How to play loud

This advice applies to clarinets, mainly, but theoretically it can be applied to other ones, such as saxophones.

Step 1: Embouchure tips

The most important thing here is to have no air pockets anywhere in your mouth except in the main cavity. This means no cheek pouches or anything. Your embouchure should be rigid and very firm, and all air should go like a firehose into the instrument. Retract your tongue into the back of your mouth and keep it low as well so that air has more of a path straight into the clarinet. Additionally, for even more volume on certain notes, use your tongue to push air towards the front of your mouth, creating more pressure. For heavy accents, feel free to use this technique as well to build up pressure behind the reed so that the resulting notes are more explosive.

Step 2: Breathing tips

Belly breathing and using your core are important to achieve a good sound, but to achieve volume you need to build up pressure in your mouth. This is very important for accents and those marching band ffffs. Additionally, feel free to move around if you need to breathe in more - leaning backwards like I’m about to sneeze works for me.

Step 3: Playing horizontally

All the great jazz clarinetists - Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw - played horizontally. Why? Because it makes you sound so much louder. Instead of playing to the floor, you play to your grateful audience.

The biggest tip when playing horizontally is to keep your embouchure mostly the same by tilting your chin up along with the clarinet. Don’t try to play like a trumpet - it will not work.

Step 4: Other stuff

A huge part of playing loud is also confidence in your own tone. Of course, tone comes before volume, but if you’re a first chair you should have every right to play loud in fortissimo moments. Don’t be a main character, though - encourage the rest of your section to also play loud in those moments so that you have a strong and powerful section to lead the rest of the band. One of the biggest problems in a lot of sections is a simple lack of volume, and playing louder - without arrogance - is the simple solution.