Journal Article

ETUDE AND METHOD BOOKS FOR BASS CLARINET

Alder, Jason

2022

Overview

I am often asked about which etude books are good for bass clarinet. Generally, I am a firm believer that anything you use for soprano clarinet you can use for bass clarinet as well. However, clarinet etudes don't make use of the extended range of a low C bass clarinet, and this range can become neglected and not as fluid as the rest of the instrument. Additionally, student-level instruments with only a single register vent suffer from difficulty playing in the upper range, making these etudes a frustrating experience for less-advanced players. The bass clarinet also has some of its own idiosyncrasies separate from clarinet that don't receive enough attention. The first set of exercises focuses on varying scale patterns crossing the break from the throat tones, which necessitated using both of the manual register keys. This isn't relevant for modern instruments, but I have still found the exercises very useful with my students for achieving clean transitions when changing registers and for all the varying combinations using the little fingers.

• Publisher: International Clarinet Association
• Subject: Bass instruments / Clarinet music / Music education / Musical instruments