Transposing Tips for Beginning Clarinet Players
Hi! My name is Leslie Bernick and I’m speaking on behalf of expertvillage.com. Today I’m going to talk about how the clarinet is a transposing instrument. The clarinet is actually built in the key of B flat. Now when you play a piano for instance and a flute they are built in the key of C. So if you go to play the same note on the clarinet or piano they are not going to match. So a clarinet can simply play along with the piano reading the same music. Either the clarinet needs to know how to transpose or you have the music already transposed for you, which generally would be the case. Just to explain a little bit about this again if a flute or piano, I guess we should use piano as an example, if a piano plays a B flat again the clarinet is in the key of B flat so the clarinet to match the piano would actually end up playing a C. Because the clarinet is a whole step lower than a piano, so it needs to transpose up a whole step. So again to play a C on a clarinet… is actually a B flat concert.