Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with clarinet

How do I choose a clarinet to buy?

lockestockbarrel — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:40:15 -0800

I want to learn to play the clarinet. How do I choose a clarinet to buy? I have no experience with wind instruments (I'm 26). While I've got no aspirations of becoming a jazz legend, I want a clarinet with reasonably good sound quality. Are more expensive ones generally easier to play? Are used as good as new, or do I have to worry about identifying and replacing worn out parts? What other supplies will I need right off the bat? Also, I live in Mexico so I think I will have to buy online and not try it out beforehand.

She wants to make great music

mooreeasyvibe — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:21:30 -0800

What sheet music should my friend buy? She plays clarinet, grade 8. She's completely lost, looking for something jazz or classical.

What is this contemporary classical mozarella music?

stereo — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:30:11 -0800

What is the music in this video?I've had no success with Shazam, Melodyhound or Google.

What looks like a clarinet but is not?

Brodiggitty — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:41:38 -0800

What musical instrument looks like a clarinet but has a tiny thin reed? Just trying to write a caption for a picture. Forgot to ask the musician what the heck it was he was playing. Looks just like a clarinet (black body with silver keys), but instead of a saxophone-sized flat reed, he's blowing into a cigarette shaped reed. The instrument is straight, and about the same size or perhaps a bit longer than the standard clarinets we had in high-school band.

Tried some googling without much luck. Help me Hive-Mind!

Mystery Mixtape Movie Score Track: Elfman, Zimmer & Kazoos

vanoakenfold — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:00:39 -0800

Help me identify this mystery track from my friends' mix CD, that he can't recall either. No sample available, yet! It's more than likely a movie score track. Cross between 1941, Elfman, Zimmer, Willow, and involves kazoos in places. In short, to me it sounds like a Pee Wee's Big Beetlejuice Great Escape, featuring periodic Kazoo backups as performed by an Elfman/Zimmer team-up. The friend suggested Chicken Run. but none of the samples on Amazon have a passage found in it. The disc was made 2004 at the latest, I wager. but seems more like around 2000 that he gave it.

Here's my description to said friend, if that helps any:

"If the next mystery track is not Elfman or Zimmerman, despite being a little too POTC-1941-ish, I'm not sure what is. It has a brief high flute intro, flowing strings and brief resounding brass, followed by some marching snare and a tooting low brass, a clarinet solo with some kind of muffled piano accompaniment, then sharply accellerates into a cross between Beetlejuice, 1941 and Willow, with Hans Zimmer looking over his shoulder. And with stacatto-ish low strings. And kazoos."

The track itself is 3:36, no overt vocals (except some Elfman-ish oohs and aahs)

Super detailed description:

00:00-00:12 - very soft strings slowly emerge, gradually adding a slackpaced flute/piccolo solo of the main theme..
00:13-00:26 - the lower strings crescendo into the fray with a smooth and delicate flowing movement and the high strings pick up where the flute left off, followed by flute again.
00:27-00:31 - after a brief pause, soft middle brass comes in with a soft trumpet solo...
00:32-00:35 - solo marching-pace snare
00:36-00:44 - baritone or trombone picks up the pace with a rising triple-it lead-in as a tooting flute/piccolo makes a little twittering song vaguely resembling LOTR's shire theme
00:45-00:46 - trombone/brass rises suddenly to cut the festivities off and stops just as quickly...
00:47-01:00 - a distinctly Elfman muffled piano (or plucked low strings), middle speed pace, down-up-down-up style, with a clarinet fluttering in the background with possibly mandolin accents...
01:01-01:17 - brief unexpected pause, resume same arrangement but faster paced, momentarily adding strings, with a young-ladies aah-aah-aah vocal (characteristic of Elfman, comparable to Edward Scissorhands), periodic swirling violins and trilling clarinets...
01:18-01:22 - brief brass fanfare-like introduction with cascading strings...
01:23-01:28 - returning up-down-up-down with piano/plucked low strings, repeat formula with periodic brass mini fanfares...
01:29-01:32 - A [Batman Animated Series]-sounding spat...
01:33-01:56 - A bold trombone loudly declares the main theme with a Zimmer-like steady-paced strum-strum-strum sound from the mid-to-lower strings. Repeat main theme again but with a trumpet-trombone teamup, with a snare jointing the two, then add (keeping the steady background) a brave violin section counter/sub-melody, with a quick fluttering of timpani toward the end, and a solid brass cap on the end before a brief pause...
01:57-02:00 - kazoos pick up a repeated tail of the main theme pattern...
02:01-02:15 - French horns break in to the renewed steady background to repeat the main theme in all their glory (I can almost detect the snares' "shhhhhh" in response)
02:16-02:46 - Tubular bells accents, flowing middle-to-high strings pick up the sub/counter melody like gliding over a still lake, with kazoos peeking in around 02:22-:26, handing the baton to a forceful solo flute who keeps the joyful pace, passes to the high strings, and into a cymbal crescendo for the win and a sudden halting of the pace in a serious "whoa" rein-tugging into a similarly paced but brief Batman section,
02:47-03:12 - a very low and soft faster-paced Jaws passage, with the Violins with Parkinsons section creeping up, a few taps to the snare and we're back into the main theme with peppy steady-handed strings and kazoos murmuring in the background...
03:13-03:16 - Kazoos simmer down, piping flute accents periodically against the familiar steady low-string background pace...
03:17-03:36 - the pace slacks up again with the last string of the theme going slo-mo, a lonesome and regretful french horn not to be outdone, adds a mournful "awww, man!" and cuts off just as the strings taper off.

I hope you have as much fun finding this track as I did doing commentary!

Help me identify this amazing sound?

sann1657 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:04:50 -0800

I was in Amsterdam this Monday and Tuesday. Early tuesday morning I walked past a group of buskers who were playing music which changed my life. I've never heard anything like it. They looked to me to be maybe Turkish, somewhere eurasian. Two guys were keeping up a simple 2 - chord rhythm on accordions, whilst the lead guy was blasting his soul into a clarinet, playing a kind of desperate, breathy, technical jazz / polka kind of sound. It was awesome. Anyone seen these guys? Anyone know what kind of music I might have heard? Thanks in advance...

Clarinet, please play nice with the guitars!

bmct — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:57:25 -0800

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.

$50 Gift suggestions for: A clarinettist, a violist, and a cellist

sirion — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 23:28:41 -0800

Gift suggestions for: A clarinettist, a violist, and a cellist(who is also a composer). ~$50 each, I have 12 days to get these gifts. Prefer online ordering. 3 (student) musicians are playing for my senior undergrad recital, and I want to get them thank you gifts. This is often done around here in the form of gift certificate cards, which definitely works, but I could use suggestions on vendors if I go that route.

I'm thinking of a big fat gift certificate to tismusic.com (obscure piano and vocal music vendor) for my pianist, but I imagine a violist has little use for piano and vocal music.

Other note: The cellist is a composer by trade, and the other two are aiming to be professional musicians.

Clarinet music recommendations

gentle — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 19:23:35 -0800

I love the sound of the clarinet. I'm looking for quiet, pensive, possibly melancholic music featuring this instrument. Any genre; preferably instrumental. I'm not looking for happy big-band jazz or Poulenc's chaotic clarinet sonata, though I appreciate both. Some of my favourite works are Ralph Vaughan Williams' Six Studies in English Folksong, Brahms' Sonata in F minor and Evan Lurie's soundtrack for the film Joe Gould's Secret. I love June Tabor and Hem, who occasionally include the clarinet in their songs -- Hem's A-Hunting We Will Go is magnificent. (The instrument seems to go particular well with piano.) It's not a requirement that the clarinet be a solo instrument or even be constantly present.

Bonus points for suggesting quiet, warm, nostalgic music similar to the above that doesn't necessarily include the clarinet, but which you could perhaps play a clarinet to. (Tin Hat Trio is a good example.) In general, anything above the noise level of brushed drums is out of the question; we're talking music to enjoy while sipping wine in front of the fireplace.

Above links are directly to Amazon pages featuring excerpts, for easy sampling.