Your first five clarinet notes are not the first five notes of the scale, and they are not in alphabetical order. They are G, A, B, F and E — chosen because the first three need no pinky keys at all, and the last two teach your little fingers their first two jobs while everything else stays still. Learn these five and you can play real tunes in your first week. Here is each note exactly as your fingers will meet it.
First, the hand position every note below shares. Your left hand is the upper hand, thumb covering the hole at the back. Your right hand sits below it. "All six down" means left 1-2-3 and right 1-2-3 covering their holes with the pads of the fingers — flat-ish fingers, not fingertips poking. Every one of your first three notes starts from there.
1. G (written G3)
Fingering: thumb + 123 | 123 — everything down, no pinky keys.
G is the friendliest note on the clarinet, which is why it usually comes first. All six fingers down, thumb on, and blow with a steady, supported airstream. The sound should be round and calm — this is the chalumeau register, the clarinet's warm low voice. If you get a squeak instead, it is almost never the fingering: it is a finger not quite sealing its hole (the ring fingers are the usual suspects) or a reed that has been chipped or fitted crookedly. Lift each finger a fraction and set it down again, feeling for the hole's ring under the pad.
2. A (written A3)
Fingering: thumb + 123 | 12– — lift your right-hand third finger.
From G, one finger changes: the right ring finger comes up. That is the whole lesson of the clarinet's low register — the notes are a ladder, and you climb it by lifting fingers one at a time from the bottom. Practise G–A–G–A slowly until the right ring finger lifts cleanly without its neighbours wobbling. A common beginner fault is lifting from the knuckle and moving the whole hand; the finger should hinge, small and close to the key.
3. B (written B3)
Fingering: thumb + 123 | –2– — right index and ring up, right middle down.
B surprises people: from A you lift the right index finger as well, leaving only the right middle finger down — a fork pattern. Going G → A → B, your right hand does less and less while the pitch rises, which feels backwards until you remember the rule: the highest open hole decides the pitch, and opening holes from the bottom shortens the tube step by step. Play G–A–B–A–G as a slow five-note ladder until the fork stops feeling strange. B is also the note that prepares you for the break later: its clarion partner, F♯, uses this same fork shape an octave-plus higher.
4. F (written F3)
Fingering: thumb + 123 | 123, plus the right pinky on the F key.
Back to all six down — then your right little finger presses the lower of the two right-hand pinky keys, the F key. F is the first note that asks a pinky to work, and the pinky is weak and badly aimed in every beginner. Two fixes: keep the pinky curved and hovering over its keys even when it is not playing (it should live there, not tucked under the instrument), and press the key with the side of the fingertip, not the flat pad. You will feel the note drop below G — F sits a tone under it, and the extra key is what buys that extra length of tube. Alternate: the F key also exists under the left pinky, and some passages need that version; for now, right pinky is the standard first choice.
5. E (written E3)
Fingering: thumb + 123 | 123, plus the left pinky on the E key.
E is the clarinet's lowest standard note (instruments with an E♭ extension go one lower, but school clarinets stop at E). Same all-down base; this time the left pinky presses the E key, the upper of the left-hand pinky pair. E and F are the two notes your pinkies will swap between constantly in low-register music, so learn them as a pair: F–E–F–E, slowly, feeling which pinky moves. Keep both pinkies floating over their key clusters the whole time — a pinky that has wandered off has to travel, and travelling pinkies are late pinkies.
Putting the five together
You now own G, A, B in the middle and F, E below. Three tunes use only these notes (or four of them): "Hot Cross Buns" (B–A–G in its clarinet-friendly key), "Merrily We Roll Along" (built on the same ladder), and "Ode to Joy" transposed to start on B. Play the ladder G–A–B–A–G–F–E–F–G every day for the first month; it is the skeleton under a large share of beginner band music.
Three practice rules that matter more than talent at this stage:
- Long tones first. Thirty seconds of steady G teaches your embouchure more than five minutes of tune-hopping. - Tongue lightly. Every repeated note starts with the tongue tip touching the reed — "too" — not with a puff of air. - Check the diagram, then trust your fingers. If a note will not speak, look at the note's own page here, set the fingering from the diagram once, then play it ten times without looking. Fingers learn by repetition, not by reading.
And the honest word about squeaks: every clarinettist squeaks, daily, for months. It is a sealing problem or an embouchure problem, never a character flaw, and it fades as your fingers learn their seats. The full clarinet fingering chart has all 42 notes when you are ready to climb past the break.
When a note won't speak: the beginner checklist
Before you conclude a fingering is wrong, run this list — it solves nearly every silent or squeaking note in the first month. One: the reed. Is it wet, centred on the mouthpiece, and unchipped? A dry or crooked reed makes correct fingerings sound broken. Two: the ligature and mouthpiece — reed held firmly, tip rail aligned. Three: your fingers. Play the note, then roll each finger a fraction in its hole and listen for the tone clearing; the finger that clears it was leaking. Four: the instrument's joints — a barrel or bell worked loose leaks air exactly like a finger does. Five: your embouchure — corners firm, chin flat, and no biting: biting closes the reed and produces the famous clarinet squeak more reliably than any fingering error. Work down the list in order; the fingering itself is guilty so rarely that it should be your last suspect, which is precisely why the chart exists — to take fingering off the suspect list entirely.
A last piece of week-one housekeeping: reeds are consumables, not heirlooms. Keep two or three in rotation, let each dry on a flat surface after playing, and retire the chipped ones without sentimentality. Half the "bad clarinet days" beginners report are one dying reed, mourned at length.