My "Main Squeeze"

I have come to play (and own) a variety of musical instruments in the course of my life. I originally started on piano, first by playing TV show themes and commercial jingles by ear when I was four, then by learning my friends' practice etudes faster than they did, and finally taking formal lessons when I was five. Unfortunately, while I had plenty of interest in playing, I had basically no interest in practicing. I continued to perform TV show themes proficiently, but I didn't make very good progress in my piano lesson books. My parents tried two different teachers, both of whom yelled at me a lot, before they finally gave up and terminated my formal instruction permanently. After that I didn't give much serious attention to music until I was ten years old, whereupon I took up a whole new animal, the clarinet.



I'm not sure exactly why I chose that instrument. It probably had partly to do with one of those child toys called "See & Say", in which you turned a dial to point its arrow at a picture and then pulled a string, whereupon it would play the recording for that picture. I had one that was for musical instruments, and the clarinet recording was my favorite (though I always thought the picture for it was kind of stupid). It probably also had to do with the fact that my clarinet teacher, who was also a clarinetist himself, was a friend of the family. I'm sure there were other reasons, too. Whatever they all were, I picked up the licorice stick and took to it like a flash. I was in the beginning ensemble for only two weeks before I was placed directly in the advanced band (whereas my best friend, who had also taken up the clarinet with me, stayed in it all year and didn't make a whole lot of progress. That started the rift between us).

Needless to say, I have been very active in music over the past thirty years, taking up guitar, bass, saxophone, flute, and several other instruments along the way. However, clarinet has continued to be my "main squeeze" despite the fact that it is something of a controversial instrument. In fact, it always has been. Its status in musical culture doesn't seem to have ever been clearly defined. In Dixieland and traditional jazz, particularly during the swing era ('20s to '40s), the "licorice stick" has played an important role, particularly after Glen Miller broke convention and used it as the lead melody instrument instead of trumpet in his "big band". Back then, clarinetists were like lead guitarists today, i.e. they were sex symbols who were loved by the women and envied by the men. In this era, however, I have had to suffer through a college band director who referred to all clarinet players by default as "ladies" and more than one moron with a macho inferiority complex telling me that "only fags play clarinet". However, even though clarinet is a French instrument, I refuse to surrender.



Despite its importance in classical music, the clarinet is actually the youngest of all the "orchestral" instruments. Its predecessor, the chalumeau, was a very limited (and oft maligned) party instrument that appeared in France in the 1600s. It was considered laughably unsuitable for "real" music until 1700, when a German from Nuremburg named Muller developed it in such a way as to give it a much wider range. Even so, it wasn't until the late 18th century that the clarinet began to be taken seriously, particularly by progressive composers such as that Mozart character. The clarinet became even more widespread in the early 19th century with the adoption of the so-called Boehm key system, actually adapted from the flute, which is far easier to play than Muller's system (which had notes missing, requiring lip-bending or half-holing to play a complete scale!) and is still the standard to this day. Other "modern" key systems, such as the Albert and Oehler (Auler) systems popular in Germany, also exist, but while they offer certain advantages in tonality, they are more complicated and therefore more difficult to play than the Boehm system.


German-made Oehler-system A/Bb clarinets

Many varieties of clarinet have been developed over the years, but the Bb "soprano" clarinet is the general standard. Orchestral clarinetists (such as myself) generally also have an A soprano, which is often used in 19th century classical works. Other common types include the little Eb "sopranino", the alto-sax-sized Eb "alto", the Bb "bass", the Eb "contralto", and the Bb "contrabass". There is also an interesting variant called the "basset horn", which is keyed in F and thus pitched slightly higher than the "alto" but is longer with more keys and thus a wider range. Mozart liked the basset horn's unique, mellow tone a lot and used it quite a bit, but now it is quite rare. I have seen only one in my lifetime, which was at the music club training camp in 2004 (and the teacher let me play it! THAT was fun!). Other types of clarinet exist, such as the Eb "piccolo" and C "marching-band soprano" (not to mention A and C "bass" models), but they are rarely seen and rarely used.



So there you have it, folks. I may strum, plunk, and squawk here and there and everywhere, but my old #1 has been and may well always be ye olde licorice stick, the made-in-France-but-with-German-improvements clarinet. Often enigmatic, often controversial, both loved and scorned with equal passion, I still find it a joy to play.



(But I still think Moussorgsky was trying to bully his clarinetists...)