Book Review: The Clarinet and Saxophone Book

A Book You Can Buy From Me

Book Title: The Clarinet and Saxophone Book


Author: Melvin Berger

Date: 1975

Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard

ISBN: 0-688-51708-0

Length: 126 pages

Illustrations: black and white photos

Quote: "The clarino was the high-pitched trumpet of that time. [Johann Christoph Denner] chose the name [;clarinet] because the new instrument sounded so much like the trumpet."

This is a first book about the single-reed musical instrument family, written for middle school readers. There's a chapter about the history of the clarinet and saxophone, and subsequent chapters about how they're built, how they make sounds, how reeds are grown and shaped, the music that's been written for these instruments, people who were playing them professionally in the 1970s, public school bands that featured these instruments in the 1970s, and what other people were doing with these instruments in the 1970s.

Obviously the section about "The Clarinet, the Saxophone, and You" is as out of date as the little girl's band uniform in the cover picture. Otherwise, this is still a good book of information about instruments that were developed for use in symphony orchestras only after much of the great orchestra music had been written, and have yet to find their place in folk and popular music. Clarinets were definitely part of the "German Band" fad, saxophones were part of early swing and jazz, and both instruments adapt well to modern performances of traditional tunes...but so far no musical tradition really features the clarinet or saxophone in the way orchestras feature violins, marching bands feature trumpets, or rock bands feature guitars.

It might be argued that both classical and popular music would be better off without the single-reed instruments, since playing these instruments regularly tends to push the upper teeth out at the same time that it erodes the enamel on the lower front teeth. Perhaps the challenge for musicians in the twenty-first century will be to design new woodwind instruments that preserve those nice mellow woody tones while vibrating the reed against something other than the player's teeth. And I say the sooner the better.

The Clarinet and Saxophone Book is recommended to anyone interested in learning to play the clarinet and saxophone as they are, or in designing ecologically sound, human-breath-powered improvements on these instruments.