In recent discussions of modern clarinet techniques, scholars seek to show how toproduce these techniques and how to explain their notation. Clarinetist E. Michael Richards points out the deficiency of research in this area, when he indicates that today there are only “two generations of texts . . . exist on new clarinet resources;” and he considers his own book The Clarinet of the Twenty-first Century as the third generation research on modern instrumental techniques since 1977.2 I agree with Richards; and I think there is still a need to explain these techniques, especially when one sees the controversies surrounding the production and the notation of these techniques. In this research paper, three of the most important contemporary clarinet techniques are explained: multiphonics, microtones, and vibrato and discuss the problems of producing and notating these techniques. It is important to understand scholarly research in this area, in order to understand how contemporary clarinetists perform these techniques and how composers apply them to the current contemporary clarinet literature.
