Hi! I'm not a clarinetist, but I recently began teaching a high school band and I have a clarinet student who is eager to learn and get better. However, her hand is unusually shaped and it makes it difficult for her to reach the high octave notes. In addition since she has no feeling in some of her fingers it is hard for her to remember where to place her hand on the instrument. Does anyone have any suggestions either for instrument modifications that she could try or an exercise she could practice? Or alternately, an example of a musician who overcame similar issues that I could show her.

Re: "However, her hand is unusually shaped and it makes it difficult for her to reach the high octave notes."

I don't know what you mean by "high octave notes". The clarinet overblows at the perfect twelfth (and again at the seventeenth), not at the octave. Even so, the second register fingering is the same as the the first register fingering. Are you saying she can't reach the register key?

Re: "In addition since she has no feeling in some of her fingers it is hard for her to remember where to place her hand on the instrument." No feeling at all? Can she tell without looking whether she's pushing down a particular key or covering a particular hole? If not, it's hard for me to imagine she can play the clarinet.