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Clarinet to Saxophone teaching method

Steve

Clarinet CE/Moderator
Staff member
CE/Moderator
Teaching – Clarinet to Sax

In the past several years I have read how starting out a student on clarinet then moving them to sax is a positive process.

Being a clarinet and sax player I though from what I read that that was a good idea. Though in my personal experience I started out on sax then 4 years later on my own picked up clarinet. I was equally good at both of them. Of course being a student I really wanted to learn clarinet and picked it up quickly and progressed quickly. Of course, later on I also picked up french horn, flute, percussion and cello. So I loved to learn.

But being a parent puts us in a position of seeing out children go through this process.

My oldest son picked up the saxophone. I think he did this primarily because I was a sax player.

My second oldest son this past year also wanted to play saxophone. But, to my surprise they now put kids on clarinet and then they switchover to saxophone.

What I found what that my son liked playing the clarinet though had difficulties. First difficulty was putting the clarinet together properly. I sanded the corks down to make it ever so easy to put together, and worked with him for literally hours over several weeks just on putting the clarinet together. But he never really got the knack of it. He practiced but only occasionally.

His finger placement was different. He has much thicker fingers than me and was able to play the rings with his second digit versus his finger tip. I can’t even do that as my 2nd digit is too thin and boney to cover the rings properly.

But luckily with the new year someone switched to saxophone, thus the sax that I bought him replaced the clarinet and off he went. He nearly practices everyday now. He is much more involved in looking through the internet and finding YouTube players learning to play the music that they are learning. And over all the experience is much more positive for him.

Thus he played clarinet for approximately 4 months.

The biggest difficulty we had was the transition. There basically was no transition. I had to teach him the basics of playing the saxophone as they were already in many pages in the beginner book and there was no going back. Thus we did all the beginner “beginner” stuff under my tutelage. Luckily he picked it up quickly and has never looked back.

Thus looking back at the idea of clarinet to saxophone I have to say that I certainly didn’t like the structure. My son didn’t really like the clarinet but he stumbled through it. Then the transition was nonexistent.

Going back now I should have contacted the director, but one would “assume” communications to the parents. Apparently one parent switched him and then slowly a few other switched after the kids told their parents.

Additionally, having to teach my own child is one thing, but parents out there in the same situation that are not players can create another sort of havoc.

In the end I think the clarinet to sax process is a bad one, but then I also know the process in place was also a bad one.

I’m curious what other experiences people have had with their children.
 
I wouldn't answer - none of my kids plays a wind instrument. :|

Just for kicks, when I was a pup, the doctrine du jour demanded kids started on recorder as their first instrument.
Can you imagine our music class' Christmas concerts, in front of 40 ecstatic parents, with 20 recorders of which 19 were out of tune with each other?
Ouch.
On the bright side, for some kids (and possibly their parents) the transition from soprano recorder to violin was rather smooth. :emoji_astonished:
 
I can share a bit of my experience as a beginning band teacher for over 20 years. The band program started in the 6th grade in my school district. I taught band to grades 6 and 7 which at that time comprised our middle school.

As the program grew in size over the years more and more students picked the saxophone---I suppose because of its use in popular music. A typical year would have 45 students pick saxophone as their first choice and 5 the clarinet. A director in this situation can either let every student have their 1st pick and forgo the opportunity to provide the students a positive musical experience playing quality literature in a well balanced ensemble by their second year or try to persuade some of those saxes to try the clarinet.

Like many directors in a similar position, I chose to require one year of clarinet before a student could "switch" to the saxophone the second year. At the end of the first year those students who still wanted to switch to saxophone were allowed to compete for 12 slots in the 7th grade band----8 altos and 4 tenors. This sounds like a lot, but the 7th grade bands would number about 120 students, not counting the percussion.

Fortunately by the end of the year the number of students wanting to play the sax had dwindled from 40 something to close to the number I told them could switch. Most students had such a positive experience on the clarinet that they chose to stick with it. If a few more really wanted to change instruments, I would try to persuade them to try the bass clarinet, or maybe the bari sax if they were big enough to handle it.

I justified this approach with the following arguments.

- Developing good fundamentals on clarinet provides the foundation to double on all other woodwinds.
- The saxophone is at least twice as expensive as the clarinet and it is a good idea to see how a student progresses before making such a large investment.
- Learning the clarinet first provides the discipline in embouchure and hand position that promotes a successful experience on the saxophone.
- Switching from clarinet to the saxophone (with good instruction) is quite easy.

The clarinet players chosen to go to the saxophone would take a summer "change over" class in which they went through the entire first year book in just 3 weeks. By the beginning of the 7th grade these "crash course" students were up to the same level on their saxophones as all the other students were on their instruments. In fact, my students who had the discipline of playing the clarinet for a year most often were better saxophone players than the "move ins" who had started on saxophone in the 6th grade in another school.

I realize that there are two sides to this question and some parents (and even band teachers) feel differently. This is just my experience, and what seemed to work the best in my situation. I'd better stop typing now---I'm beginning to write like SOTSO. :)
 
I justified this approach with the following arguments.

- Developing good fundamentals on clarinet provides the foundation to double on all other woodwinds.
- The saxophone is at least twice as expensive as the clarinet and it is a good idea to see how a student progresses before making such a large investment.
- Learning the clarinet first provides the discipline in embouchure and hand position that promotes a successful experience on the saxophone.
- Switching from clarinet to the saxophone (with good instruction) is quite easy.

I realize that there are two sides to this question and some parents (and even band teachers) feel differently. This is just my experience, and what seemed to work the best in my situation. I'd better stop typing now---I'm beginning to write like SOTSO. :)

Here's the other side:

While I did not teach public school band, I am a product of that system. 4th grade gave us the (recorder) which got some interested in wind instruments. My Dad had a Conn alto which he played on occasion, so I decided that in 5th grade, I would play that horn in band. Had they told me that I had to play a different instrument other than what I wanted for one year, I would have played football instead.

1. - developing good fundamentals (breath support, embouchure control, articulation, etc.) on saxophone provides the foundation to double on all other woodwind instruments - fundamentals are fundamentals.

2. - the saxophone may be more expensive than the clarinet, but, if that is an issue, and there is a question as to the student's dedication - try a rental program.

3. - learning the saxophone first...............this is the same as #1.

4. - good private instruction is what enables one to make any progress as an instrumentalist, not which instrument you start on - a public school music program alone is totally insufficient.
 
It is well established in woodwind pedagogy that the clarinet is the optimum choice to gain proficiency on before working on being an accomplished doubler on all woodwinds. That is the point I was trying to make with comment #1. Fundamentals also includes hand position, little finger coordination, covering holes with the fingers, etc. Developing clarinet proficiency first facilitates far more transfer to other woodwinds than developing proficiency on the saxophone first.

I am qualified to comment on this topic because I did it backwards learning the saxophone first and not studying clarinet until college.
 
I am qualified to comment on this topic because I did it backwards learning the saxophone first and not studying clarinet until college.

As did I, though I began clarinet and flute in the last year of Jr High. Perhaps your problem with clarinet was that you waited until college to play it. I had no difficulty with hand position, covering holes, or anything else, and went on to study with top specialists on each instrument separately. I have seen many saxophonists in the professional arena, who started on clarinet and played saxophone with some technical excellence, yet, they still sounded like clarinet players, and the reverse as well - saxophonists who played clarinet like a saxophonist.

If one aspires to become a successful doubler, it is of utmost importance as soon as possible (and it's never too soon) to regard each instrument, both technically and stylistically, as if it were the only instrument that you own/play. When you play clarinet, you are only a clarinettist. When you play flute, only a flautist. And so on. Thoughts of/comparisons to the other instruments never enter your mind. When you can do that....when you can unlearn all the stuff you are saying, then you will start to make real progress, and others will be hard pressed to say which instrument your main axe is .
 
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my sons actually started recorder in 4th grade, before starting wind instruments in 5th grade. My current sax player actually for the longest time wanted to play trumpet .. he would pull mine out from time to time, until this past year when he choose sax .. go figure !! I was ready to buy a nice semi-pro cornet/trumpet for me .. I mean him to play instead of mine.

My kids always saw me play clarinet at home, and at college bands and sax in jazz bands. So whatever they choose was fine with me.

He does keep asking about my brass thing that is goes around in circles .. more commonly known as a french horn :)

truthfully I think playing the french horn (since high school) has taught me alot about a very focused air stream moreso than the clarinet (since middle school).
 
I can't agree that this is either "well established" or necessarily true. Can you point to a source?

This is an excellent question from an acknowledged expert on woodwind doubling. I'll do my best to respond.

This has been my understanding throughout my teaching career and is shared with many of my colleagues with whom I have spoken on the subject. In my teaching experience it defies logic to think otherwise. I don't know if it can be "sourced" as you say, but I strongly believe that if a poll were taken among college woodwind teachers that the majority would agree that a mastery of the clarinet provides the optimum foundation allowing the transfer of skills to other woodwind instruments.

I know that two of your mentors who you mention on your website, Dr. Ray Smith and Daron Bradford, both started on clarinet. As you know, they are among the finest woodwind doublers in the nation.

I would be interested to hear your argument for the choice of another woodwind besides the clarinet to begin on to eventually become a proficient doubler on woodwinds, and why that instrument would be a better choice.
 
I'd better stop typing now---I'm beginning to write like SOTSO.

And this means???? I've always maintained that, if anyone on any service isn't happy with the material that I post (and they can't be bothered to just ignore it and scroll on by), I am more than willing to stop putting any of it up. Just say the word...

As for clarinet and sax playing:

I feel that, absent a very dedicated student willing to learn the ins and outs of clarinet playing, sax to clarinet seldom goes well. They really are two different animals, and need to be approached as themselves, not as "sort of a clarinet but different" or the opposite. Moving in the opposite direction isn't quite as perilous as far as operation of the instrument is concerned, but it does have some largely stylistic issues that often go "wrong".

The finger placement issue is a problem for many sax players making the transition, and many of them never devote enough time to the horn to get the "falling fingers" properly developed. (The saxophone, of course, is far more forgiving, and I've seen many a sax player who deems smashing his finger down any old how on the touch pieces as being "adequate".)

The embouchure is a second hurdle to clear. Going from a clarinet embouchure to sax is an adjustment, to be sure, but it is far easier to do so than to go from a sax to a clarinet one. Clarinet players tend to pinch more than sax players (on the sax), while sax players, unless indoctrinated properly, tend to be far too slack on the clarinet. In my experience, the first is easier to correct than the second.

And then there're the stylistic issues of vibrato and rhythm.

Sax players are indoctrinated from early on to strive for a good, rolling vibrato, while clarinet players pretty well have those tendencies beaten out of them in the first year or so. Knowing when to "warble" and when not to "warble" are parts of the different techniques that have to be learned. Most clarinet players can pick up on the need for vibrato, but many sax player have a lot of difficulty not playing in that style, at least in my experience.

Rhythm-wise, there are gulfs between what clarinet players are taught and what sax players learn, largely on their own. The old "Play it swung!" admonition is all that a saxophone player needs to read a bland looking chart in the proper style. Conversely, clarinet players seldom get schooled in the world of swing unless they participate in extracurricular activities like "Jazz Band" or "Jazz Lab Band".

An aside:

It could be much, much worse. There is one Broadway show that I have a love/hate relationship with, that being Lennie's West Side Story. (I call him Lennie since I met him once, back in my high school days.) I've done this show in ten or twelve productions, using three or four different books, ranging from old-fashioned manuscript music copies to modern engraved charts.

I really like the music, even though very little of it is played on saxophone. I am particularly fond of the bass clarinet counter melody in the second act, played under Maria's sister's big solo number. And, there isn't a baritone sax player alive who doesn't like to play "Cool".

But, what I positively hate about this show is trying to play with string players whose concept of "swing" is something out on the playground. These classically trained prima dons and donas fumble through the parts, hitting the swung notes at every value short of the correct ones, and conductors try to correct them in vain.

(I have even played an engraved version of the show where all of the swung music was set in 12/8 time. Even then, they have trouble parsing out the correct values.)

For these "rhythm problems", I blame not the student but rather the education system that has taught them. Too few school programs pay attention to what I lovingly call "commercial music", the music that really gets played for modern entertainment. In the real world, there is a lot more than Sousa, the classic and romantic periods of art music, and the "phony" arrangements that I always lump together as a piece titled something like "Blazes of Glory concert overture".

The music teachers (and private teachers) passing their skills on to the next generation need to broaden their horizons past their education, and wake up to the differences between classical music, pop music (including the swing genre), C&W, skaw and other modern styles, and even classic and modern "rock" (which shares more with classical that some might think).

When I was teaching (back in the 1980's) I used stuff from Broadway show books (good for those sharp keys and the jazz idiom) and choral arrangements called SSAs (of which I have sung praises in the past). The show stuff introduced my kids to sax in a "real world" environment, something outside of the norm of concert band - if they showed serious interest at that point, I would divert them to a sax teacher for a second lesson each week. The SSAs introduced them to playing "meaningful" parts.

(SSAs are vocal arrangements with piano accompaniment, usually a medley of three pop tunes. I used to (normally) trash the piano part and just concentrate on the vocal stuff. Two soprano clarinets take the two soprano parts, while the alto part is covered by the bass. No transposition, since all are playing C parts. And, they are arranged (similar to school level jazz charts) so that all three parts have an important, melodic role.)

(I would "lengthen" the lessons at that point in the year so that there were two students and myself to cover the three parts. One student would come early, the other would stay late, and all three of us would rotate through all of the parts. It was the most popular part of the lesson, and we often had a two or three parent audience as well, who were happy as hell to hear their kids playing something other than etudes out of a lesson book.)

Along about the time that my students graduated to doing these (say in March of a school year for my intermediate crowd), I also started pointing out swing and vibrato where appropriate and how these "embellishments" weren't always going to be indicated on the part. (I also kept my bass clarinet players up to speed on clarinet as well - too many bass clarinet players in high school haven't touched a soprano in many a year.)

But, back to the instruments. Push comes to shove, they both are different horns, despite the similarities of the key work and the mouthpiece, and they both need to be taught as such.

Of course, I'm the guy who is self-taught on the bassoon, so what do I know?

I better stop typing now. I'm beginning to write like jtbsax...
 
an acknowledged expert on woodwind doubling

You flatter me, sir.

I don't know if it can be "sourced"

It's the academic in me asking for a "source"--when you claim something is "well-established" in my profession (college professor), you had better be prepared to prove it!

I would be interested to hear your argument for the choice of another woodwind besides the clarinet to begin on to eventually become a proficient doubler on woodwinds, and why that instrument would be a better choice.

My point isn't that there is a specific instrument better than clarinet to start with; my point is that any seems as good a starting point as any other. As MartinMods points out (correctly, in my opinion), "fundamentals are fundamentals."

Each of the instruments has its own learning curve, and, for me the biggest challenges of doubling are when instruments are similar, not when they are different. When switching from clarinet to saxophone, if I'm not careful I might use too much of a clarinet embouchure. It will basically function, but not in an optimal way. I don't have that problem as much switching from clarinet to flute, since the embouchures are different enough that a too-clarinetty embouchure just won't work at all. I'll have to fall back on my actual flute training.

I do think that your idea of making students start on clarinet in order to get a better instrumentation balance for your band is a clever bit of band directing. But (setting the realities of band directing aside) if a student's goal is to play the saxophone, then the quickest, best way to get there is to play saxophone.
 
Your point is well taken Bret, and I defer to your expertise in this matter. Typing "woodwind doubling" into Google turns up numerous articles by you on this topic that are an interesting read and show how much time and study you have invested in the subject.

At this point I really wish you had asked "what is the best woodwind to start on to become a doubler?" in your survey. I could have cited that as my "source" had the majority said the clarinet. :)

Searching about I found your article and interview with a common friend, Ryan Lillywhite at Cannonball. I gave him a crash course in saxophone repair techniques when I worked at Summerhays in Orem, and we have kept in touch ever since. He is a nice guy and one heck of a jazz tenor player.
 
An aside:

For these "rhythm problems", I blame not the student but rather the education system that has taught them. Too few school programs pay attention to what I lovingly call "commercial music", the music that really gets played for modern entertainment. In the real world, there is a lot more than Sousa, the classic and romantic periods of art music, and the "phony" arrangements that I always lump together as a piece titled something like "Blazes of Glory concert overture".

The music teachers (and private teachers) passing their skills on to the next generation need to broaden their horizons past their education, and wake up to the differences between classical music, pop music (including the swing genre), C&W, skaw and other modern styles, and even classic and modern "rock" (which shares more with classical that some might think).

Was trying to pack a strong contribution to this thread, but, before I managed to express it in a decent English, SOTSDO expressed it perfectly.

Is the aim of a teacher to divert aspiring sax players to clarinet simply because the quota of saxists in the school band is already reached, with the risk of discouraging most of them with a splendid instrument but so far away from any kind of music most of these guys listen to and like ?
Even if the sax is now a rarity in contemporary pop, it's still very much alive in the soul and funk areas and still conveys a "modern" image which will help youngsters playing music instead of football (even if both are compatible).
J
 
The teacher with a band...

...faces a different problem than does the "one-on-one" private pedagogue. While it is easy to fault him/her for decisions like vectoring people to one instrument or another, it really is one of the fundamental function of the "band director".

The private teacher is teaching a student how to read music and play music on a specific instrument. The band director is given the mandate to take a bunch of budding musicians and teach them how to perform.

The private teacher usually is under no obligation to produce a performer - indeed, many private teachers recoil from this. (Classically oriented teachers tend to push recitals more than anyone else in the craft.)

The band director's job is about three-quarters about performance - I've heard of very few band instructors who never give a concert. In effect, he is "hiring" his musicians as much as he is teaching them.

Hence the decisions to divert people from one slot to another. Our warm close personal friend Kenny G may have spawned a desire to perform on the soprano saxophone (and, can anyone truthfully tell me that this trend was anticipated?), but a band full of sopranos is but one step removed from a grade school ensemble made up exclusively of Flutophones®.

This issue relates directly to the "real world", whether students and parents like it or not. Everyone would love to be a musician or an artist or the operator of their own restaurant. However, if all we produced from our educational system were musicians, artists or restauranteurs, society as a whole would be in pretty sorry shape.

If everyone wants to play the tenor saxophone (and I cannot think of a good reason why this should be, but no matter), they should be free to play the tenor saxophone. They can all blow Body and Soul until they are blue in the face. However, the right to make that decision does not trump the decisions that have to be made by someone who is seeking to fill out an ensemble of whatever type.

(One wonders what a director would do when confronted by someone wanting to play sarrusophone in their concert band. I have a trombone playing friend who taught at one of of Lutheran high schools who was confronted with just this sort of decision. His small concert band (private school and all) included in its instrumentation a viola. Mind you, the instrument could scarcely be heard over the winds and brass, and he had all sorts of hoops to jump through to come up with parts for the "horn", including transposition of suitable parts into the (for most non-violists) alto clef. (I think that he used alto clarinet parts for the source - thereby proving that the alto clarinet is good for something.))

When in high school, I would have loved to play in the so-called "jazz band". I had the baritone skills at that point, certainly moreso that our high school band's baritone player, but he played baritone in the school's concert band (having been switched over from the alto when it was shown that he wasn't up to fast moving alto music) and so he had first call on the position. (Besides, at that point, I didn't own a baritone and the school only had one of them.)

Was I a better player? Most certainly - the guy we had on baritone in the band was a slacker and a n'er-do-well who barely made it out of school, and he treated music in the same fashion. Would have it been better for me to hold that slot in the jazz band? Probably, since I've played music every since I first picked up a horn, and he's not touched one (as far as what can be told from his comments at reunions with other band members) since his abortive college career.

But, did the director make the right decision? He probably did, for I would not have had regular access to the horn as did Drew (the player in question), and the director was making decisions based upon the already "recognized" saxophone talent in the group.

I have a good friend who was an outstanding clarinet player at that time, who also played lead alto in the jazz band group. He was so head and shoulders above the rest of the available alto talent (and better than me as well) that he was a shoe-in for his chair.

Prior to our four years, the concert band had a bassoonist who occupied the lead tenor slot, much to the dismay of the tenor players in the concert band. However, he too had worked up his saxophone skills on his own, had his own horn and was clearly the best choice for the position.

It's unfortunate that we can't all be what we want to be, but as long as decisions on instrumental music have to be made, there are going to be kids who are disappointed that they can't play soprano saxophone (to use one common example from the past twenty years). Supply and demand (or, more appropriately, demand and supply) applies to more than the general job market.
 
Thanks SOTSDO for understanding the reality of a school music teacher's challenge. My understanding of the primary role of a band director is to provide every student in his charge the best possible musical experience, AND to help to remove any barriers that would prevent any student from realizing his potential in music.

The truth of the matter is most students who sign up for band don't really know what they want to play because they have little or no exposure to the band instruments. Most of the beginning musicians pick the trumpet, saxophone, or durms (sic) because they think they look cool.

Some notable exceptions are those students who have an older sibling or a parent who played a particular instrument who are inclined to follow in their footsteps. Most of the other students are really quite flexible. I found in 32 years of public school teaching that every student likes the one they experience success on. Good teachers are always on the lookout for:

- the bright flute player who is bored because the flute is so "easy" to get to try the oboe

- the "odd and introverted" bright lanky clarinet player to encourage to try the bassoon

- the bright clarinet player who just can't get the firm embouchure to try bass clarinet

- the enthusiastic trumpet student who just can't buzz high to try the baritone or trombone

The key is not only to help the ensemble to have good balance, but also to discover the instrument that each particular student has the best opportunity to excel on.

I had one Mormon family with 8 bright and musically talented children who signed each up for band as they came of age. Mom and dad would come in at registration and ask me "what instruments do you need this year?" and they would choose one of those for their child to play. Every one became a first chair player on whatever they picked---a band teacher's dream come true.
 
Fair enough. Before I made my last remark, I should have remembered that your High School system in the US at least provides opportunity for students to play an instrument and play it within various schol bands. This is almost totally unknown over here (Switzerland, France, southern Europe), where the only musical activity at the secondary and high school level is one hour per week at best with a bored prof trying to fascinate his bored students with a lecture on the structure of the fugue.
J
 
(...) the only musical activity at the secondary and high school level is one hour per week at best with a bored prof trying to fascinate his bored students with a lecture on the structure of the fugue.
Thanks Jacques for reminding me of those hours of torment and coma. It was indeed the fugue paper that gave me the rest re baroque and everything associated with it. Still suffering from occasional yawn attacks whenever I hear a harpsichord plucking away...
 
Thanks Jacques for reminding me of those hours of torment and coma. It was indeed the fugue paper that gave me the rest re baroque and everything associated with it. Still suffering from occasional yawn attacks whenever I hear a harpsichord plucking away...

Baroque may actually swing and rock if adequately played (you also can use a clavinet as a substitute to the harpsichord and ask Stevie Wonder to join in).
 
Baroque may actually swing and rock if adequately played (you also can use a clavinet as a substitute to the harpsichord and ask Stevie Wonder to join in).
If you actually play it, sure. (I still believe that Bach invented Swing, in a rather baroque way, but still).
But back then we were confronted with a blackboard and some chalk sketches about repeats, evolving variations and whatnot. So much for Illustrate Your Topic or How To Keep Your Audience Interested.
Oh yes, in order to obtain sufficient grades, boys were expected to join the (extracurricular) choir. Meh.
 
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