Here See Caption Below. Mandat, a professor of music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, can turn the clarinet sideways, like a flute, and play the instrument by blowing into one of the finger-holes. Sometimes Mandat plays music that calls for him to play one note on the clarinet and simultaneously sing another. With circular breathing, air is exhaled out of the mouth and inhaled through the nose. Mandat may be best known, however, for his ability to produce quarter-tones.
Black keys represent half-tones.
Producing quarter-tones involves a different way of using one's fingers from what clarinetists are taught. Mandat's quarter-tone fingering techniques have started to appear in textbooks. Internet searches turn up correspondence among clarinetists who can't figure out a particular technique or how Eric Mandat makes it look so easy. Mandat says he knew by age 3 that he wanted to play the clarinet, although he didn't get the opportunity until he signed up for school band at age 8. A year later he began private lessons with a member of the Colorado Philharmonic Orchestra.