Music Fundamentals
Clarinets and Saxophones

Single reed instruments have a flat piece of wood tied down on the tapered end of a tube. When the player blows on this reed, it vibrates, and that vibration is resonated in the tube. Clarinets are made of a cylindrical tube of wood. When clarinet is used without qualification, it means the soprano, or higher, member of the family, but there are other sizes as well.

The bass clarinet is pitched an octave below the soprano clarinet.

The other prominent member of the single reed family is the saxophone. Saxophones are not normally part of the symphony orchestra, and they are often used in the context of jazz or to suggest a nightclub or similar setting. Unlike clarinets, saxophones are made of metal and the tube (the "bore") is shaped more like a cone than a cylinder. Saxophones also come in various sizes.

This one is an alto saxophone:


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