Why The Bass Clarinet Works For Me...

The bass clarinet works for me for a variety of reasons, and I mean that is in the most sincere way possible.  This is not a scholastic essay about how I feel the instrument matches my voice and I get to play loud.  That's what clarinet players say when they get to play it once in an orchestra.  I'm talking about why the bass clarinet has worked for me for the last 20 years.

The bass clarinet works for me because it really is the instrument I was meant to play.  The picture of my clarinet family collection does not do justice to the fact that my primary instrument is the bass.  I should probably start putting the bass in the middle of the picture for the effect, but that's not the most important part.  I'm just better at that than I would be at anything else.

The bass clarinet works for me because it is not an instrument for chumps who can't play.  You may have thought that about certain people you saw who played bass clarinet, but that's not their fault.  They were put on the wrong instrument by their band director, and there isn't much people can do about that once someone says "here, play this".

If you ever thought that the bass clarinet was the lazy clarinet, you should consider that I have sat next to hundreds of bass clarinetists in my day, and I've never met a lazy one.  I've scared bass clarinetists, disenfranchised bass clarinetists, sad bass clarinetists, nervous bass clarinetists, undereducated bass clarinetists, depressed bass clarinetists, but I have never met a lazy bass clarinetist.  What I find most interesting is that that opinion sort of carries on into adulthood and I still get wary looks from clarinet players...it's just a big clarinet.  Bass does not mean stupid.  (PS--I could play your clarinet part at pitch on my bass ;) :p )

The bass clarinet works for me because it took me everywhere I wanted to go.  I have been approached by people in nearly every venue I've played in and had someone tell me that I sound good or I get around the horn well.  The instrument speaks for me primarily because I don't like talking to strangers.  I'm not the guy with a million contacts in my phone, and most of the time, I just want to keep playing.  I talk to my closest friends freely, but regular people....they hear the bass, and that does most of the talking.

The bass clarinet works for me because it can play anything.  It has the biggest range in the wind family, and it has the most character.  I can play pop articulations that only singers can do, and I could cover everything from Barry White to Mariah Carey if I wanted to.  It does everything, but most people don't think it does because they were never told what was possible.

The bass clarinet works for me because it put me in the path of all the people I needed to meet.  From my wife to my best friend, the bass clarinet planted me directly in their path.  To some people it's something they played one semester in college like it was sort of a prank (someone actually told me that once) but it does much more than play pranks.

The bass clarinet has a stigma that lasts to this day, and a bass clarinetist often has very little to cling to.  That sucks because you can't post on Instagram the tickets you got to go see someone play the Mozart.  You just can't.  You don't hear it anywhere, and there are even recordings where you should hear it and you can't.

The bass clarinet works for me because it feels more than it gives.  You can't get totally famous playing the bass clarinet, but you are going to feel more when you play it.  If you're a young bass clarinetist, you're probably thinking that it will only take you so far because, well, that's just how it is.

I bet the bass clarinet works for you, too, but you might not have found that out yet :)

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