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QuickTake:
Michael Almich studied classical clarinet performance at the University of Oregon. Now he has found a new outlet for his skills, and some traction on social media, thanks to inventive covers of music from pop culture — tunes you don't expect to hear played on the woodwind.
Korean pop music isn’t typically composed with an instrument like the clarinet in mind.
But for Michael Almich, the soundtrack to the hit Netflix animated musical “KPop Demon Hunters” was an opportunity.
Almich is a 2005 graduate of the University of Oregon, and for the last four years he has been posting as @clarinetouttacontext and gaining a social media following for his inventive clarinet covers of music from pop culture.
That includes pop music, classic hits, anime and video game soundtracks — and “Golden,” the marquee track from “KPop Demon Hunters.” (He has a playlist of covers from the movie.) Almich’s “Golden” cover has 1.1 million views on TikTok, and 618,000 on Instagram.
For Almich, @clarinetouttacontext is a way to get back to a beloved instrument he hadn’t touched in almost a decade, while reaching exponentially more listeners than he could have hoped for in his previous life as a touring musician.
“You look at the sheer number of people that have accounts on TikTok,” he said. “Even if you were to limit that down just to like the music community, we’re talking millions of potential viewers. There is no comparison.”
Leaning into clarinet
Almich, 41, was born in California but raised in Bandon, on the southern Oregon Coast. He started playing music when he was 11 years old and his parents got him a small Casio keyboard. But he had his eye on the soprano saxophone, the instrument Kenny G played.
However, the school band had too many saxophones, which left the clarinet. His parents then got him private lessons with Matt Utal, a clarinet player who toured with Les Brown’s big band for years and had retired to Bandon. But Almich wasn’t certain the clarinet was really for him until he watched “The Benny Goodman Story,” a 1956 musical starring the mid-century jazz clarinetist.
Goodman’s skill blew Almich away. “I had no idea that a clarinet could be so cool,” he said.
During his high school years, Almich played with the youth jazz ensemble Oregon Coast Lab Band, where he also met his future wife, Lani-lee. In 2001, he started attending UO and studied under Wayne Bennett, whose high standards Almich credits as a major influence on his technique.
Almich and Lani-lee married in college, and Almich worked as a touring jazz musician for a time post-grad. They soon had a house full of kids: two foster children, their first biological baby, another sibling of the original two foster children, and then two additional biological kids, including one with a congenital heart defect that required special attention.
That made touring life hard. Wanting stability, Almich and Lani-lee settled in Boise, Idaho. They work at Costco, and Almich is a manager. That was life for the family for years, including a period of about nine years before he started on TikTok, during which Almich said he didn’t play the clarinet at all.
A woodwind and a smartphone
In 2019, Almich’s first instructor in the clarinet, Utal, died. In 2021, some students wanted to organize a get-together in his memory. Almich couldn’t make it, but took out his clarinet to record a video of him playing “Memories of You,” a Goodman track, to send as a tribute.
A friend suggested, why not start posting videos like that on TikTok? Almich had stayed away from the social media platform, but started uploading videos and found it cathartic.
“It was healing for me, because I had taken so much time away from playing,” he said. “Now, I had this outlet that allowed me to still do it without having to go to nightclubs or go on the road or lose all this time with my kids and with my wife.”
Little by little, his following grew, but started speeding up last year with covers of songs by Travis Scott, Tyler the Creator, Teddy Swims and the soundtrack to “Squid Game” building momentum.
Now, Almich has a formula he tries to keep consistent across all his videos: educational, entertaining, empowering and human. That’s why he includes sheet music for each song he transcribes, so younger musicians can take his work and play their own versions.
Even the clarinet covers of goofy memes he occasionally does serve a purpose, he hopes, for younger students excited to bring something they’re familiar with to their band teachers at school. The same goes for nerdier picks, from video games and anime, bringing music that kids might be more excited to play than Mozart. (Almich was quick to clarify this is not to say he doesn’t enjoy playing Mozart, which has its place.)
But he wants to forge a connection beyond an unexpected cover version. The human aspect is why he talks about being a dad, or things that he used to struggle with playing the clarinet he can give viewers tips on.
“I want my viewers to see that side of it too,” he said. “That I’m not just a music box.”
