords. And if you throw in something a little unexpected, as many songs do, and make it something like Am D7 G F C, then you can't just play one scale anymore.
posted by ludwig_van at 4:03 PM on September 4, 2006

Some stuff I forgot: each type of chord tone and non-chord tone has its own character. The root note and the major third of a chord both sound resolved, but each will have its own meaning in the context of the piece. Same thing with dissonant notes; the fourth, the flatted seventh, the sixth, all these notes impart their own feel. Knowing how to utilize these tends to come from experience.

Also, there are many different ways to use non-chord tones; check out this lesson for a quick rundown.
posted by ludwig_van at 4:09 PM on September 4, 2006