I dunno, but it seems to me, no one really samples Clarinets. I'll admit, people don't really play them as much as before, and it's hard to find Clarinet, Woodwinds in general, solos, but given all that, it just seems ignored.


Maybe I'm wrong, just haven't heard many, but what's the deal?
Any thoughts?

You hear clarinet in Classical/Romantic period concerti and chamber music, and you hear a little clarinet in Duke arrangements and in the discography of a few jazz players, but it didn't really stay caught on in the era that receives the most sampling, the 60s/70s. By that time, horn arranging in pop genres was simplified to something like two trumpets, two bones, two saxes, and even down to one of each.


The reason they aren't sampled much is because few producers really seriously listen to the eras of music in which they were more prominent...and I may incite flames by asserting that not that many producers are REALLY interested in getting *fresh* sounds off wax, things like passages from a Benny Goodman chart.

<---Okay Jima (© Bridgetown)

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Cause I was listening to him when I thought about this.

Hey, I agree with you about most of this, the phasing out of the clarinet from music this century is sad.
I used to play Clarinet, and Bass Clarinet, back in school and I noticed that they were few parts written for it anymore, in contemporary music.
They were generally just another instrument, transposed over for the clairnet.
Most Bass Clarinet parts were written for the Bassoon.

I dunno, I always felt it deserved a better place in hip hop, it's a fun instrument, very easy to play, very enjoyable to listen to in the right context.

In fact, it might be worth digging into some of his cuts to see what might come out sample-wise...hmmm....*goes to dig into mama-duke's stash*

<---Okay Jima (© Bridgetown)

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Hi i'm new so don't beat me up to bad and even though i play guitar i always strugle wit the fact that certain instruments seldom if ever show up in contemperary music but i think the answer is to just write some music and put the instruments in the songs like with the rafael sadiq song i forget the name but the first verse go's ( i'm comming home to you wear something see thru) sorry....where he incorperates tuba which i think was brilliant. I 've always been a fan of this instrument and feel the same not hearing it more so i guess i'll have to practice what i preach and write a song with one in it... yo it really is a funky instrument.

I mean, I remember me and my bud, who played the bass and I was playing the bass clarinet, would get stuck with these bullshit parts in some songs, like the same single notes in 4/4 time, changing every 4 bars, and it was pretty boring. I mean, we were playing bass parts.

So, we decided to start to add some swing to it, we'd race each other while still trying to keep up with the rest of the band (and in time), change the intensity and enunciation of certain bars, shit like that, but it made the pace of the track, which those parts generally set, entirely different. You could hear it in others playing the real parts



I am just trying to get people thinking about this instrument, because I don't know where it could fit in sampled music, be it hip hop or anything else. That and I find it hard to find it on records; I mean, they obviously there, but as soon as the Sax was created, it became THAT woodwind, specially the Alto Sax. They (Clarinets) add something tangible to a cut, when implemented correctly, that most people wouldn't even realize was missing.

Take a listen to Don Byron (ESPECIALLY Nu Blaxploitation), Eric Dolphy, and Marcus Miller (primarily a bassist, but he uses bass clarinet in some modern jazz and funk contexts) for what this instrument can really do. I love the sound, personally.

Drive slow homie....

<---Okay Jima (© Bridgetown)

http://www.myspace.com/musicphilosophy
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