Hi folks, a friend of mine kindly lent me a clarinet. I played Sax years ago and thought I'd like to get back into playing something.

From playing sax I remember the fingerings being quite logical as one moves up and down scales. However looking at fingering charts for clarinet I can't see the logic in moving between notes. There seem to be many fairly random fingerings. Of course being new I expect it takes time to learn and get the hang of it.

Just that I have limited time to give to this hobbie so perhaps I would be better going back to sax where I already have an understanding of the fingerings.

Appreciate any comments or tips folks have. Thank you!!!!

While it's true that several of the clarinet fingerings are slightly illogical, most of them are fairly sequential, and no more or less logical than sax fingerings. I've played clarinet for several years now, and recently picked up alto and then tenor sax. Many of the fingerings between the two correspond, i.e. low G on the saxophone (3 fingers) is low C on the clarinet. The exceptions include (from the bottom up) B natural, A, B natural again, C, and then the rest are very, very high and i wouldn't bother worrying about them until you get to more advanced music.
Sax has a lot of similarly illogical fingerings- C, etc. It will take practise to get the weird clarinet ones down just like it probably did with sax.
It'll take some time to get the hang of it, but I definitely recommend that you keep trying. The more you play, the more sense they make and the easier it gets. Even if you only practice a half-hour to an hour a week over a long period of time, it will help a lot.
Good luck!

Yeah the sax is pitched in Eb and the clarinet is pitched in Bb. It might get confusing but practicing 15- 30 minutes a day will help you. Plus they aren't random fingerings, they're alternate fingerings to help you go to a different note faster.

Thanks very much everyone for your helpful responses. I'll stick with it for now. I suppose a teach yourself type book would be good too. I found that useful when I started on sax (tenor) so might get one of those for clarinet.

Thanks again!