The clarinet is family of woodwind instruments that were invented by the German inventor, Johann Christoph Denner. He adapted the existing chalumeau by adding a register key around the year 1700. The clarinet has a flared bell at the end of a cylindrical tube, and has a single-reed mouthpiece. Musicians that play this instrument are titled a clarinetists.



Composers during the Baroque period were requiring extended skills from their trumpeters. Composers like Handel and Bach were writing music that featured difficult melodic passages in the high register - this register came to be called the clarion register. Trumpet music in this register was known as clarino, and this term was eventually applied to players of this music as well. Writing in 1732, the German music theorist Johann Gottfried Walther, said of the clarinet "it sounded from far off not unlike a trumpet". And thus the name "clarinet" originally meant "small trumpet", and was prized for its ability to sound with a rich quality in both the upper and lower registers.

Clarinetists can be found in a wide variety of musical ensembles today; from classical ensembles to military and marching bands, Klezmer and jazz.