Another Reed in the Wall

Earlier this week I became obsessed with figuring out key passages from Pink Floyd's The Wall on my clarinet. It's an old plastic Bundy B-flat clarinet, had it since middle school; not a great sound, but I'm fairly comfortable with it after nearly twenty years (man, wish I'd spent more of that practicing), which is why I'd rather use it for this purpose instead of my bass. I picked out the vocals and signature riffs for "The Thin Ice" and "Another Brick in the Wall" easily enough, but the anthemic guitar part on "In the Flesh" proved more troublesome than expected. The album as a whole has me working with all flats, which I can get used to, but "In the Flesh" tosses in just enough accidentals to throw me off my stride. And that's just in the chalumeau register-- I was really hoping to wing that high solo for "In the Flesh" in the clarion, but my embouchure just ain't up to it yet.

Guess it's time to go back and practice with Mistle Thrush's Agus Amarach album; all those tracks are really clarinet-friendly.

Still, I was close enough with the Pink Floyd to wish that I had a microphone and some distortion software to add a little "crunch" to the clarinet. That got me to thinking about analog MIDI controls, which led me to the Yamaha WX5. I'd heard about "wind synths" many moons ago, but never actually looked one up until now. I'm a little bummed that it appears to rely on sax fingerings instead of clarinet, but that's an easy transition to make... if I decide to get it. I do have an actual saxophone sitting in my closet that hasn't seen light or air for over a year, and it's hard to justify getting a virtual instrument when I'm overstocked on real ones. Oooh, but I want to do power cords on the clarinet! Naftule Brandwein, guide me!