clarina

All our instruments series, episode 4


Here's one (out of two) instruments acquired by marriage - a Hohner Clarina from about 1973. Hohner are famous as makers of accordions and harmonicas, so even if they make simple toys, you can expect them to sound good. The clarina is essentially a melodica (which happens to be a Hohner invention as well) with the white keys only, so you can only play within one scale, which at least for this instrument is G major. The notes are arranged for the right hand to play them as on a piano, so the lower notes are on the thumb side, i.e. nearer the mouth. This is maddening for all woodwind players, and it invalidates the description as a toy clarinet. (Incidentally I had a toy saxophone as a child which probably worked the same way, but I have no idea what happened to that one.) On the plus side, however, you can play chords.

The instrument must have been the last generation of Clarinas made with metal keys - most versions I could find online have got plastic keys (eg the Clarina12). (Stop press: just found one with metal keys on ebay.)

The instrument was red with a cardboard-like surface, but for reasons that have fallen into oblivion, its young owner covered it in black insulating tape, which doesn't come off without destroying the cardboard layer, so it now looks like this (I put the original box in the picture which shows that it's a Hohner instrument):



For the video, I've had a slightly polyphonic go at the anthem of our Galician session, Fisterra:



Further Hohner instruments will be coming along in this series ...