Hi please fogive my ignorance, but i was wondering about Clarinet and Saxophone duets. I started playing the Alto sax abouy 2 years ago, my wife started playing the Clarinet about 1 year ago, i know one is a Eb and one is a Bb.

Is there no way these can duet?

If not, could somebody explain in simple terms why not.

Thanks
Goofs

Hi there. It is possible for them to duet but you would need the music to be in the correct key. I know in the Making the Grade series there is a duet book (Making the grade together) for sax and clarinet which has some well known and reasonably simple tunes for you to play together.

You wouldn't be able to use music in the same key because when the sax plays a C it sounds an Eb and when the clarinet plays a C it sounds a Bb

Hope this helps and good luck. I wish my husband would start practicing his trombone again so we could duet

This helps a lot, i'm really pleased that we can actually duet, my wife is very happy as well, she's itching to play along with somebody.

Thanks Again
Goofs

There are some series of books which contain the same pieces (most if not all), but in different keys. For instance, there's a book published by Chester Music called The Best xxxxxx Duet Book Ever and they publish for clarinet, flute, alto sax... I've got the clarinet version and I've played a duet out of it with a flautist who had the flute version. Another series I know of is called Session Time published by Boosey & Hawkes, and I think it can be used in a similar way (although I'm not sure). Mostly the pieces are easier in the "The Best... Duet" book I think.

Alternatively it's not too difficult to transpose clarinet music for alto sax, or vice versa - I used to do it when I was only around G2 theory because I wanted to play vocal music on my clarinet and still have piano accompaniment. It's just time-consuming to write it all out, that's all.

Have fun!

I know nothing about woodwind so I don't understand... if a C sounds as an Eb or a Bb on certain instruments, why didn't they just rename the keys/holes/fingering combinations or physically alter the design to sound the notes as written to avoid all this palaver?

Many reasons : one major one is to save memorising a load of different fingerings. Clarinettists can be expected to play instruments in Bb, A and Eb, knowing that the fingering for, say, written B is the same on all three instruments makes my life so much easier.

It still strikes me that over all this time, no one has ever thought to attempt some sort of rationalisation so the written note is the note that's sounding, whether this could be accomplished by a slight adjustment to the design, I don't know.

I find it quite astounding that no great composer has said "Actually, it's a right royal pain in the rectum having to transpose stuff for the woodwind section", and hence pushed through some sort of tweaks to design!

I'm sure I'm missing something hugely fundamental here...

With the clarinet, having two instruments in Bb and A is great, because it means that it's rare that I have to play in keys with a load of sharps or flats.

If there was just one clarinet in C in existence, I'd have to play in awkward keys a lot more often.

*wonders if flautists have maybe missed a trick here*

Quite possibly Flossie, quite possibly!

Of course, some of us are mad enough to just keep learning new sets of fingerings, thus doing exactly what Solari suggests.

I'm up to 5 now. The handy thing with this is, that every time I learn a new fingering set, thats another key I can transpose into at sight...

Or maybe I too am missing a trick!