DD (now age 10) took up the clarinet, 3 years ago, currently grade 2, working toward grade 3. She is in her primary school orchestra and local town wind band; so she has had plenty of opportunity to play. Why did she choose a clarinet? She tried a 30 year old clarinet that had been sitting in a cupboard for about 25 years and fell in love with the sound. She is still playing that clarinet, maybe sometime I'll get around to buying her a new one, but it seems to suit her well; also teacher seems happy with the instrument. Recently, she was interested in an oboe, lovely to look at and a lovely sound, but when I saw how much the reeds were, I had to think twice. The oboe uses double reeds that are not only expensive (check out the price online), but also when you are learning to play, you can get through them very quickly. A good oboe, even secondhand is also expensive. I've told her she can have one when she is older, and a more experienced musician. However, she also fell in love with the sax. We got her a beautiful silver alto sax for her birthday, she hasn't had any lessons yet, but has been able to teach herself as the fingering is so similar to a clarinet. Now the 11 plus is over, we can see about lessons for the sax. Initially, she wanted a bass sax, but she decided to get an alto as the music is in the same cleft as the clarinet, therefore the transition from clarinet to the alto was very easy. Yes, the clarinet and alto sax are popular instruments, but there are reasons for that: they sound lovely, are relatively cheap and reasonably easy to play as a beginner (so they don't get too disheartened in the early stages).
I only played the recorder at school!
