History of the Clarinet

Series Summary

The bass clarinet is in the woodwind family. Most have a straight body with a curved metal neck leading to the mouthpiece. Most clarinets are made of some combination of wood and metal pieces. There are some that are made entirely out of metal but they are rare. It is used mostly in orchestras around the world to score symphonies but it of course can be used in any context since it's range starts an octave below the B flat of the soprano clarinet. It was thought to have originated in 1772, invented by G. Lott but there are reports of similar style and shaped instruments as early as 1750.

This video clip series is a great basic introduction to the bass clarinet. You will learn not only how to choose the right one but also how to sport flaws in the instrument as well as how to hold and play it of course. This is one of those instrument that makes creates a big round sound and you always notice it when it's not there. Let this series help get you started in the world of woodwinds!

Video Transcript

" Hello! My name is Jim Sivard and on behalf of expertvillage.com, I’d like to talk about the bass clarinet. This instrument is a wonderful instrument; it’s a member of the clarinet family. The clarinet family is comprised of 5 different instruments. We have the familiar B flat soprano clarinet. There’s also a clarinet even higher called the E flat sopranino clarinet. There’s an instrument higher than the bass clarinet, between the soprano and the bass clarinet, called an alto clarinet, that’s an E flat. Then the subject of discussion today is the bass clarinet in B flat, and finally the lowest member of the clarinet family is the contrabass clarinet, also in B flat. That’s a tremendously cumbersome instrument, so today we’re going to stick with the bass clarinet. The clarinet is descended from an instrument called the shalumo, which was a wooden instrument. Basically, without keys it did have a single reed, similar to the clarinet. But of course, when they made improvements and added keys to the basic shalumo, we came up with at that time, in the middle of the 17th/18th century, that was a high-tech wooden instrument capable of executing almost any melodic passage. Therefore, throughout history or since then, it has built up the greatest reptoire or any wind instrument; it’s very interesting. The clarinet has a distinctive tone to what’s called it’s overtone series. We won’t go into that too much detail, but it has a different overtone series, for instance than the flute or the saxophone. Therefore, it has a creamier or possibly more whinny or whatever adjective you describe it as a tone than those other instruments, which might be considered warmer in tone. Well thank you. On behalf of Expert Village, we have been talking about ht bass clarinet. I’m Jim Sivard. "