What is the tone like?

I am very happy with it. The tone is unmistakably that of a clarinet. The low register, in particular, is rich and resonant, and the upper registers are clear and focused. It is immediately noticeable that young children make a better sound on our clarinet than on the B-flat instrument. Professionals like it too. Richard Addison, principal clarinet with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and professor at the Royal Academy is immensely enthusiastic about the Lyons C Clarinet. One day he was playing my C clarinet at home. His wife heard him from the next room and thought he was practising on his normal instrument. What greater compliment could we receive?

Your clarinet is designed for beginners, but can it also play more advanced music?

There is hardly any limit to what it can play: Jazz or Classical music. The range is from E below middle C, to C three octaves above middle C. Mozart's or Weber's clarinet concertos could be played as easily on our clarinet as on the standard instrument. It is also ideal for the Baroque sonatas originally written for violin, flute or recorder, at a time when clarinets didn't even exist! I have often played it in a jazz setting. The other musicians in the band assume it is a perfectly ordinary clarinet from the way it sounds. When they see it they are amazed!

Why did you introduce the C clarinet rather than a B-flat instrument?

A C clarinet is shorter and therefore lighter and easier to handle. It also has a smaller mouthpiece which is easier to control for small mouths. But the main advantage is that it is in the same key as almost all the instruments the child will meet at home or in the school classroom. An instrument pitched in C is plainly more practical both for the child and the class teacher than one in B flat.

If pupils start on your Clarinet, will they be able to switch to the B-flat clarinet later?

Yes indeed. This has already happened thousands of times. My clarinet has exactly the same basic fingering. The transition is immediate provided the child is big enough for a B-flat clarinet.

This brings up two important points: First, children would not necessarily have to change to a B flat clarinet. My clarinet would meet musical the needs of the great majority of children who start the clarinet - and meet them better because they would not be restricted to playing music written just for the clarinet.

Secondly, they could go on to any instrument and learn it very quickly having had the advantage of a number of years of instrumental training. But even if they buy a B-flat clarinet, there's no need to put away their Lyons C Clarinet. There's plenty of use for it and indeed many of our sales are to the professional and serious clarinet players who wish to add the Lyons C Clarinet to their collection.

You say "they would not be restricted to playing clarinet music". What do you mean by this?

Imagine you are playing the tune of 'Greensleeves' on the piano, reading from music and someone with a standard B-flat clarinet was playing with you from the same music; it would sound awful! The B-flat clarinet would be playing different notes. The piano is in the Key of C, as are flutes, guitars, recorders, violins, - in fact, most instruments, while the clarinet is in the key of B-flat and has to have its music transposed to sound the same as everybody else. But the Lyons C Clarinet is in the key of - guess what - C! So it can play from the same music as all those other instruments. It can benefit from the music of so many other instruments giving it a repertoire incomparably larger than that of the B-flat clarinet. Having said that, my clarinet has been around for about ten years now and many B-flat clarinet pieces at the elementary and medium level have been adapted for the C clarinet and piano.

What has happened in music education with your clarinet as regards acceptance?

There are many pockets of enthusiastic teachers who are achieving amazing and, literally, unprecedented progress on my clarinet with their pupils. The incontestable fact is that young children have 100% more chance of making fast progress on my C clarinet than on the B-flat for the reasons I've mentioned.

Don't forget the Lyons C Clarinet looks different and feels so light that those who have grown up with the standard B-flat clarinet with metal keys simply cannot believe that it can sound good. They are also worried that it may damage easily. I can reassure anyone reading this that they have nothing to worry about. The tone is exceptional and the instrument is far harder to damage than a conventional clarinet.

Clarinettists from leading orchestras and music colleges have played the Lyons C Clarinet. They speak about the tone and tuning in glowing terms. They wouldn't dream of making those comments unless they were convinced of its merits. All of the glowing testimonials we have received have been freely and spontaneously given.

Is the Lyons C Clarinet fragile?

The answer is a resounding, NO! It is very robust, but let's say that something is broken - it is so easy to repair. Whilst the principle of construction differs from that of the conventional clarinet, clarinet teachers do not have to worry they won't know what to do if one of their pupils says it doesn't work. On the Lyons C Clarinet all keys clip on and off and one has to simply learn how to remove and replace them and recognize when a key has become dislodged. To learn all there is to know about repairing this clarinet would take, at most, a day. Compare this with the time taken - 6 months or so - to learn how to repair and overhaul a conventional clarinet.

Here is an interesting experiment. Take one Lyons C Clarinet, one B-flat clarinet, and two 10 year-old energetic children. Tell them to throw both clarinets up to the ceiling, against the walls and play 'javelins' from one side of the room to the other. Let them carry on like this for five minutes and then examine the clarinets.

The Result?

The Lyons C Clarinet can be put into perfect working order in less than ten minutes by anyone with a few hours self-training and, and if happens to need one or two replacement keys after its ordeal, at a cost of a few dollars. But it's usually just a question of putting some dislodged keys back into place. The poor old B-flat clarinet has most probably been ruined for ever. There may be a chance it could be saved by skilled repair, but the resulting cost would be more than the original purchase price of the Lyons C Clarinet.

I think the Lyons C Clarinet will in the future become accepted as a prefered first instrument of choice amongst many beginners. It took 15 years for recorders to be accepted as a standard instrument in early music education. Can you now imagine a Primary school without recorders?

The Lyons C Clarinet helps children, it gives them a 'grown-up'-sounding instrument that they can make progress on; it's good for teachers, provides them with more pupils; and good for the music trade, they can sell encourage children previously too small to buy any wind instrument and later sell B-flat clarinets or saxophones to the same customer. My clarinet successfully fills a gap in music-making. Teachers and the trade everywhere will soon realize it's in their own interest to promote and sell my clarinet.