(Fr.: clarinette; Ger.: Klarinette; It.: clarinetto),
1. organologists and ethnomusicologists consider as a clarinet any reedpipe with a mouthed single beating reed; Sachs defined it in this wider sense as a tube closed at the upper end, with a nearby blowhole covered by a beating reed. Such instrs. were already known to ancient Egypt, where the blowhole was made by cutting a 3-sided oblique slit into the cane, thereby forming a tongue, i.e., an idioglott reed. Their origin is unknown...