A Very Quick Guide to . . . The Clarinet

What’s it all about?

The clarinet, the most versatile and perhaps most popular of all wind instruments.

When did it all start?

The modern clarinet is a direct descendant of the old chalumeau, a popular instrument back in the middle ages and Renaissance – basically a type of recorder, but with a reed.

In about 1700 German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner (or possibly one of his sons – the details are fuzzy) designed a new version of the chalumeau adding a single key to the instrument to expand its range – effectively, the first clarinet. Continue reading...