Clarinet songs for beginners: the 10 best to learn first

Most clarinet players start in a school band, with a method book, a box of reeds and a list of songs they would rather be playing. A surprising number of real songs sit inside a first-year clarinetist’s range, and this list picks the ten worth learning first.

This guide explains what makes a song easy on a B♭ clarinet, then ranks the ten best clarinet songs for beginners from easiest up. Each entry says what the song teaches and links a score. By the end you will know which song to open first and which one to save for the week you cross the break.

The easiest clarinet songs stay in the low register below the break, use a written key with no more than one sharp or flat, and move by step in short phrases with rests to breathe. Amazing Grace, Stand by Me and Happy are the first three to learn.

Top picks at a glance

• Easiest first: Amazing Grace (Traditional). Five notes, one octave, a slow tempo in three.
• Most recognizable: Happy (Pharrell Williams). A chant-like verse on repeated notes that every band student can hear in their head.
• Best for crossing the break: Let It Go (Idina Menzel). A low verse and a chorus well over an octave above it.
• Best slow and melodic: Summertime (George Gershwin). Long held notes in a minor key that suit the clarinet’s dark low register.
• Best to play with others: Tequila (The Champs). One short riff, a bar of rest, and a whole band that knows where to shout.

What makes a song easy on the clarinet

Four things decide whether a song is realistic in your first year on a B♭ clarinet. Each song below scores well on at least three of them, and the entry says which one it stretches.

It stays below the break. The clarinet’s low register, called the chalumeau, holds the first notes every method book teaches: written low E up through the throat tones G, A and B♭. The break is the step from throat B♭ to the B just above it. On B♭ you have almost no fingers down; on B you need every finger down plus the register key, all at once. A song that lives below that line lets you think about sound instead of fingers.

Crossing the break is a milestone. Any melody with a range of more than an octave will push you across it in most keys. Songs like that belong a few months in, once the low register sounds full and the register key is a habit. Two of the ten below are chosen for exactly that moment.

The phrases leave room to breathe. A beginner has air for two to four bars at a moderate tempo. Songs built from short phrases with rests between them, or riffs with gaps, give you a breath exactly where you need one. Slow songs with long notes build tone, but they ask for more air per note, so they come with a breath plan.

It has few accidentals. The B♭ clarinet is a transposing instrument: a written C sounds as concert B♭, a whole step lower. Band music in concert B♭, E♭ and F therefore shows up in your part as written C, F and G, with no sharps or flats, one flat, or one sharp. Most beginner arrangements of the songs here sit in those keys. An accidental or two in a bridge is fine; a key with four sharps is a different kind of practice.

The 10 best clarinet songs for beginners, ranked

The order runs from the song you can play first to the one that rewards a full year of lessons. Each entry opens with the facts that matter on the clarinet, then says why the song fits and what it teaches. The facts describe the song itself; your arrangement sets the exact key and range, so check the first and last lines of the part before you commit.

1. Amazing Grace — Traditional

The facts: slow, in 3/4; a five-note melody spanning exactly one octave; the technique is long, steady notes.

Every note of the tune belongs to a five-note scale, so there are no half steps to place and no accidentals to read. The melody rises and falls by small steps, and its few leaps land on notes you have already played. At a slow tempo in three, each phrase is four bars long, a comfortable breath for a beginner, and the rests arrive where you need them. What it teaches is tone. With so little to think about in the fingers, you can listen to each note and keep the air moving evenly from the first beat to the last.

See “Amazing Grace” on MuseScore

2. Stand by Me — Ben E. King

The facts: moderate walking tempo; the same four-chord cycle runs under the whole song; the technique is counting rests.

The melody is short, it repeats, and it sits in a narrow range, so most beginner arrangements keep it below the break. The hard part is the silence. Phrases start after the beat and leave whole bars of rest between them. You learn to count through the gaps and come in on time, which is the skill every band part demands. The song also sounds complete with just a melody and a bass line, which makes it an easy one to play with a friend on piano or guitar.

See “Stand by Me” on MuseScore

3. Happy — Pharrell Williams

The facts: upbeat; a verse on a few repeated notes and a chorus that jumps up; the technique is off-beat rhythm.

Every band student knows this one, and that matters more than it sounds. When you can hear the song in your head, you spot your own wrong rhythms instantly. The verse is almost a chant on repeated notes, so your tongue does the work while your fingers rest. The chorus leaps higher, and depending on the arrangement that leap may be your first trip over the break, so treat the chorus as a separate exercise. The syncopated phrases, with notes landing between the beats, are the lesson; play them slowly with a metronome before you speed up.

See “Happy” on MuseScore

4. Summertime — George Gershwin

The facts: slow, in a minor key; long sustained notes with a few leaps; the technique is dynamics on a held note.

Gershwin wrote this lullaby for Porgy and Bess in 1935, and its slow, bending melody suits the clarinet’s dark low register better than almost any pop song. The notes are few and they are held, so what you practice is the shape of a long note: how it starts, how it swells and how it ends without the pitch sagging. Phrases are long, so plan your breaths before you play and mark them in the part. This is the song to play when you want to sound like a clarinetist rather than a student.

See “Summertime” on MuseScore

5. My Heart Will Go On — Celine Dion

The facts: slow ballad; a stepwise verse in a narrow range and a chorus that climbs; the technique is slurred, legato playing.

The famous opening melody moves by step and barely leaves a five-note span, which is why it works so well on a first-year clarinet. Most of the notes are slurred, so this is where you learn to change fingerings without the sound breaking between them. Keep the air steady and move the fingers together rather than one at a time. The chorus climbs into the upper register, and you can leave it for later. The verse alone is a complete, recognizable melody your family will know from the first bar.

See “My Heart Will Go On” on MuseScore

6. When I’m Sixty-Four — The Beatles

The facts: bouncy, medium two-beat feel; mostly stepwise with many repeated notes; the technique is light, clean tonguing.

The Beatles scored this one for a trio of clarinets on Sgt. Pepper, so the song already sounds like your instrument. The melody is built from repeated notes and small steps, in a music-hall bounce that makes the rhythm easy to feel. Each repeated note needs its own tongue stroke, so the song becomes a tonguing exercise you will want to repeat: aim for a light “too” on every note, with the air continuing underneath. The verses are short and there is a breath at the end of each line, which keeps the phrases comfortable.

See “When I’m Sixty-Four” on MuseScore

7. Let It Go — Idina Menzel

The facts: moderate pop ballad that builds; a quiet low verse and a chorus well over an octave above it; the technique is crossing the break.

The verse sits low and soft, and the chorus leaps up into the big tune everyone sings, so the range runs well past an octave. On the clarinet that means the song crosses the break in almost any key, which is the reason to learn it. You get a famous melody as the reward for the hardest fingering change of your first year. Practice the move from throat B♭ to the B above it on its own, with all the fingers landing together, then play the chorus slowly until the jump sounds like one phrase.

See “Let It Go” on MuseScore

8. Tequila — The Champs

The facts: fast rock-and-roll instrumental from 1958; one short riff repeated, with rests and a single spoken word; the technique is accents and rests.

The entire tune is a riff of a few notes that comes back again and again, with a gap for the shouted title. That makes it the best song on this list to play with other people: a drummer, a bass player or the rest of your section can lock in while you handle the riff. What it teaches is rhythm with intent. The accents have to land exactly on the beat and the rests have to be counted, or the band drifts apart. Short bursts also mean easy breathing, so you can keep it going as long as the room wants.

See “Tequila” on MuseScore

9. Rolling in the Deep — Adele

The facts: driving mid-tempo; a verse of repeated notes and a chorus that climbs; the technique is tonguing at speed.

The verse hammers the same few notes in a steady pulse, so your tongue has to articulate quickly and evenly while the pitch barely moves. That is a real skill, and this is the most enjoyable place to build it. The chorus climbs and opens up, so breathe deeply before it and support the higher notes with faster air rather than a tighter embouchure. Arrangements vary in how high they take the chorus; if yours crosses the break, treat the chorus the way you treated Let It Go, as its own slow exercise.

See “Rolling in the Deep” on MuseScore

10. Stompin’ at the Savoy — Benny Goodman

The facts: medium swing in 32-bar AABA form; a riff-based melody with rests; the technique is swing eighth notes.

Goodman made the clarinet the lead voice of the swing era, and this 1930s riff tune is where a beginner meets that tradition. The A sections are a short rhythmic figure with space to breathe between repeats, so the notes are few. The challenge is the feel: the eighth notes swing, long-short rather than even, and you learn that by listening to the recording until you can sing it. The bridge moves to new harmony and adds accidentals, so take it slower and read it before you play it.

See “Stompin’ at the Savoy” on MuseScore

Side by side: level and what each song teaches

How to choose your first song

Pick by the skill you want next, and work on two songs at a time. One should sit a little below your level, so you finish it and hear yourself play something whole. The other should ask for one new thing, such as a slur, a syncopated rhythm or the trip over the break. When the harder one feels easy, it becomes the easy one of the next pair.

Every song on this list sounds better in time and in tune, and both are free to check. Set the online metronome well under the recording’s speed and move it up only when a whole phrase is clean. Before each session, sound a concert B♭ on the tuning drone and hold a long written C against it. A cold clarinet plays flat and a dried-out reed plays sharp, so the beats you hear tell you how far to push the barrel in or out.

If the part itself is the obstacle, two short guides cover the reading side. How to read sheet music explains the staff, the clef and the notes on it. Note values and time signatures explains the rhythms these songs use. Once the first ten are under your fingers, First 50 Songs You Should Play on the Clarinet collects fifty songs at this level, these ten included, in arrangements written for a B♭ clarinet.

Play another instrument too? See the best flute songs, saxophone songs and trumpet songs for beginners.

Frequently asked questions

What is the easiest song to play on the clarinet?

Amazing Grace. Its melody uses five notes within one octave at a slow tempo, with a rest at the end of every four-bar phrase, and in most beginner arrangements it stays below the break. The three-note tunes in a method book come earlier, but Amazing Grace is the first song most students finish that sounds like real music.

What key are most beginner clarinet songs in?

Written C, F or G, which sound as concert B♭, E♭ or F because the B♭ clarinet sounds a whole step lower than written. Those keys carry no sharps or flats, one flat, or one sharp, so beginner arrangements and band music are mostly set there. A song in a harder original key is usually transposed into one of them for a beginner part.

Do I need to read music to play these songs?

Reading helps, and it is a skill of a few weeks rather than years. Band parts and method books assume you read, and the melodies here use mostly quarter, half and whole notes with a few eighths, so the notation is as simple as the songs. You can learn the first one by ear from the recording while you learn to read the next.

How long does it take to play a first song on the clarinet?

With daily practice of fifteen to twenty minutes, a song that stays below the break is realistic within the first four to six weeks. Songs that cross the break arrive later in the first year for most band students, once the register key is a habit and the low notes sound full.

Why does my clarinet squeak when I cross the break?

Usually a finger is not sealing its hole when all of them come down at once, or the jaw tightens as the note goes up. Practice the B♭-to-B move slowly, let every finger land together, and push faster air through the same embouchure instead of biting. A chipped or very soft reed squeaks too, so swap the reed before you blame your fingers.

Wrapping up

The ten songs above earn their order the same way: they stay low, they breathe where you need to, and each one asks for a single new skill. Start with Amazing Grace and Stand by Me, add Happy or Summertime when the low register sounds full, and save Let It Go for the week the break stops being scary. Open the scores on musescore.com, or in MuseScore Studio for free, slow the playback down, and play along until the song and the clarinet feel like the same thing.