“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” ― Confucius
The Clarinet, Flute and Saxophone belong to the woodwind family of instruments. You can hear woodwind instruments featured in all types of music, from classical and orchestral pieces to jazz to blues to rock & roll and nearly everything in between.
For younger children, playing the recorder can be a perfect introduction to playing any instrument. A sound is produced instantly and the smaller holes and size of the recorder make it easier for little fingers to manage. My First Notes introduction to music classes feature a combination of recorder, piano and general musicianship.
One of the advantages of learning a woodwind instrument is that once you can play one, adding another to your list is fairly straight forward - fingerings are the same or similar and sound production on the clarinet and saxophone are the same.
Clarinets and Saxophones are known as single-reed instruments, because they use one reed, attached to the mouthpiece by a ligature, to produce sound.
The clarinet is played by holding it upright, blowing through the mouthpiece and reed, and using the hands to change the pitches by opening and closing the keys with your fingers.
There are four main types of saxophone (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) The alto and tenor are the most popular types and children generally start on the alto saxophone because of its smaller size. Once you can play one saxophone, you can easily learn to play all of them as the fingering is the same. The saxophone is played in the same manner as the clarinet.
Flutes are played by holding the instrument sideways with both hands and blowing across a hole in the mouthpiece, much like blowing across the top of a bottle. The player’s fingers open and close the keys, which changes the pitch.
“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” ― Johnny Depp
