I just finished playing Spamalot. One of the most enjoyable things about it was the chance I had to play a Selmer bass clarinet that went down to a low C.
I knew I was going to be able to borrow one but it totally freaked me out the first time I played it. I got it at a rehearsal with the cast and had no time to practice playing it beforehand. It has such an amazing sound and by the end of the run, I was feeling quite comfortable. I still have it with me at home and look forward to playing some more bass clarinet before I have to return it. I will certainly be looking around the internet to see if I can find my own bass clarinet to buy. At one point a few weeks ago I had 3 different bass clarinets at home on loan!!!
The trickiest thing about the low C bass clarinet is the extra pinky keys. There are only 3 extra notes but the Selmer clarinet I used had 5 additional keys than I was used to. It had an alternate G#/Ab key for the left hand, two different low D keys and the thumb keys on the back for C#/Db & the powerful low C. What an awesome sound!! It took me some time to figure out all the keys and become used to what order I needed to play them in for some passages but I got it!! In the last show I even got some good looks from the MD because the sound was coming out nice and strong because I was much more confident.
I was so glad I got to play that bass clarinet for the show. There were only 2 reed/woodwind players in the show with one of the keyboard players playing other reed/woodwind sounds but I was really glad that I was able to play the bass clarinet parts.
