#ebclarinet

Rehearsal for our Saturday concert! Two of my #Uebel #Superior #Clarinets. #BbClarinet & #EbClarinet #TeamUebel #Clarinet #CommunityMusician #InstrumentalMusic #FourScottishDances #MalcolmArnold #VanguardUniversity #LifeOfATeacher #LifeOfAMusician (at Vanguard University of Southern California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3V4ci6hR2d9mEzjLikPW4UWRgCVVMa8xOuDz80/?igshid=9z3ecx48sfqi

Trying something new at Ye Olde Towne Band tonight ... our regular #ebclarinet player is on travel, so I broke out my $89 (plus shipping) no-name Chinese Eb and covered for him. It was shockingly fun. I bought this maybe 6 or 7 years ago when my amateur music “career” was stalled and I was looking for ways to do more interesting things than sit in the back of a community concert band clarinet section. I thought Eb might play to some of my strengths as a musician (my tone control and intonation have always been fairly good), but there was no good way for me to rent or borrow an instrument to see if I liked it and could see myself being good at it. So I ended up with an $89 no-name Chinese Eb (amusingly, at the time trying #bassclarinet wasn’t even on my radar). Back then I think I actually wasn’t quite good enough to tackle the finicky Eb, but I’ve improved a ton in the interim and it was really fun to take it out for a spin in the “real world” (ish). And the instrument is shockingly good, at least considering what I paid for it. The intonation goes unacceptably flat starting at high C, and the altissimo is treacherous even by Eb standards. The keywork isn’t great, and the G# key is almost unusable with my larger hands. But for a lot of the range, it plays well and in-tune and with decent tone quality. And like with the bass, it’s fun to be in a rather different musical head space - working with the flutes as often as with the clarinets. Like the bass, it often seems to be used to blend the nice, mellow clarinet timbre to a different section (flutes for Eb, low brass for bass). I can see the appeal of the instrument, especially in the concert band setting where the Bb clarinet is, sadly, often a misunderstood and underutilized instrument and unless you’re playing the solo part there may not be a lot going on. And honestly this is also true for bass. Anyway, since then I’ve fallen in love with the #bassclarinet, and I would never drop it to pick up Eb; for all the Eb’s charms it is a far less versatile and expressive instrument imo. But I can definitely see adding Eb to my repertoire at some point if it would open up opportunities! (at Garden House @ Shoup Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2bDeeEBcoj/?igshid=1f487yau9wby8

Here's a clarinet I drew! •••••••••••••••••••• #clarinet #marchingband #clarinetpower #powertotheclarinets #clarinetsrock #bbclarinet #ebclarinet #bassclarinet #concertband #symphonicband #clarinetensemble