A-flat clarinet

The A-flat (A♭) clarinet is the highest-pitched instrument of the clarinet family still manufactured. It is just over half the length of the common B♭ clarinet and pitched a minor seventh higher, a perfect fourth higher than the E♭ clarinet. As a transposing instrument it sounds a minor sixth higher than written, thus the lowest written note E3 sounds as concert C4 (middle C). Around the beginning of the 19th century, several small clarinets in different pitches appeared.