Bass clarinet

bass member of the clarinet family

The bass clarinet is a type of clarinet, and is a woodwind single-reed instrument. The earliest record of the bass clarinet is called a 'bass tube' invented in Paris in 1772 by G. Lott. It usually has a B-flat pitch. It plays one octave lower in pitch than the normal clarinet. This means that when a bass clarinet makes a note, the note that actually sounds is an octave and a whole tone lower.[1] There are some bass clarinets that have an A or C pitch as well as E flat, but these are not common.

Bass clarinet
2 historical short bass clarinets, right instrument made 1848 by Adolphe Sax from boxwood
Hornbostel–Sachs classification422.211.2
(Single clarinets with cylindrical bore, with fingerholes)
Playing range

References change

  1. "Clarinet", The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments 3 volumes, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1984.

Other websites change

  Media related to Bass clarinets at Wikimedia Commons