How to Begin Playing the Clarinet

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Loren Green, I'm an elementary music teacher near Austin, Texas. I've been playing the clarinet for fifteen years, and teach private clarinet lessons as well, and today I'm going to tell you how to begin to play the clarinet. So first we're going to start with putting it together. You can start with your bell. That's the very bottom, and the next piece that you take, is this large piece. This is for your right hand. This cork should be well lubricated with cork grease. You twist it in, and then you have those two together. The next piece you put on is the top joint. Again, you need to keep that cork lubricated or it won't go in very well. So now you have that much. This is your barrel. Your barrel is what connects your joints to your mouthpiece, and that goes on the top. Then you have your mouthpiece. A good thing I like to do when I'm putting my clarinet together, is have my reed already soaking in my mouth, so that by the time I get everything together, it's almost ready to be played on. So you put your reed right here on the mouthpiece, making sure that it is perfectly in line with where the hole is. Then you put your ligature on, and tighten it firmly. The first step to actually playing, we're not even going to push any keys down. So the embouchure is the position of your mouth. You want to make sure that your chin is flat, that your throat is open, that your tongue is high, and that your mouth is completely sealed around the mouthpiece. If you have air leaking out the sides, it'll make a sound, and your air won't be going through your clarinet, which means you won't be making a sound. It's going to take some getting used to to make that reed vibrate. You have to start with a pretty soft reed if you're a beginner, a two and a half to a three, and if it's still not vibrating, just keep working at it, and blow very hard with your abdomen until you get the air to come out. The air should be warm, and it should be moist. If you can put your hand in front of your mouth, and make hot air come out, that is the proper air. If it's cold, you need to open your throat more. Like other woodwind instruments, your left hand goes on top. You start by putting your left thumb on this back key, leave this one alone for now, and then your right pointer finger goes on the top key right there. You just walk it down, covering those holes. Now if these holes aren't sealed, you're not going to make a sound. You can continue down, but the first thing I would do, this is your proper hand position, and you can find fingering charts on line, but first, I would just try to, again, play without any keys covered, working on that, and then adding one finger at a time as you go down. So that's how to begin to play the clarinet."