- One-to-one lessons at the school
- Learn for fun or work towards grades
- Children and adults welcome
What clarinet lessons involve
The first few lessons cover the practical side: putting the clarinet together, fitting the reed, and forming the embouchure, which is the shape your mouth makes around the mouthpiece. Once you can produce a steady note, you start reading music and learning fingerings in the lower register. A big early milestone is crossing “the break” into the upper register, and every clarinettist remembers the first time it works cleanly.
From there, lessons build scales, tonguing, breath control and a growing set of pieces. The clarinet covers a lot of ground, from classical repertoire to jazz, klezmer, show tunes and film music, so there’s plenty of room to follow what you enjoy.
Who clarinet lessons suit
Clarinet is a good first wind instrument for children and adults. Many children start once their hands can comfortably cover the holes, and plenty of adults take it up for the first time or come back to it after playing at school. It’s also a popular starting point for saxophone, as the fingerings are closely related.
If you play in a school, community or concert band, one-to-one lessons are a good way to sort out tone, tuning and the tricky passages that are hard to fix in a group.
Grades, if you want them
Clarinet grade exams run from Grade 1 to Grade 8 with the main exam boards, and Grades 6 to 8 carry UCAS points. They’re optional. Every lesson is planned around the student, so you can work through the grades or simply learn the music you love.
Lessons at our school in Thornaby
When clarinet lessons are running, they take place one-to-one in our purpose-built teaching studios in Thornaby, at our standard price of £18 for 30 minutes or £36 for an hour. It’s pay as you go, with no contract or term fees. Lessons are by appointment, Monday to Thursday between 3pm and 9:30pm, with free parking at the rear and a bus stop outside the door.
Register your interest
We don’t have a clarinet teacher on the timetable at the moment. If you’d like lessons, get in touch and we’ll let you know when they’re available. If you’d like to make a start on reading music while you wait, our music theory lessons are running now.