Clarinet tuner

Clarinet tuning notes, written and sounding

B♭ clarinet. The tuner asks for the written note; the Hz are what the microphone hears.

A clarinet and bass clarinet

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune a clarinet with this tuner

Pick B♭ or A clarinet above; a bass clarinet in B♭ takes the B♭ switch, because the tuner compares the note and ignores the octave. On a bass clarinet, read “barrel” as the neck: pull it, or the mouthpiece on its cork, out when sharp, in when flat. Tap start and play the open G, no fingers and no keys, long and steady at your normal volume. The needle shows how far off you are in cents, left flat and right sharp; a tick comes at five cents or closer, and the tuner moves on to the clarion B, then the high C. It names the notes as you read them: the written B on a B♭ clarinet sounds A, and the tuner calls it B. With the microphone off, tap a note to hear it at concert pitch.

Warm up first, three minutes of long low notes. The air inside the bore sets the pitch, and every degree Celsius warmer makes it about 3 cents sharper, so a clarinet straight out of a cold case can read 20 cents flat and creep up as you play. Then move one joint at a time. Sharp: pull the barrel out, about a millimetre. Flat: push it back in. A millimetre at the barrel lowers the short notes most, roughly 7 cents on the open G and about 3 on the clarion B. If the open G is in tune and the B still reads sharp, pull out a little at the middle joint, between the upper and the lower joint: that lowers the long notes and leaves the G nearly where it was.

Which note to tune a clarinet on

Concert bands tune to concert B♭, orchestras to concert A. On a B♭ clarinet, concert A is the written B4, the clarion B this tuner asks for second, and concert B♭ is the written C5, third-space C. On an A clarinet, concert A is the written C5. The open G shows the barrel best, but as a throat tone it bends easily with the lips, so check it against the clarion B before you move anything. Tune at your group's pitch: most American bands play at A = 440 Hz, many European orchestras at 442 or 443, and the switch under the needle has 442. To check the written C5 itself, the any-note tuner shows concert pitch: on a B♭ clarinet it reads B♭4, 466.16 Hz.

Why a chromatic tuner shows different notes

A chromatic tuner names concert pitch, the note a piano would play. A B♭ clarinet sounds a whole tone below what it reads, so on a chromatic tuner its written C shows as B♭, its G as F and its B as A. An A clarinet sounds a minor third lower: written C shows as A. A clarinet tuner with transposition, like this one, shows the written note and saves the arithmetic. Any chromatic tuner works on a clarinet as long as you know which of the two it shows. You don't need a clarinet tuner app: this page runs in the phone's browser, and any chromatic tuner app works too if you know it shows concert pitch. A school that doesn't allow phones in the band room is served by any small tuner with a microphone; a clip-on made for guitars often struggles, because a wooden or plastic tube passes little vibration into its clamp.

Throat tones, the twelfth and the bell

A clarinet is a cylinder closed at the reed, so it overblows a twelfth, not an octave: the register key turns low E into the clarion B, and the thumb F into the high C. That is why the tuner asks for these three. The open G and the high C are short air columns that end in the upper joint and show what the barrel does. The clarion B runs through the whole instrument down to the bell, so it shows the middle joint and, if it is still sharp, the bell, which can come out a touch too. If only the throat tones, G, G♯, A and B♭, read sharp while the rest is in tune, leave the barrel alone and add fingers of the right hand while you play them (resonance fingerings): they bring those notes down and fill them out.

The mouth moves pitch as well. Biting or a hard reed pushes notes sharp and thin; a slack embouchure or a soft, worn reed lets them sag flat, most in the upper register. Tune with the reed and the embouchure you will play with. To practise, hold the clarion B for eight slow beats, soft to loud and back, and keep the needle still: a needle that wanders is the air and the lips, not the clarinet.

Barrel lengths, and the A clarinet

Standard B♭ barrels are 65 or 66 mm (Yamaha calls 66 mm the most typical length; the Vandoren guide by Jenny Maclay, DANSR, says most in the US are 65 or 66). A shorter barrel raises the whole instrument and a longer one, such as a 67, lowers it. If the barrel has to come out several millimetres before the open G reads in tune, the gap starts to cost tone and the throat tones go stuffy; a longer barrel, or a tuning ring in the gap, does it cleanly. If it is pushed all the way in and still flat after a proper warm-up, a shorter one. Can you use a B♭ barrel on an A clarinet? Often, yes: several makers sell one barrel for the B♭ and A clarinet of a model (Yamaha's option barrels are listed for both, as of 2026). It has to fit the tenon snugly; the tuner then tells you whether the A clarinet still plays in tune with it.

Bass clarinet, E♭ clarinet, C clarinet

Is the bass clarinet in C? No, it is in B♭. Written in treble clef, as most parts are, it sounds a major ninth below the page, an octave plus the B♭ clarinet's whole tone; the B♭ switch here reads it. It has no barrel: you tune it at the neck, by moving the mouthpiece on the cork or the neck itself, the same way round, out for sharp. The small E♭ clarinet sounds a minor third above what it reads. Do C clarinets exist? Yes: they sound as written and turn up in orchestral parts from Mozart to Mahler and as small instruments for children. Neither has its own switch; the any-note tuner reads them in concert pitch.

Clarinet range, written and sounding

A B♭ clarinet reads from low E, E3, to about C7, and strong players go higher. It sounds a whole tone lower, from D3 at 146.83 Hz to B♭6 at 1864.66 Hz; the A clarinet goes down to C♯3, 138.59 Hz. The registers: the chalumeau from E3 to about F♯4, the throat tones G4 to B♭4, the clarion from B4, over the break, to C6, and the altissimo above.

Do you need to tune a clarinet?

Every time you play, and again once it is warm. The scale is fixed by the tone holes; what changes from day to day is the barrel and the joints, the reed, the temperature of the air inside and your embouchure, and the three notes above check all of it in a minute. What a repair shop calls a clarinet tune-up is something else: pads, corks and springs checked, leaks sealed, keys regulated, priced by the shop and by what needs doing. A leak makes notes stuffy and unreliable rather than just out of tune, and no tuner can fix it. To move chord symbols between concert pitch and a B♭ clarinet part, the transposer has a B♭ preset; for an A clarinet, move them up 3 semitones.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.