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Producing the Tone
To produce a tone on the clarinet you do not just put the
mouthpiece between your lips and blow. There is a little more
to it than that, but it is all simple to do.
First, moisten the reed thoroughly. Then draw your lower
lip back over the lower teeth to keep the teeth away from the
reed. Put the mouthpiece between your lips and put the upper
teeth firmly on the upper part of the mouthpiece about one-
quarter of an inch from the end or point. You must hold the
mouthpiece firmly but without too much pressure, for this
would keep the reed from vibrating.
Close the corners of your mouth tightly so no air can escape
through them. Then blow gently into the mouthpiece. The
first few tfys may sound something like the trained seals in the
circus, but that is only to be expected. Everybody goes through
that stage; but everybody soon gets over it. As with other wind
instruments, playing long-sustained tones is the best way to
strengthen your lips and improve the quality of your tone.
Making the Notes
Fig. 85 shows the section of the clarinet that has all the keys
and holes with which the notes are made with the fingers.
It also shows all the notes except those from F# in the first
space of the staff to Bb on the third line of the staff and the
very highest notes. These are shown in Fig. 86 and Fig. 87.
Notice that there are notes at both the top and bottom of
Fig. 85. The notes at the top of the column are different from
those at the bottom; but both notes in each column are pro-
duced by the same fingering.
In Fig. 85 the holes of the clarinet are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 and 6. The keys—and there are quite a lot of them—are desig-
nated by the letters A, B, C and so on down the alphabet to P.
Where these numbers and letters appear in the columns it
means that the hole indicated is to be covered and the key
indicated is to be pressed down.
For some of the notes you will see that there are two or more
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