Clarinet family in the context of "Bass clarinet"

The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell.

Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodwind family, ranging from the BB♭ contrabass to the A♭ piccolo. The B♭ soprano clarinet is the most common type, and is the instrument usually indicated by the word "clarinet".

The contrabass clarinet (or pedal clarinet after the pedals of pipe organs) is an uncommonly used member of the clarinet family. Modern contrabass clarinets are transposing instruments pitched in B♭, sounding two octaves lower than the common B♭ soprano clarinet and one octave below the bass clarinet. Some contrabass clarinet models have extra keys to extend the range down to low written E♭₃, D₃ or C₃. This gives a tessitura written range, notated in treble clef, of C₃ – F₆, which sounds B♭₀ – E♭₄. Some early instruments were pitched in C; Arnold Schoenberg's Fünf Orchesterstücke specifies a contrabass clarinet in A, but there is no evidence such an instrument has ever existed.

The smaller E♭ contra-alto clarinet is sometimes referred to as the "E♭ contrabass clarinet" and is pitched one octave lower than the E♭ alto clarinet.

The A-flat (A♭) clarinet is the highest-pitched instrument of the clarinet family still manufactured. It is just over half the length of the common B♭ clarinet and pitched a minor seventh higher, a perfect fourth higher than the E♭ clarinet. As a transposing instrument it sounds a minor sixth higher than written, thus the lowest written note E₃ sounds as concert C₄ (middle C).Around the beginning of the 19th century, several small clarinets in different pitches appeared. The A♭ clarinet was adopted in European wind bands, particularly in Italy where it has appeared in Verdi's opera banda parts and survived to the present day in military bands. It is sometimes called for in contemporary classical music, in works by composers Béla Bartók and John Tavener, and in large clarinet choir works. It is manufactured by Italian makers Ripamonti, Mario Corso, and Orsi, and in Germany by Dietz Klarinettenbau (in G), Foag Klarinetten, Herbert Wurlitzer, and Schwenk & Seggelke.