Real recorded clarinet notes on a piano keyboard: click, touch or type, and the clarinet answers. The clarinet is the woodwind with the widest range of colours, from a dark low register (the chalumeau) to a bright, singing top. Free, nothing to install, with note names, your computer keyboard and a metronome.
Recorded notes, the clarinet's own range, and the keyboard you already know.
Every key plays a recording of a real clarinet: 11 notes from D3 to F#6, each key pitched from the nearest one. The clarinet is single-reed woodwind instrument: a single cane reed fixed to the mouthpiece vibrates against it; the cylindrical tube gives the low register its dark, hollow tone.
The keyboard covers D3 to F6, where the recordings sound natural; a real clarinet plays D3 to about B-flat 6 (B-flat clarinet, sounding). Use the octave arrows to move, and More keys on a wide screen.
Try the low notes around D and F below middle C: that dark, woody sound is the clarinet's signature. The note sounds as long as you hold the key, like a bow or a breath.
Famous clarinet music: Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A; Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (the opening glissando); Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf: the cat; Klezmer and New Orleans jazz. Pick out a melody by ear on the keyboard above.
Click or touch a key. The first note starts the sound; the clarinet recordings for the visible keys load in the background.
A S D F G H J K L play the white keys, W E T Y U O P the black ones (Q and Z on AZERTY). Z and X move an octave (W and X on AZERTY).
Set Labels to C D E or Do Ré Mi to see every note name, or to Keys to see your own keyboard letters.
Turn on the metronome and play along. Then try the same melody on the saxophone or the piano.
| Type | Sampled clarinet, playable on this page, free |
|---|---|
| Family | Woodwinds - single-reed woodwind instrument |
| Samples | 11 recorded notes, D3 to F#6 |
| Range here | D3 to F6 |
| Real range | D3 to about B-flat 6 (B-flat clarinet, sounding) |
| Notation | Treble clef, written a whole step higher than it sounds |
| Controls | Labels, octave arrows, More keys and a metronome |
| Computer keyboard | Ableton layout by key position - QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ |
| Credits | Clarinet samples from tonejs-instruments by Nicholas Brosowsky, CC BY 3.0 - see credits |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari |
Most online instruments are a synthesiser with a picture on top. This one plays recordings of a real clarinet, so the attack, the tone and the decay are the instrument's own. The clarinet is the woodwind with the widest range of colours, from a dark low register (the chalumeau) to a bright, singing top.
The clarinet was developed in Nuremberg around 1700, usually credited to Johann Christoph Denner. Mozart was one of the first to fall for it, writing his Clarinet Concerto and Quintet for his friend Anton Stadler.
A real clarinet is written in treble clef, written a whole step higher than it sounds. The keyboard here plays the sounding notes, so a melody you find by ear is the melody you hear. To go further, the free sheet music and chord pages work with any instrument you can read music on.
Yes. Every key plays a recording of a real clarinet - 11 notes from D3 to F#6 - pitched to the nearest key. The recordings come from the tonejs-instruments library, under a Creative Commons licence.
Yes. The middle row of letters plays the white keys and the row above it the black keys, by key position, so it works the same on QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards. Set Labels to Keys to see the letters on the keys.
A clarinet plays D3 to about B-flat 6 (B-flat clarinet, sounding). On this page the keyboard goes from D3 to F6, where the recordings sound natural.
Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A; Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (the opening glissando); Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf: the cat; Klezmer and New Orleans jazz.
Yes, free with no account and nothing to install. It runs in any modern browser, on a computer, a tablet or a phone.
The clarinet on this page is free, with no account. GOONS Studio adds a sampled piano, drum machines, synths and a sequencer in the browser - free for 7 days, no card required.
Free on this page, no account. Play the saxophone →