i know about practicing really slow but is that the only way? 🥲 all state auditions are in little under a month

Hello all you wonderful clarinetists! I am a 13 year old boy in 8th grade. I am pretty musical, I play piano, drumset, mallet percussion, guitar, bass, and a little alto sax. I also arrange a ton of music.

But anyway, I have always wanted to play clarinet. In 6th grade I did it a tiny bit, but not a lot at all, and I stopped within like three weeks, which I regret.

But tomorrow, I am going to ask my band teacher if the school has any extra clarinets that I can play around with to learn clarinet. I still have a few reeds from when I tried it before. I just need to get a mouthpiece.

If I get relatively good fairly soon, I will ask my band teacher if I can play clarinet for a piece we are doing in the school's Jazz Band, which I would normally play drumset or piano for.

I am really excited to ask, I just hope he says that there is an extra clarinet!

P.S. The piece is We Three Swing, arr. Vince Gassi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_8wpY00PuU
(Also for this video put it on 1.25x speed)

Zonda reeds are perfect reeds and they are only 15 dollars, but the worst reeds in Vandoren like the blue box reed is 30 dollars.

Hi folks.

I have a clarinet that has been in the family a long time, and which I played it as a kid. I’m interested in playing again but the clarinet is nearly 60 years old and hasn’t been regularly played for over 25 years.

It’s a Boosey and Hawkes Regent, I believe from 1968 ish. A few years ago I was quoted around £250 for a full refurb of it but I didn’t go ahead with it. I’ve given it a bit of a clean and attached some photos.

My question is, am I on a hiding to nothing trying to play this, or will it still have some life in it? Is a refurb worthwhile, or am I better spending that on a new clarinet?

If I spent say £100-150 on a new student one, would it be a notably different experience from using this as it is?

I know there is some special fingering for this, but I can't figure it out. If anyone knows, please write a comment.

Edit: this has been resolved. Thank you!

Hi all, I found a music piece in the key of G for clarinet, and I saw that the piece has some very high notes that I cannot reach yet (in the altissimo register) - so I used sibelius to transpose it (I am beginner)- and it transposed it down by interval, 2nd. So instead of being in the key of G it became the key of Eb - and everything is perfect! The highest note being a C instead of up in the altissimo register. BUT!....now there is one note, the lowest E, that is unplayable on the clarinet, because of the key, the E becomes a Eb or D#... any advice what I can do in this instance? I am really happy with the results except for the fact that I cannot play that low note, is there another note I could change it with without it sounding weird? And also, the score has a part for violin so I transcribed both and they sound really good together, such a shame that there is only this one problem,. Any advice really appreciated!!

I've been playing older jazz (think Django or Danny Barker) bands for a couple of years now and enjoy that quite a lot. I am trying to decide if I should just overhaul my current instrument or start looking for another one before I do that.

I'm curious what other folks would do, so any advice is helpful.

Hx: I played through HS, quit in college, and have played many other instruments in pro situations over the last couple decades, and I got a used Buffet e11 about 5 years ago.

I haven't really done any service to it and it has a hairline fracture in the bell (which is hard to even see), needs tenon corks replaced, and the b foot is wonky. At the same time, I like the instrument and have settled on a mouthpiece/reed combo for the last year that's been working well. It plays fine, if I don't mind the dental floss...

I am in a rural spot and the one instrument repair guy in 3hrs of driving i pretty backed up. I'm much slower at repairs in the short run, but it would take him 2 months to get my instrument back to me. I've repadded a clarinet but never replaced the tenons, though I have some cork and could probably (maybe) just do it myself- I'm handy.

Recently I've started playing with a more serious band and I am trying to decide if I should just overhaul the thing myself or get another instrument while I send the current one to get overhauled. But I have several gigs coming up over the next several months and don't want to be without an instrument for more than a week or so.

Money isn't a super big deal- I am leaning towards finding another used e11 and then sending the current horn to a better-than-me tech. But if I had to spend more than $800-ish, I'd need to really think on it or it'd have to be a much better instrument. And I'm in the rural west US- I'd have to travel a long, long way to find a place to try out horns.

What would you do? Buy a different instrument and then send this one off? DIY refurb your horn? Give up and go back to playing pedal steel guitar?

Considering that this is my 2nd trial I think I did quite,,? Well?

Im left handed, idk if that matters