Crossing the Clarinet Break: A Practical Practice Guide
The clarinet break is the step from the B-flat on the middle line of the staff to the B right beside it, and it asks your hands to change nine things at once. If your low notes are solid and that crossing still squeaks or cracks, the cause is usually one of four things: fingers arriving at different moments, a hole that is not quite sealed, air that slows at the wrong moment, or the instrument itself. Each one has a quick test, and each one has a different fix.
Every note name here is written pitch, the note as it appears in a clarinet part. On a B-flat clarinet each one sounds a whole step lower.
What Changes Between B-flat and B
The clarinet’s low register, the chalumeau, runs from low E, which hangs below three ledger lines under the staff, up to the B-flat on the middle line. Its top four notes, G, G-sharp, A and B-flat, are called the throat tones, and they use almost nothing: open G has no fingers down at all, A is one small key pressed by the side of the left index finger, and B-flat adds the register key, the key on the back of the instrument that the left thumb presses.
The next note up, the B on the middle line, is the first note of the clarion register, and it needs everything. The thumb covers its hole while still pressing the register key, all six finger holes close, and one little finger presses one of the keys on the lower joint. Going from B-flat to B, eight things go down and the A key comes up, and all of it has to land at the same instant. If one finger arrives late, the clarinet plays whatever that half-finished fingering produces for a split second, which is where the squeak comes from.
The fingering itself is not new. The clarion register repeats the chalumeau fingerings with the register key added, and each clarion note sounds a twelfth, an octave plus a fifth, above the note it borrows from. The B is the low E fingering with the register key, and the C above it is the low F fingering with the key. Our guide to whether clarinet is hard to learn explains why this one step carries the instrument’s reputation. What the reputation leaves out is that the break is a timing problem, and timing is trainable.
Find Out Which Problem You Have
Much of the frustration with the break comes from working on the wrong thing. A student who is not sealing a hole can practice crossings slowly for a month and get nowhere. Three short tests, in this order, sort it out.
Test one: low E and low F. Play each for four slow counts, tongued, meaning each note started with the tongue against the reed. These are the B and C of the clarion without the register key, so they need exactly the same seal. If either squeaks, sounds fuzzy or will not start, the problem is under your fingers or in a pad, the padded disc that seals a key’s hole, and the break is only where it shows up. The most common culprit is the right ring finger, which has to cover one of the largest open holes with the pad of the finger rather than the tip. A phone video of your hands shows it more reliably than feel does.
Test two: the twelfth drill. Hold low E steadily, then press the register key without moving anything else. Do the same from low F and from low G.
If the upper note pops out clean, your fingers seal and the instrument can make the note. The crossing from A or B-flat is then purely a matter of timing, which the next two sections deal with. If the upper note cracks, falls back to the low note or sounds thin, the issue is air or the mouth, not the fingers.
Test three: the instrument. If low E and F fail when the video shows your fingers sealing, look at the mechanism. Check the bridge key first: the small lever that links the clarinet’s two main sections, the upper and lower joints, has to line up with its partner when you put the instrument together, and a beginner who twists the joints together carelessly can leave it sitting off its partner, which leaks. Then test the pads by suction. Take off the mouthpiece and the barrel, the short piece just below the mouthpiece, finger the C below the staff on the upper joint, seal its bottom end with your palm and suck the air out from the top. A healthy joint holds the vacuum for several seconds and lets go with a pop. For the lower joint, finger low E, seal the bottom with the other hand and suck from the top, where about three seconds is acceptable.
| What happens | Most likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Low E or F squeaks or will not start | A finger not sealing, or a leaking pad | Check the right ring finger on video, then run the suction test |
| The twelfth drill works, the crossing from A or B-flat fails | Fingers landing at different moments | Right hand down and the slow study below |
| The upper note cracks, drops back or sounds thin | Air slowing, the tongue dropping, or biting | Faster air, a high tongue, no extra jaw pressure |
| Stuffy tone, notes hard to start, clarion notes that refuse to speak | A reed that is too hard | Try the next strength down. Reeds are numbered by stiffness |
| Squeaks on many notes, not only at the break | A reed that is too soft, chipped or warped | Fit a fresh reed before changing anything else, then try the next strength up |
Right Hand Down: Move Fewer Fingers
The most useful habit for the break is called right hand down. While you play the throat tones, the three right-hand fingers stay down on their holes instead of hovering. The throat notes still sound, and when you cross to B or C the lower joint is already closed, so fewer fingers have to move. Clarinet teachers use it for exactly this reason, and it is the rightmost column in the fingering diagram above.
Two small hand positions help the rest of the crossing. The left thumb sits angled at about two o’clock, so its tip can press the register key while the pad of the thumb stays over the hole, and moving between B-flat and B means covering the hole without letting go of the key. The left index finger rolls onto the A key rather than lifting off its hole and reaching, so coming back down to the hole is a small roll in the other direction instead of a jump.
Rest the bell on your knees and low E and F, and the B and C a twelfth above them, lose their outlet. Keep it clear, between the knees or just in front of them.
Air, Tongue and Embouchure Across the Break
The clarion notes need faster, steadier air than the throat tones, because they sound the whole tube at a higher resonance while a throat tone sounds a short tube at its lowest one. The mistake at the break is letting the air ease off at the exact moment the fingers move, often because attention has gone to the hands. Keep the air firm and constant straight through the change. A slurred crossing should feel like one continuous breath with the fingers moving inside it.
Clarinetists call the shape of the tongue inside the mouth voicing. For the break, keep the tongue high and arched, closer to the shape of the vowel in “ee” than in “ah.” A tongue that drops as the fingers move is a common reason a clarion note cracks back down.
The embouchure, the way the lips and jaw hold the mouthpiece, stays the same across the break. Low F and the C a twelfth above it should feel identical in the mouth. Biting harder to force the upper note out is the instinct, and it makes the squeak worse, because extra jaw pressure pinches the reed. If the twelfth drill works only when you bite, the air is what needs to change. Check too that enough mouthpiece is in your mouth, since too little is one of the standard causes of a squeak.
Across and Back: A Six-Bar Study
Across and Back takes the three crossings from the twelfth drill and approaches each one from a throat tone, first going up and then coming back down, every throat note played right hand down.
The order is deliberate. From G to D, the right hand is already down and no little finger is involved, so only the left thumb, on its hole and on the register key, and the three left-hand fingers move: five changes. A to C adds a little finger on the F/C key and releases the A key, which makes seven. B-flat to B is six changes, but it is the hardest of the three, because the two notes are a half step apart, the smallest step in Western music, and any lag between fingers is heard as a separate squeak between them.
Set a metronome to 60 and give each half note two clicks. The method:
1. Play one bar at a time, slurred, meaning both notes joined in one breath with no tongue, until it comes out clean four times in a row. A clean repetition has no squeak, no gap and no bump in the sound at the change.
2. Play the same bar tongued. Tonguing can hide a late finger in the gap between notes, so the slurred version stays the real test.
3. Raise the tempo by four beats per minute only after a clean set at the current speed.
4. Join the bars in order, first the three going up, then all six.
Five minutes of this inside a daily session of 15 to 20 minutes, five or six days a week, is usually enough, and it works better as the second item of the session than as the first, once your embouchure is warm and before it is tired. Our guide to practicing music at home covers building a short session that actually happens, and if the staff above is unfamiliar, our guide to reading sheet music as a beginner covers the lines, spaces and note values it uses.
How Long It Takes, and What a Teacher Sees
The break usually settles somewhere in months three to six of steady practice. The low register is generally squeak-free by around month three, so the break tends to arrive just as everything else starts to feel easy. Our clarinet timeline shows where it sits in the first year and a half.
A teacher earns their fee here because most of what goes wrong at the break cannot be felt from the inside. A finger lifting a fraction early, a thumb rolling off its hole as it reaches for the register key and a tongue dropping at the change all sound like the same squeak to the player. On camera, with both hands and the face in frame, a teacher can usually name which one it is within a few repetitions. Our guide to what goes wrong in a first saxophone, flute or clarinet lesson covers the earlier habits that feed into it.
Travis S., who teaches clarinet on Tunelark, has spent nearly 30 years teaching woodwinds and directs school band programs across the New York area, and he lists sound production and practice habits among the things his lessons are built around. Sara M. has held principal clarinet posts with the Stockton and Tucson symphonies and has taught privately since 2009, from beginners to adults returning to the instrument.
How to Find a Clarinet Teacher on Tunelark
Every Tunelark teacher is vetted by working musicians and educators for teaching quality before they can list. Each teacher sets their own rate and shows it on their profile, and scheduling, billing and support are handled for you.
- Open the teacher list at tunelark.com/find-a-teacher and filter by instrument, then read the bios and watch any video a teacher has posted.
- Look for a teacher who names tone, fundamentals or sound production, since that is the work the break is made of.
- Book a trial lesson at $25 off the teacher’s 30-minute rate, so trials start at $14.
- Play the twelfth drill and one crossing early in the lesson, with your hands and face in the camera frame. That is the diagnosis.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I start working on the break?
Once the low register speaks cleanly from low E upward, which for most students is around the third month. Learning the register key first on the twelfth drill, where the fingers do not move, separates the two new skills instead of asking the hands and the air to learn them together.
Which little finger should play the B?
Either one. The standard student clarinet duplicates three pairs of little-finger keys between the hands, E with B, F with C, and F-sharp with C-sharp. Choose by the next note: when B and C sit side by side, one little finger takes each, so neither has to slide from one key to another.
The break works in the study but falls apart in real music. What now?
Take the exact two notes that fail from the piece and practice them in the piece’s own rhythm and articulation, starting well below its tempo. Music crosses the break at speeds and from notes the study does not cover, and each new pair needs a few days of its own.
Could my clarinet be the problem?
Sometimes. Rental instruments can arrive with leaking pads, and a repair technician finds and fixes one quickly. Take the whole instrument in rather than the joint that seems to be at fault, because a pad above the note that fails is often the cause.
Do I keep playing right hand down forever?
For moving passages and crossings, most players keep it. Two limits come later: open G can sound slightly flat with the right hand down, and a long, exposed throat note usually gets its own resonance fingering, an alternate fingering chosen to improve the tone of that one note, which a teacher picks when your music calls for it.
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About Jennifer Heath
I'm Jennifer Heath, VP of Operations at Tunelark and a lifelong singer. I joined the company in 2020 and oversee much of what makes Tunelark work for students and teachers: hiring, training and supporting our instructors, student support, marketing and day-to-day operations. I started voice lessons at 7 and sang with touring choirs through my teens. Music belongs in every life, for the self-expression, the discipline, the comfort and the simple joy of it.
