If you’ve got a plastic clarinet that you’ve been playing for a few years, you might be thinking about upgrading to a wooden one. It’s important to think about this carefully before you do it, as it can be pretty expensive. I’ve outlined the reasons for upgrading and reasons why you might not want to upgrade, or could get away with sticking to the plastic clarinet you have.
Continue reading “When Should I Upgrade to a Wooden Clarinet?”
Having grown up playing a range of different woodwind instruments (and piano), I was always aware that I found some harder than others. I was never sure if this was me and that I was better at a particular instrument or if some actually were more difficult than others. I’ve had a look into what other people think and have tried to come up with some sensible answers on whether the difficulty level really does vary.
Continue reading “Is Grade 8 Comparably Hard on All Woodwind?”
If you’re a clarinet player, at some stage you might have to think about whether or not you need to get an A clarinet. Not all clarinettists will need one, but it’s good to know in what situations they can be useful. I’ll talk about the uses for the A clarinet, including when you can get away with not having one and when you really need one.
Continue reading “Do All Clarinettists Need an A Clarinet?”
The clarinet and the soprano sax are both about the same size. So why does the clarinet play so much lower? This is something I have often vaguely wondered about and then forgotten about pretty quickly. This time, I thought I’d do some research and see if I can actually find out why it’s the case.
Continue reading “How Does Sop Sax Range Compare to Clarinet?”
If you’re looking for a new sax, one of the things you’ll probably be thinking about is whether or not it has a top F# key. Not all saxes have them and it’s possible to play F# without one, so is it necessary or not? Thinking about this made me wonder why some saxes have them and some saxes don’t, and when the key was first added. I’ve done some research on this and found some information about when the key became standard.
Continue reading “Are Saxes With a Top F# Key Better?”
There are four commonly played saxophones – soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. It’s easy to think that if you can play one, you should be able to play all of them. Here, I’m looking at what the potential difficulties can be in swapping between saxes and whether it’s as easy as it sounds.
Continue reading “If I Play One Sax, Can I Play Them All?”
If you’re thinking of taking up a musical instrument, but you’re not sure which one yet, one of your questions is likely to be which is the cheapest? I’ve had a look into this and thought about the other expenses needed to maintain some instruments compared to others. I’ve written down some of the most important things to consider.
Continue reading “Which Woodwind Instrument is the Cheapest?”
One of my favourite musicals ever is Legally Blonde. Earlier this year, I got to play in the pit for it, on the reed 1 part. I thought I’d talk a bit about the reed parts – which instruments are played on which parts and where the hardest bits are. This is to help people out when picking instrumentalists for the parts – you don’t want your best flautist to end up with the easy flute bit and all the horrible clarinet solos!
Continue reading “Are the Reed Parts Hard for Legally Blonde?”
When you’re on a plane, or just somewhere really high up, the air pressure is different to when you’re at ground level. I was wondering what would happen to the tuning of an instrument as a result of the change in pressure. There’s quite a bit of physics to think about for this, but the answer is pretty interesting!
Continue reading “Do Instruments Play Out of Tune on a Plane?”
If you listen carefully to musical instruments attempting to play in unison with each other, you might be surprised by what you hear. You might think if one player plays a note at a particular dynamic and then another player joins in perfectly in unison at approximately the same dynamic, the volume you hear should double. But it doesn’t. I’ll talk about why this is in this post.
Continue reading “Why Is It So Obvious When I’m Out of Tune?”