I have a new clarinet! It’s an alto clarinet! I bought it on Monday in Mineola, NY (Long Island.)
I played an alto clarinet in university, and I wanted one again. It took many months of planning, but I finally was able to purchase one.
Here’s a picture of the new alto clarinet in its case. Here it is assembled (there are no people in this picture so you can’t really get a sense of the size of it, but it’s about the size of an alto sax, or smaller than a bass clarinet.)
I’ve been playing it these past few days, and it’s a delight to play.
I remember your thread about your sax. My alto clarinet was about two thousand dollars. I’d saved up for about a year to be able to buy it. It’s pretty inexpensive for a new alto clarinet.
Yes, I am a big clarinet nerd (and music nerd in general.)
I know next to nothing about musical instruments, other than what I learned with a viola performance major as a roommate in college. But that looks like a beautiful instrument.
Enjoy it!
I was thinking about starting to play the clarinet. Originally I wanted to learn to play the oboe or the bassoon. I wanted to play the bassoon because the local amateur orchestra said that’s what they needed, but that is way to expensive for me. Same thing with the oboe; except on top of everything else, I would probably have to spend many hours making my own reeds. I think the oboe sounds the best and I was interested in learning to play because of some of the pieces I am familiar with. Do you know of any clarinet pieces that may inspire me to play the clarinet?
Mostly classical, though I like playing sort of jazzy-sounding music (I’m not knowledgeable to play actual real jazz, but I find the upper register of the alto clarinet is well-suited to that sort of music, as it sounds almost like a cross between a clarinet and a saxophone.)
Maybe in the next few days
The composer Gerald Finzi wrote some really nice clarinet music (Five Bagatelles and a concerto.) (For the ordinary clarinet)
