Top 81 Clarinet Quotes & Sayings

Ted Lewis could make the clarinet talk. What it said was put me back in the case!

The clarinet has always been my baby. I just didn't know that for a while.

When I first met Benny Goodman he wouldn't talk about anything but clarinets, mouthpieces, reeds, etc. When I tried to change the subject, he said 'But that's what we have in common. We both play clarinet.' I said, 'No, Benny, that's where we're different. You play clarinet, I play music.'

[I wanted] to play the clarinet well so I could be in Duke Ellington's band, but that's now impossible.

Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.

Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.

I look at my clarinet sometimes and I think, I wonder what's going to come out of there tonight? You never know.

I was focusing on sax while at Berklee, but then I started to play Brazilian choro and Colombian music. I was doing more folkloric stuff on the clarinet because it works better. Finally, I realized I was working more on the clarinet than the saxophone, and I started to feel more comfortable on it.

It's important to recognize how special New Orleans is. You play the snare drum or the clarinet in any other city, and you'd be considered a nerd, but here, there's no shame in it, and it's absolutely valued.

As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted.

We still have to overcome the notion that a clarinet squeaks. People need to remember what a beautiful instrument it is, including in popular music.

Then when I was in grammar school I played the clarinet, and then, after clarinet I played the flute in college orchestra - besides singing in the college chorus and things like that.

I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If we'd had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.

You can sweat by not practicing or you can pick up your clarinet. There's good sweat and there's bad sweat.

I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!

The oboe sounds like a clarinet with a cold.

I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If wed had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.

I would pass this music store on the way to school, and there was a clarinet in the window, a second-hand one. And I kept asking my parents to buy it, and eventually they did. I still have it now.

I started playing drums at three, then piano at five, then clarinet. But it wasn't till I picked up a saxophone aged 13 that I really got serious about music.

The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most popular instrument in the world; it is the one everybody loves.

I started off playing the clarinet, after I was inspired by listening to my dad's Benny Goodman records.

I find that classical music helps put me in a place that is very calming and allows me to express emotion through my body. I played clarinet as a child, so I guess I have a bit of a musical ear.

Some old people, they remember that they used to play clarinet, and they remember the squeaks of the clarinet. But I don't play like that.

I was already playing the clarinet and the piano. My father's a piano player. But I wanted to play in a funk band, and the clarinet wasn't fit. So you was "Hey, man, can I sit in?" They're like, "No, man." So I started fooling around with the bass.

The clarinet chose me more than I chose the clarinet.

We decided to do some of Merle's things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano.

Now, I only play very occasionally, and in fact, more piano than clarinet or sax.

I'm helping people think the clarinet is cool.

I played clarinet for many years.

Yeah, musically, from a production standpoint my favorite is probably 'Have a Little Talk with Jesus'. Just the way it turned out production wise with the clarinet and everything, it sounds like something from a movie.

No birdcall is the musical equal of a clarinet blown with panache.

I play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano.

Listening to Benny [Goodman] talk about the clarinet was like listening to a surgeon get hung up on a scalpel.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

My mother was an opera singer and my father is a clarinet player, composer and conductor.

I spend a lot of time idly. I go to sporting events, play my clarinet. I practise. But if you work every day, a certain amount on a steady basis, the work accumulates.

Actually, when I was very young, first starting to play, I think I probably listened more to clarinet players than to saxophones.

I've played the clarinet since I was a kid. I love to sing, but I'm not much of a singer. Let's say that when it comes to vocalizing, I have the soul of Billy Bigelow but the voice of Jigger Cragan.

It (the double-clarinet in India) was primarily used for snake charming, since the snake would do almost anything to get the Indians to stop playing it.

If I live near a dancer or a painter, or a clarinet player comes from my neighborhood, I take some pleasure in that, feel a little more as if I come from someplace in particular.

I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.

The saxophone was created to mimic the human voice and I think that's why I gravitated toward the saxophone eventually. I'd loved the clarinet, but there's something about the saxophone that just grabs you.

Members of your family might say they are working hard all day long, while you are off at school or clarinet lessons, but the only way to know this for sure is to follow them at a discreet distance.

Clarinet is often associated with certain genres, like swing or folk music. I combine the old and new, using the clarinet as an expressive tool and not in one genre. I'm just happy that people are drawn to what I do.

It couldn't have been more nerdy or bizarre, playing the clarinet. But I studied classical clarinet, went to the high school for music and art in New York City, and then found the guitar and the mandolin after it.

The ability to play the clarinet is the ability to overcome the imperfections of the instrument. There's no such thing as a perfect clarinet, never was and never will be.

I'm working really hard to get the clarinet out of that hole, that Benny Goodman thing.

Clarinet is an incredible instrument. It's a great, expressive instrument.

I've played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I'm mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute... Just not well.

I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.

The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity.

There are two instruments worse than a clarinet - two clarinets.

When I got into high school, clarinet was not really in fashion. Everybody had electric bands.

The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.

So the ideology was that: use sounds as instruments, as sounds on tape, without the causality. It was no longer a clarinet or a spring or a piano, but a sound with a form, a development, a life of its own.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I remember being a kid and wanting to be so many different things. There was even one point that I wanted to be a clarinet player, and I had never even touched a clarinet, in my life. And then, I wanted to be a chef. And then, I wanted to be a vet. It's hard to decide who you're gonna be, as weird as that sounds, because we all do it.

When I play the clarinet, I am 100 percent myself. It is as if it is part of my body. I can play whatever I think. Let me just read a melody and make it as sweet as I can.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.