Around 1690, in the German city of Nuremberg, a wood-turner and instrument maker named Johann Christoph Denner was tinkering on his workbench. Curls of wood and tiny brass parts littered the floor. He was working with an old folk instrument called the chalumeau - a simple little wooden tube with a single reed that squawked out only a few notes. Denner had a hunch he could turn it into something far better.
He drilled longer finger holes, added two clever metal keys that the player could press with the thumb and pointer finger, and reshaped the mouthpiece. Suddenly the instrument could leap into a whole new high range - a trick called the 'register jump.' He named his invention the clarinet, from the Italian word clarino, meaning 'little trumpet,' because in its top range it could sing as clear and bright as a horn. Denner kept tweaking it for years. His sons carried on his workshop after he died.
By the time Mozart came along in the 1700s, the clarinet had become his favourite woodwind, and he wrote a famous concerto for it. The clarinet went on to anchor orchestras, then jumped into marching bands, klezmer weddings, and the smoky jazz clubs of New Orleans, where players like Benny Goodman turned it into a swing-era superstar. Today every school band has a row of clarinet players squeaking out their first scales, all thanks to a curious wood-turner who would not leave a humble little tube alone.
