Simon Customer wrote:

"agent86" wrote in message
. ..

Simon Customer wrote:
Well, how about the clarinet- can pitch be changed without changing

keys?

In the hands of the right player, you betcha. Check out the intro of
Gershwin's Rapsody in blue, & listen for the clarinet that sounds like a
siren.


Are any samples of this available on the web? I wouldn't mind taking a
listen.

Go down to your local record store that lets you listen before you buy.
It shouldn't be hard to locate the clarinet slide since it's basically
the first note in the whole song (well, after the trill). And on most
recordings I've seen, Rhapsody in Blue is the first track. So just pop
the CD in and listen. (Be sure not to get a piano solo recording,
though...)

By the way, the now-famous slide at the beginning was apparently
not Gershwin's original idea, but the clarinet player during the
original rehearsals threw it in as a joke, and Gershwin loved it
and wrote it in that way.

Oh, here's a link to an MP3 of someone fooling around doing slides
on a clarinet:

http://lachesis.caltech.edu/jayeasto.../ClarGliss.mp3

I'm not a clarinet player, but it doesn't strike me as a the easiest
thing to pull off if you don't already know how to play the clarinet...

- Logan