Question:
Doubling
I'm curious what ppl here define as Doubling. On the clarinet bboard some ppl are steadfast that playing soprano clarinet and bass clarinet is considered doubling. Whereas (myself included) playing sax and clarinet is doubling (or two instruments of different families - flute & sax, flute & clarinet, etc).

Answer:
On Mary AlleyB Purtle's website, she discusses "primary to primary" doubling vs. "primary to secondary" doubling:
In summary, "primary to primary" is doubling instruments of different families (like saxophone to clarinet), and "primary to secondary" is instruments of the same family (clarinet to bass clarinet). I think it's a useful distinction.
Still, if someone tells me they are a "doubler," I will immediately assume they are talking about primary to primary doubling, and will be quite unimpressed if I discover that what they meant was they play both alto AND tenor saxophones.
Bret

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Doubling to me is sax, playing flute or clarinet. Which is primary to primary.Over here, in the UK we are classed as "doublers" if we play sax, clarinet and flute!! Sounds like "trebling" to me! Playing, say, alto and tenor is in my oppinion not doubling, as they are the same, more or less. Playing baritone, bass clarinet and piccolo, now thats what I call doubling.( or showing off!) I class myself as a "doubler" playing all saxes, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute and picc. I have been known to play recorder too!

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Steve: I recall a huge discussion about this very issue a while back on SOTW.
My take is that a doubler plays dissimilar instruments (clarinet and saxophone, saxophone and piano, flute and trombone, etc.) rather than different sizes of the same basic instrument (soprano and alto saxophones, soprano and bass clarinet, etc.). DAVE

Answer:
The American Federation of Musicians has a "spif" for players who play more than one instrument. Curiously, playing alto/tenor and clarinet does not qualify. Playing another horn and bass clarinet does. Adding a soprano sax to the mix, if I recall those pages of the contract correctly, does.
However, they also specify additional payment for the big horns (bass clarinet, baritone sax, string bass and 'cello,). This is primarily a cartage fee rather than a skills fee.
Me, I don't hire a sax player if he cannot also double clarinet. Too many of the charts that we use have a clarinet double. Flute is not as critical, for I have two excellent flute players who are long-term members. Bass clarinet is ably covered by moi, but I still have a couple of players who can play bass as well if needed.
As for the skills involved, I have to say that playing the bass clarinet is a different kettle of fish than is playing the Bb soprano, and ditto playing the baritone over playing the little saxophones. Fingerings being all the same are all well and good, but the embouchure is different for each of them.

Answer:
Originally Posted by barisaxbeast Doubling to me is sax, playing flute or clarinet.
That's generally what my interpretation has been. And yes alto to tenor doesn't really count. Usually if you get called to do a job on alto or tenor, you'll be expected to double on either clarinet or flute.
It doesn't matter what the AFM says, around here clarinet is considered doubling when your main instrument is sax.

Answer:
Originally Posted by SOTSDO The American Federation of Musicians has a "spif" for players who play more than one instrument. Curiously, playing alto/tenor and clarinet does not qualify. Playing another horn and bass clarinet does. Adding a soprano sax to the mix, if I recall those pages of the contract correctly, does.
However, they also specify additional payment for the big horns (bass clarinet, baritone sax, string bass and 'cello,). This is primarily a cartage fee rather than a skills fee.
Me, I don't hire a sax player if he cannot also double clarinet. Too many of the charts that we use have a clarinet double. Flute is not as critical, for I have two excellent flute players who are long-term members. Bass clarinet is ably covered by moi, but I still have a couple of players who can play bass as well if needed.
As for the skills involved, I have to say that playing the bass clarinet is a different kettle of fish than is playing the Bb soprano, and ditto playing the baritone over playing the little saxophones. Fingerings being all the same are all well and good, but the embouchure is different for each of them. That's very interesting about the AFM interpretation of doubling. I'm not in the union at this time, so it doesn't impact me. I've been lugging mutiple cases to pit orchestras for years now, and I'm still waiting for the first time that I get paid more for extra horns.
Regarding the bass clarinet, you can't assume that a clarinet player has access to a bass clarinet, let alone be able to play it well. The same applies to Eb clarinet.

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Right on Saxfreak / Sotsdo most principle clatinetist I know would struggle to make it across the break on a Bass Clarinet. It is also sad but true, few tenor or alto players can handle a bari sax as well as they muddle through on soprano!!

Answer:
Please note that when I refer to the AFM contract, I'm talking about the current one for the Houston local (which has remained the same for the past three years). What the New York local and almighty 802 may have in their document may differ substantially dependent on the local negotiations. But, I'm willing to bet that (based upon my experiences in the past) the spiffs are there for those covered by the negotiated contract.
(One thing that is not covered is payment to other players for giving the harpist assistance for the moving of all of his/her crap. They get the extra money paid to them, but are always begging others for help to shift their monster load...)
In the current Houston contract, there are rates for all sorts of stuff, varying from cartage to doubling and whatnot. If you are working in a union environment, it may behoove you to take a look at that stuff the local mails out once a year. In a theatrical environment, you need to ensure that the contract applies to your situation, then point out any errors to the contractor.
(Of course, you also have to be in the union in the first place...)
When I was a young whelp up north, being forcibly introduced to the playing of saxophone, I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to be able to play alto, tenor, baritone, clarinet and bass clarinet if I wanted to work commercial music "in this town". My progress was slow but sure, and I even went them one better by learning how to deal with soprano whilst in my college years.
I had played both bass clarinet and clarinet for years in my youth, and had managed to pick up enough bassoon to be dangerous to myself and others during my schooling, but there is not near as much demand for someone with those skills alone as there was for a sax player. So, I took the warning to heart and haven't regretted it for one day since.
I see a distressing trend in the educational system these days to prepare people for one type of instrumental music only. This may create a goodly number of excellent clarinet players, flute players, trombone players and (yes, Virginia) even saxophone players who do nothing but play their one instrument. However, the channelization of talents like this ignores the realities of the commercial music marketplace.
There just aren't that many openings (for want of a better term) for a clarinet player in the "marketplace". Figure maybe 400 at the symphonic level (and at four per orchestra, that's a big assumption as to how many viable paid orchestras there are in the United States; the real figure is probably half that), plus that many again in teaching positions. That gives you the total duty slots, which are being chased by an ever-increasing number of excellent new players fresh from the conservatory.
For all of the rest, playing means being able to play at least two horns well and to get by on the rest. Sadly, it's a dying art, at least from my perspective down here on the Gulf Coast. The old guys (and gals) can do it pretty well, but the young folks aren't learning up to the same levels.
Put simply, I'm going to hire a pretty good sax player who also doubles flute and clarinet over an excellent sax player who only plays tenor. The book that I carry requires the other horns (mostly clarinet) in all five chairs, and without those skills filling each seat, a sizable percentage of my arrangements are going to sound like crap.
(Or even worse, as some sax players I have met over the years think that "doubling clarinet" means playing the part on a soprano sax. Nothing like three soprano clarinets, a bass clarinet, and a soprano sax to offer a unique tonal color to some classic tune...)
The economic realities of the pit are even more stringent here. Most of the shows that I have played over the years require a minimum of clarinet and one of the saxes (the second tenor person, usually in Book 3 or 4, is the one who gets off the easiest), and most of the books require the basics plus one additional instrument (flute for the high books, bass clarinet or bassoon for the lower ones). Do a Bernstein outside of Candide, and you're facing two saxes (baritone/tenor, or baritone/alto), clarinet and bass clarinet right off of the bat.
In some community work (the free stuff), the orchestra pit swells as they add a clarinet player, an oboe player, a flute player, a sax player and so on to cover the book. In the paid stuff (non-union), it's expected that a single player will cover it all, and in the union stuff the expectations are even greater. To the extent that a player is successful in doing this is a good measure of their "professionalism", even if not in a union environment.
As for bass clarinet stuff being done by a clarinet player, I know quite a few players who are as facile on the bass as they are on the soprano. However, they work at it, not just attempting the shift without significant practice
To have excellent skills on the Eb isn't quite as critical, since most non-symphonic Eb parts are there for tonal color alone, and are more or less ornaments than they are mainstays of an arrangement. Although I cannot play an unmodified Eb horn (my hands are just too damn'd big), with a little paraffin wax and care I can fix them up and get by just fine to handle something like Company or Camelot. Don't like to have to do it though; that's what those soprano clarinet studs on Book 1 and 2 are for.
But, the last time I played Eb on a show was the time where the other clarinet players turned their noses up in horror at the thought, so I had to cover the comic part in Company for them. And, the saddest thing was that it wasn't all that difficult.

Answer:
Wise words Terry. Particularly:
Originally Posted by SOTSDO Sadly, it's a dying art, at least from my perspective down here on the Gulf Coast. The old guys (and gals) can do it pretty well, but the young folks aren't learning up to the same levels.
If not just the Gulf Coast, then at least the Gulf Coast and the Philadelphia area. I'm taking it upon myself to do what I can to keep it alive. It's a calling and unless you take every instrument seriously, it's probably better to just put it down in the best interest of your listeners.

Answer:
Originally Posted by SOTSDO
I see a distressing trend in the educational system these days to [...] (ignore) the realities of the commercial music marketplace.
Terry, may I take the liberty of paraphrasing one of your comments, above? :D
Anyway, I'm glad to have another term (not unlike "professional") that we can bandy about the meaning of it... depends on what you mean. I wouldn't call myself a "doubler" because I knew how to play alto AND tenor sax, but if I had to haul my bass clarinet and my soprano clarinets to a job and someone asked I might say I was doubling on bass clarinet for this particular book/concert/number/whatever.
Kind of reminds me of when a neighbor made a big to-do because I said I had to mow my yards (front and back) and he thought I was trying to make it sound like I had two houses. No, just trying to state what I was doing at the time. Semantics, semantics, semantics.
Before I added flute to the mix, I used to joke that in playing saxophone and clarinet I knew how to play 1 and 1/2 instruments - not that saxophone is 1/2 an instrument, just a reflection of how much less work it was to add to my repertoire compared to, say, if I had picked up trombone.

Answer:
Your words now, not mine. Mind you, I agree with them wholeheartedly. There are some who stress this (I for one), but it's an uphill battle at the best of times. But, what are you gonna do, roll the rock uphill all by yourself?
Two of my trombone players have active school music programs that each put on the music side of a musical each year. Invariably, several of us from the group will "mother hen" the students and parents/adults that play in their pit orchestra, and it's there that I get motivated sax or clarinet only students to consider taking up the other side of the doubling equation.
(One of the two programs even has a flute player more or less up and running on tenor. There's your strange bird...)
When in high school, I had a band director who wanted me to focus only on one instrument. He was also a twit who thought of nothing but marching bands, even though he was teaching in a district that had never had marching bands, thank God. Fortunately, the district's music director (who is still a big time orchestral contractor up in Saint Louis) encouraged me to do otherwise, as he did everyone else "of promise".
During my time in the district, we had two tenor players who were started on oboe and bassoon respectively, as well as me (baritone, bassoon, bass clarinet and clarinet) and five or six alto players who doubled clarinet or flute. Most have gone onto long careers playing in various organizations of one style or another. None of the school's products ever went into the classical way of things, even Owen Bates' son (and his father was a professional clarinet player).
He also advised me (and everyone else) to get a real career, and just do the music on the side. Excellent advice that far too few are willing to take - ignore it at your peril.

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Originally Posted by SOTSDO He also advised me (and everyone else) to get a real career, and just do the music on the side. Excellent advice that far too few are willing to take - ignore it at your peril.
Unfortunately for us this mindset is the root cause of a lot of mediocrity in the music world, and responsible for otherwise great players settling for being incomplete.

Answer:
Unfortunately, reality is that few of us will make our living performing. I've seen too many cats who could play rings around me that weren't competitive in the full-time music world to have any illusions about myself.
Back to Terry's comments - I agree. I was fortunate to have a band director who encouraged me to take up the saxophone and who worked gigs, told us about this world, and involved his colleagues from that world in his bandroom, much like Terry describes, and unfortunate enough later to have one of those who wanted to march 12 months a year if he could have made us do it.

Answer:
I also think doubling is playing two dissimilar instruments. I've started clarinet as a double, and I can play drums (well) and i can fake my way through some guitar and bass stuff. I also just started piano lessons a few weeks ago. The older guys I know have all encouraged learning more instruments for their own reasons. For me I think it's just the excitment of being able to play a lot of instruments plus it may help you get more jobs. Not necessarily more money at the job, but it may help you actually GET the job.
I also believe I can't afford to add another instrument to my arsenal due to practice time required. Music kept me away from lacrosse this year and getting a job..but I think it's worth it.

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What's the term for someone who plays way more than two?
I play 4 types of recorder, tin whistle, fife, flute, and two new instrument inventions soon.
What do you call me?
We need new terms!
Doubler - two instruments
Tripler - three instruments
Quadler - 4 instruments
sinkler - 5 instruments (french for 5 is cinq, said 'sink')
from here I'm stuck :)

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It is generally accepted to stop with the term doubling, whether you play 2 or 20 instruments. I know most of the US musicians unions scales have base rates plus more for 1 double, 2 doubles, 3 doubles, etc. So, bubblegirl, you don't have to be stuck.

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"What's the term for someone who plays way more than two? "
I have simply been called a "multi-instrumentalist".
In show programmes I have been insultingly listed as a mere "reed", which of course includes the flute family, the airstream being the reed.

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[quote=Gordon (NZ)]"What's the term for someone who plays way more than two? "
If they own all of them "wealthy"!!!!! Or gottohavethemalltogetthedamnwork!!

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I've been called "Ubiquitous" before.