Welcome to the tonebase Clarinet Community!

Hello,

I’m Nora from Germany, I live in a region where we have famous white wine and dark sourdough bread and the well known german clarinet manufactories are very close. 

I‘m an amateur clarinetist and have been taken lessons for 8 years now. I started making music as a child with violin and flute and after school I got a 20 years break for university and establish myself as a clinical psychologist. 
 

 Normally I get completely involved into something so this platform is perfect for me. I have a lovely teacher but sometimes we don‘t have enough time for all my questions and I think we went on too fast so my fundamentals are not always very precise.

I play clarinet in an amateur orchestra where we prepare Brahms hungarian dances and Dvorak 8th right now for our autumn concert and besides that I also play in a clarinet choir with the bass clarinet. There we do some kind of world music and klezmer stuff which I like very much. 

Hi

I'm from Scotland, where a good fish supper is hard to beat.

I was a clarinet returner after a break of 33 years, but I pushed on with it and after retiring early I've just completed a BMus honours degree.  Performance was really just a small part of the programme and I'm hoping to keep improving my technique.  Currently working on Terzetto by Marcel Poor alongside two of my ex student friends, but I'm active in clarinet choir and community orchestra ensembles where I also play bass clarinet.

And (whisper it) I'm also a long time accordion player.

Hi, I'm Ed Maxwell.  I'm an amateur clarinetist, spending winters in Naples FL and summers in western MA.  I started playing clarinet 6 years ago at age 75. The first several decades of my life I played guitar, banjo and double bass. The double bass got very difficult to lug around so I decided to change to an instrument at the other end of the size spectrum, avoiding flute.  I play in a "big band", all winds, about 50 members.  But, lo and behold, they created a swing group within the band and needed a bassist.  So I rehearse 2 hours with the band playing clarinet and 1 1/2 hours with the swing band playing bass (electric upright--easier to carry), and switch from treble clef to bass clef.  If that doesn't keep my brain going during my 80's, nothing will.

I just joined Tonebase a couple of days ago and had my first lesson on reeds and learned so much that I'm now a Tonebase addict.  What a great program.  If the lessons are half as good as the reed lesson, it's definitely worth the money.

Wonderful story!  The saxophone fingerings are closer to the Boehm system clarinet (sax is like the clarion register of a Boehm clarinet) if you care to switch.  Otherwise, it is great to see that you are trying so many types of music.  I had a 20 year break when my family was young, but I and many others have rehabilitated ourselves after such a hiatus, and I am sure you can too.

Hi everyone,

I'm from New Zealand, it's a bit of a culinary melting pot...I love food so much I don't think I can narrow it down!

I studied clarinet at university 20 years ago, I teach clarinet and saxophone for a living. I play in a local chamber orchestra - Resonance Ensemble, and play alto sax in an all female big band - All Girl Big Band.

At the moment I'm busy working on rep for all of the end of year concerts coming up. Resonance has a Romeo and Juliet theme so I get to play my favourite Prokofiev and some beautiful Tchaikovsky among other things. I'm also preparing for an annual big band festival which is three days of many bands and much fun.

I have a very busy 6 year old and between him and work I have very little time for anything else, tonebase has been an amazing resource that I can dip into when it works for me. I'm loving the repertoire group. I'm working on anything articulation and breaking old patterns of perfectionism and anxiety. It's lovely and supportive.

• I’m a 4th generation Japanese-American born and raised in Hawaii. My favorite food is sushi! I think Hawaii has the best sushi outside of Japan. I’m now in Southern California, in Manhattan Beach. We have many good sushi restaurants in our city and in the Greater Los Angeles area. 
• I am practicing excerpts for an upcoming audition. After almost 2 years of treatment and surgeries, I need to get back into shape.. Practicing for an audition is a good way to get some intense practicing in, even if I don’t actually take the audition.  
• I hope to improve my clarinet playing with help from this online community. I like the combination of live and on-demand instructional material the Tonebase offers.  I was not a music major and retired from my non-music day job 3 1/2 years ago, so I hope to use my retirement to spend more time on my clarinet

Hello, I am Tapani from Turku, Finland. 
I am a part-time vegan, but my all time favourite foods are local small fish like baltic herring or perch, fried, grilled or smoked. 
I have been playing saxophone for over 40 years, with some long pauses. I started the clarinet a few years ago because I play in an orchestra that plays music from the 1920’s and 30’s (pre-swing kinda rhythm music) and clarinet was used a lot in that stuff. 
My initial idea (failing) was just to play clarinet with a saxophone embouchure, learn the fingerings and become an instant success. 
after a few years of sounding awful I finally realized that the clarinet needs a totally different approach.. I have never taken lessons for the sax and thought that the clarinet would work out the same way, trial and error. After a few years of mostly errors I started searching the internet. Finding Tonebase was a real gamechanger, the uber-detailed  lessons on embouchure and register change have already made a big difference on my sound. I have also started to like the clarinet more and more, even so that nowadays I practice only the clarinet. My weekly practice time is 2 hours max, so development is not very rapid, but I notice some changes…

i just started here a few weeks ago, had some trouble with the payment, also my emails were not answered, so much so that I almost left. Luckily it all worked out fine in the end, so here I am! I really liked the low register challenge, by the way.
And my favorite clarinet player is Artie Shaw. 

Hi everyone! I played clarinet from 1991 - 2003 (7th grade until I started grad school). A few months ago, I was thinking about starting a hobby and decided to pick the clarinet back up!

I'm from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (where I took clarinet lessons for several years), and then moved around a bit before settling in New York City where I've lived since 2012. My favorite food from anywhere is anything vegan that tastes healthy and not like it is trying to taste like meat or dairy! 

I've been taking lessons again since May 2025 and I've been working on Victor's Tale from the movie The Terminal. It's kicking my butt, but I am definitely improving my skills. I hope to pick up any helpful tips and tricks from this community.