The way I see it, any instrument can be a "serious instrument". It all depends on the musician/band. Beautiful music is beautiful music, it does not matter what it comes from.
Agreed. There are people who say key bass/synth bass doesn't count as "real" bass, but you can't deny how amazing it sounds in Snarky Puppy. Good music is good music.
Content for Andy? That all sounds like a nice idea in theory, but many instruments have limitations as to what they can accomplish. Most of the time these instruments are older models of instruments we have gotten down to a precise science, like flute for instance. There have been so many models of flutes throughout time before the one most accepted today. Usually, these flute models are only played with music of the culture or time period they were invented in. Modern flute on the other hand, is a much more accepted instrument to play almost any time periods. (I can't tell you much about the culture acceptance though, I don't know much about it.) This general acceptance of the modern flute is because it can be played more in tune, in harsher environments (extreme cold or heat), faster, a wider range of pitches, and so on. The ocarina on the other hand, is a very simple instrument, and you can't change much about it before it stops becoming an ocarina and starts becoming a flute. Some people even already call ocarinas a type of flute. By the way, ocarinas were invented in Italy 1853. The modern flute we call the Boehm model was invented in Germany 1847. It appears the hype for ocarina was kind of dashed away by the flute. Though the ocarina was invented several other places far earlier, those places were not at the core of what shaped Western music like Italy and Germany were.
Im an example of someone who didn’t discover the ocarina through Zelda; Couple years ago, my friend had a 3D printer and wanted to know if he could print an instrument, and so I found someone who had 3D printed an Ocarina. I actually looked up “Ocarina STL” because thats the format for 3d printable files, and I came across STL ocarina. We did end up 3D printing one, but when I wanted a real one, I returned to STL ocarina. I played Ocarina Of Time because I already liked Nintendo and, of-course, people assumed I was a Zelda fan when bringing up the Ocarina. Sure I wouldnt have heard of the instrument without Zelda’s influence on pop culture, but I still didn’t discover it through the games which is supprising to plenty of people.
I've never played Ocarina of Time, but I simply love how the instrument sounds and it's just something you don't see every day and I'm all for niche stuff! Been thinking about learning to play it for a while...
This video made me feel like sharing my brief (thus far) but somewhat complicated ocarina journey. Andy, I hope you'll enjoy me indulging a little! I got my first ocarina about 1 week ago and have learned a tremendous amount from videos like yours even before the instrument arrived. Now that I've had it, I'm confidently playing Bubblegum KK and the Pokemon Centre theme song after 1 week of light practice. I do have a bit of a music background. I used to play musical instruments and have Grade 5 (aka intermediate) level certificates in piano, violin, and musical theory, which I got before I went blind from childhood glaucoma at 16. My mother was a music teacher before she retired and was the one who quite literally beat the music into my head through my childhood and teenage years before I stopped after losing my eyesight. Maybe it's the Asian kid in me but now that it's years past the trauma, I kinda started missing it. Which is why, as an adult, I've entertained the idea on and off about getting back into music. I never thought of instruments like the recorder or ocarina as "serious" instruments anyone could play masterfully until (a) I heard the Azumanga Daioh anime soundtrack, which has tons of recorder sections in it, (b) I watched a video of a professional recorder player that absolutely bklew me away (pun intended) and (c) my girlfriend randomly suggested one day for us to learn the ocarina together because she saw it on TikTok. Before that conversation, I had never even thought about the ocarina beyond being that funny instrument in the title of that Zelda game I never played. 8-10 hours of RUclips video research later, and buying 2 Bravura Altos for my gf and I from Amazon, here I am. Learning a "proper" instrument again after more than 10 years of stopping after my blindness. And learning to play silly video game music on it. Most importantly, I'm learning how to have fun with music again. This time without the verbal abuse thankfully. I'm having enough fun that I'm even entertaining ideas like: What if I stick with it for years and get good enough to play it semi-professionally? Right now, that sounds like it'd be such a great life experience, and I wonder what my local ocarina community is like. Once I get more practice in, maybe I'll go look for other people in my area. If there isn't one, maybe it's time I organise an ocarina meet-up in my city myself. Maybe, like you, I can make some great friends along the way tootin away on this funny but beautiful-sounding little instrument. TLDR: Andy, I'm exactly the kind of person you're talking about. If it weren't for educational, welcoming creators like you who didn't make the topic of learning more about ocarinas approachable and understandable, I wouldn't be in this position right now. Having fun with music, adding +2 people to the population of the global ocarina community, and writing this silly comment for you. If the ocarina community was overly snobby and gatekeep-y, I probably wouldn't have found it approachable enough to be worth the effort getting started. I know you probably read most of these comments and I hope this makes your day. Because your videos certainly have made a difference to my life. Looking forward to learning more about your ongoing non-profit initiatives (I work in the non-profit space too) and happy tootin' everyone!
I'm so happy the ocarina helped you get back into music! I think one of the instrument's biggest strengths is how approachable it is to learn, despite being niche/obscure to actually find the right materials to learn with. Who knows, maybe you'll end up inspiring your own local community to play the ocarina more, too! Comments like these definitely make my day (though I often forget to check comments 🧎🏼♂️), and it's thanks to support from you and everyone who watches that I keep making videos, even when I disappear for months on end! Keep it up!!
Andy, you may want to look at the history of the BMG Movement (Banjo, Mandolin, Guitar) in the late 19th century. This was a movement to elevate these three instruments to the level of art instruments on a par with orchestral instruments. An excellent source of information on this is the book “The Guitar in America” by Jeffery Noonan. I think the ocarina faces the same problems these three instruments did in that they were not taken seriously. The solution was to create art-level music for them, and to support high-level players who were true artists on their respective instruments.
I was going to mention that ! Especially since they are still instruments that have a lot of really casual players (including myself, actually, for both the ocarina and the guitar), but also a lot of serious, very skilled players. I think that's probably the best case to help understand what could help long term :D
I think if we want to take the ocarina on its own terms, then we need more compositions for the instrument. Alas, I am not a composer. But I'm sure there are people out there who are! (And yes, I agree on your final points. The ocarina can be all of these things and more! And we should welcome everybody who has an interest into playing the ocarina.)
I've found that I love the ocarina because of how easy it is to play a little, put it down, go back later. I used to play flute, but if I were to try and play it again, I'd have to 1. Find it or buy an expensive new one, 2. Put it together just right, 3. Make sure it's the right temperature, THEN I can play. Since I mainly play for stress relief, I only play for a few songs at a time, so it would make no sense to pull out a flute just for that. Ocarina for the win!
I feel like the multi chamber ocarina largely escapes this prejudice of being less serious, even if it's just because of how much more complicated it looks. I do view single chambers as kind of a stepping stone, the range is just too limited to play a large repotoire of music.
Multi-chambers certainly help for "professional" appearance! However, I've been to some ocarina performances in Japan, and multi-chambers are generally *only* used in solo performances, and even then, single chambers are preferred if they don't need additional range. On top of that, ocarina ensembles also use single chambers, aside from a few small exceptions for specific songs. I think this might be because of the added challenges multi chambers have on certain runs (e.g. if you have to switch chambers rapidly), but funnily enough, single chambers seem to be more frequently used than you'd expect in the professional realm
There's a history behind these types of instruments that stretches back further than Italy. It doesn't make most people take them more seriously, but it's interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
Agreeing with essentially everything in the video. I started playing ocarina just after 6th grade I think. I accidentally started out with a South American Ocarina and gave up on it for just a little bit until I found a video by David Erick Ramos on different ocarina types and I realized what was wrong. Then in 8th grade, I bought a double chamber ocarina with my first ever paycheck, but I was almost ready to give up on by freshman year because it was so lonely, I felt like it didn't belong anywhere, and I couldn't play it seriously. But then I found out about the history, learned about all the passionate artists who make them, saw musicians like Tomohiro Ibaraki, found a friend who played too, and continued working on it. Now I'm headed to college majoring in music education and once again it's hard that in a group full of other musicians there still isn't really a place for the instrument I'm so passionate about while others are able to pursue the instruments (or singing) that they love most of all. But it's also okay. And as a music teacher I know I'm introducing English pendants and not recorders. Because they're good beginner instruments. And every bit of music from the Legend of Zelda (which I became a casual enjoyer of after playing for a few years) has some beautiful music which is excellent, but also some really good beginner ocarina player music. I think the best things we can do to promote the ocarina as a professional instrument though, is to produce more material for professionals. More songbooks, more supplies (like cases etc), and especially access to international music that already exists. I'd love it to have songbooks from Sojiro, You Xuezhi, the GOB's repoitoire, etc. But who knows where this will go
@@marymoocow1276 former music ed student. I feel you. If your college does recitals, we had them weekly, I would learn a “serious” piece or rather a piece taken seriously at music school like Bach, anything that is on the cusp of shredding will be enough. I think if you play that and execute well, you might win some folks over. You can also approach a hip professor to get an ocarina ensemble started if you have enough interested people. I would type up an estimated cost of what it would cost to get ocarinas and some sheet music with proposed sheet music as well. Just make it easy for a professor to say yes. Be the change!
That's amazing! The ocarina is definitely lonely IRL, and I tend to stay off social media otherwise, so I don't end up engaging with the online communities too much. It'll definitely be because of people like you actually working to get the ocarina in schools, exposed to more people, and working to solve the resources/materials problem. I should reach out to some of my Japanese ocarina contacts 🤔
I have two friends that I've gotten to play the ocarina; both because of Zelda. The most recent one only got it to play Zelda songs cause he's a huge Zelda fan, and the other is branching to other songs like Phantom of the Opera. I, myself, picked up a poorly tuned one at the ren faire, then got curious what a good one sounded like. Now I'm hooked. I play largely folk/fantasy/nerd music with it. I'm more casual than I'd like to be with it, but I adore it all the same. I also didn't come to it cause of Zelda, but I did know what it was because of Zelda
I don't think we really need to worry, same thing happens in reverse with things like guitar and violin with people thinking if you play a certain type of music or play an electric it's not viable fsr. Just play the thing and have fun. You can take it more seriously if you want, or don't, it's really up to the musician
I got an Ocarina of Crap for my. 12th birthday, and I did play a bunch of Zelda songs, plus a few pop culture tunes. I had always loved music but had never been that serious about it. But the ocarina (even a trash one) made my love of music very profound, and I began taking more "serious" lessons for more "serious" instruments. I play guitar now, but recently I picked one of my four ocarinas, played Epona's song (and a couple others) by ear, and fell in love all over again. now I have an intense musical problem. I consider myself to be quite talented, and could go far. But I don't know how to read sheet. I read tabs for guitar, and read music for piano, but it takes forever. I was wondering, with the ocarina's small(ish) range, would it be simple enough to learn to read sheet? and if so, do you have any recources for sight reading sheet with the Ocarina? thanks for reading this, I appreciate any help I can get, since I mostly teach myself.
I wouldn't have known what an ocarina was if it weren't for Legend of Zelda. I was gifted a bunch of cheap crappy potato ocarina's with very nice art very reminiscent of Mexico on them. Some of them were more animal shaped, but they were always described to me as a "flute" as a child.
I would like to see more sheet music on imslp for ocarina. I think it would be cool if we could get some transcriptions of Bach pieces. The limited range is a challenge to overcome, but with some clever arranging I think its possible.
The ocarina has a very large skill gap that requires an immense time investment to overcome. Sure, it can be compared to a simple recorder on the surface, but there's one quality that sets them miles apart: Breath control. With most wind instruments, you get more or less the same tone depending on how hard you blow within a wide range. If you blow too soft or too hard, the sound will fizzle out or crack after a certain deviance from the baseline air pressure or there will be an implicit curve in how much force is required from low to high notes. (i.e. less for low, more for high.) However, with the ocarina even minor variations in air pressure can create as much as a whole tone of difference in pitch, either up or down, without ever altering finger placement. The exact amount of pressure required to make any individual note be properly in tune will vary between finger placements without regard for the pitch. And further compounding this issue, the exact amount of pressure required for a proper pitch and the range of variance for each note as well as the exact timbres will vary even more between individual instruments. Learning the fingerings and note names is one thing, but to actually become proficient with an ocarina it requires intimate knowledge of your specific instrument's individual nuances. While most instruments share this quality to some degree, the ocarina takes it to the Nth degree. Imagine a guitar that changed its pitch across a 3 note range depending where your fingers are positioned relative to the frets. *_That_*_ is how the ocarina do~_
Content for Andy? I love ocarinas, I love ocarina music, and I love the GORGEOUS tone and timbre they can have, but I just don't see them taking off wildly in America as professional instruments. There are good reasons for this: Intonation The ocarina septet referenced in this video I assume to be a professional ensemble. Though they played their pieces very well, there were many places where it was out of tune, the balance was off, or the some notes didn't speak quite as well as others. Don't get me wrong, I'm amazed at how well the performers were, but a craftsmen is only as good as his tools. I could hear them correcting the pitch on held notes almost right away, which is super impressive! It's the ocarina's problem that it was out of tune. It appeared they were all using the same kind of ocarina too. Different models of instruments should have more tuning consistency than this. Dynamics Though this group did a great job keeping well-balanced, there were times when the upper voices just overpowered the others. This seems to be a common problem in ocarinas. You either get really loud ones (usually high voices), or ones that don't carry. You pretty much just don't play dynamics on an ocarina, not without messing up the intonation worse than it already is. Tone Quality in Extremities of Range There is also the issue of the tone quality some notes had. I noticed in the melody, some notes were WAY airier than others. I'm guessing this was due to them using alternate fingerings to curb the intonation to something acceptable, but that's just a theory. The thing is, as range-limited as many ocarinas are, if you get toward the extremities of their range, the tone quality (and often volume quality) goes out the window. In most other already accepted-as-serious instruments, the tone quality only varies slightly with range, usually depending more on the player's skill than the instrument. They also get loud or quite, but the player can vary their dynamics quite a lot to counteract that. with ocarina, you just don't have it. These are problems observed in a professional ensemble with professional-level instruments. If you listen to live professional ensembles of string quartets or standard woodwind quintets, you just don't notice these things. Everyone is in tune, in balance, and there tone quality only changes when they want it to (mostly). Until the ocarina can overcome these limitations (maybe via metal ocarinas?) it ain't goin' nowhere. PS Durability is not a widely talked-about concern of other already-accepted-as-serious instruments, to boot. I think I literally wrote an academic essay with proper form on the use of ocarinas in western music by accident, in a comments section on RUclips, in my free time. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Great haircut, Andy! So, here's my thought on this since I'm part of a few ocarina communities. I honestly disagree that we should break away from Zelda when it comes to promoting the instrument. First off, because of the Ocarinas of Crap, we know that most people are going to hear of the ocarina because of Zelda, like you said...but if we turn away those people who are interested in the instrument, they may end up buying those low quality instruments. They'll try playing them and learn that it doesn't sound very good and probably give up on them. Most people know of the ocarina because of Zelda...that's how I was and I really thought that the ocarina was a made up instrument as well until I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it was indeed a real instrument. So I bought my first Zelda ocarina and I fell in love with playing it. Now all four of my ocarinas are Zelda replicas, but that's not to say that I'd be against buying a non-Zelda ocarina, because I might someday. I would like to learn the traverse style ocarina and so I think buying one with an angled mouthpiece would be easier for me to play because it puts just a little less strain on your wrists. Even though at the moment, I don't really have an interest to play another type of instrument, I still feel the benefits of playing music. It just feels good, is relaxing, and it helps your memory since memorizing music is the best way to play music. I honestly never saw myself playing a musical instrument, and yet here I am. I do think replacing recorders in school with ocarinas would be a great change! Ocarinas are just fun. They're fun to hold, easy to carry, and they can be a bit more forgiving when it comes to playing in tune. I personally wish I would've picked up an instrument when I was growing up, but I didn't and now I kind of regret it. But the ocarina is great to try learning on your own, I just need to learn to actually read sheet music and I should be off to the races. The day I can play by ear though, that's when I think the sky would be the limit. But yeah, my final thought: I do think those in the ocarina community that think we should distance ourselves from Zelda, I feel that they're kind of more on the snobby side and their attitude might turn people off from the ocarina and see the community as toxic like the Linux community in a way. If someone is turned onto the ocarina because of Zelda...then that's great! If you want to play a Zelda replica, that's awesome! If you find you love the ocarina so much and you want to play other versions, then that's wonderful! But what's the point if you're just going to chase people away because they're not up to your standards in what an ocarina should be?
I absolutely made this video to address some snobby/gatekeepy behavior in *small areas* of the ocarina community. Their hearts are (probably) in the right place, but an *exclusive* ocarina community simply isn't a community at all. My business mind says *the more people who want to play the ocarina, for any reason, and buy from reputable makers, the stronger a foundation the community will have* I.E. If reputable makers are making more money, then we get more makers and ocarina variety, so gatekeeping people who don't "ocarina correctly" really just hurts the foundation of the community more than anything. No makers = no ocarinas = no community The comments on this video have made me really happy seeing how generally positive and welcoming my community is! I know the ocarina from Zelda, and if I didn't, I wouldn't even be here.
The music situation in America is cheeks. We have elevated people to a point that if you aren’t on American Idol then you ain’t shit. Instrumentally if it isn’t in a symphony orchestra it ain’t shit. Amazing musicians can do insane stuff and people might not even care cause it’s already been done or they saw it on RUclips already. My 5 year old daughter has music in school like once a week maybe even every other week. In Hawaii, all them kids could sing and play ukulele cause they did it every single day because it’s a part of their culture. Mass proliferation is just one huge mainstream artist away though. If Taylor Swift busted out an ocarina all her fans would jump on it. But then again do we really want that? I’m not sure either way. But music is for everyone. Ocarina is for everyone! Side note, recorder isn’t taken seriously in music school or by the general population probably cause of the garbage ones everyone played in elementary schools. So if we do it, gotta do it right. Osawas for everyone! Or at least NbNs!
Good points! Playing instruments is so not *normal* in American culture or education for the most part. I definitely agree there are "wrong" ways to spread the ocarina (e.g. out of tune Amazon ocarinas of crap), but I don't think there's any wrong way for anyone to personally enjoy the instrument either.
The best way to make something intolerably uncool is to mandate it in schools. Recorders have gone through a renaissance (heh :P) since being phased out from schools, and this is continuing strongly, with public perception continuing to change. I pray we will not be the ones playing the "conformist" instrument. Would it be an objective improvement on the recorder as a teaching instrument? Absolutely. I think things like melodions and other small keyboard instruments (which I've heard were introduced in a few schools in Asia) or little harps/lyres in cases would be even better at setting children up for what they most likely want to progress onto (if they want to "progress", those are great instruments), i.e. piano and guitar, which, alas, are the "default" instruments in our society.
Other countries like South Korea actually have ocarinas in a lot of schools, yet the ocarina is also well-known / respected there. I definitely agree with your point of tailoring the "elementary school stepping stone" to facilitate the specific musical skills that the child might want to pursue, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to add the ocarina as an *option* in more schools.
before we start teaching the ocarina in schools, we should start pronouncing it correctly the word comes from Italian and means "little goose" in Italian, words starting with O (and generally the letter O wherever it's found) are given an 'oh' sound, not an 'ah' sound
I am aware of how it is pronounced in Italian + its linguistic origin. It is pronounced slightly differently in Japanese, too, and different again in Korean. Language is full of loan words whose pronunciations change when spoken in different languages! I am Ocarina in English. "Oh" and "Ah" are both correct-just depends on the language you're speaking, and in English, either pronunciations is correct. Think how we say "opera" as "ah-pera" in English, when in Italian, it's be "oh-pera." Same concept
The way I see it, any instrument can be a "serious instrument". It all depends on the musician/band. Beautiful music is beautiful music, it does not matter what it comes from.
Agreed. There are people who say key bass/synth bass doesn't count as "real" bass, but you can't deny how amazing it sounds in Snarky Puppy. Good music is good music.
People don't like the plastic recorder, but the wooden recorder is shown as a serious classical instrument. The difference? Context and sound.
Content for Andy?
That all sounds like a nice idea in theory, but many instruments have limitations as to what they can accomplish. Most of the time these instruments are older models of instruments we have gotten down to a precise science, like flute for instance.
There have been so many models of flutes throughout time before the one most accepted today. Usually, these flute models are only played with music of the culture or time period they were invented in. Modern flute on the other hand, is a much more accepted instrument to play almost any time periods. (I can't tell you much about the culture acceptance though, I don't know much about it.) This general acceptance of the modern flute is because it can be played more in tune, in harsher environments (extreme cold or heat), faster, a wider range of pitches, and so on.
The ocarina on the other hand, is a very simple instrument, and you can't change much about it before it stops becoming an ocarina and starts becoming a flute. Some people even already call ocarinas a type of flute. By the way, ocarinas were invented in Italy 1853. The modern flute we call the Boehm model was invented in Germany 1847. It appears the hype for ocarina was kind of dashed away by the flute. Though the ocarina was invented several other places far earlier, those places were not at the core of what shaped Western music like Italy and Germany were.
Im an example of someone who didn’t discover the ocarina through Zelda; Couple years ago, my friend had a 3D printer and wanted to know if he could print an instrument, and so I found someone who had 3D printed an Ocarina. I actually looked up “Ocarina STL” because thats the format for 3d printable files, and I came across STL ocarina. We did end up 3D printing one, but when I wanted a real one, I returned to STL ocarina. I played Ocarina Of Time because I already liked Nintendo and, of-course, people assumed I was a Zelda fan when bringing up the Ocarina. Sure I wouldnt have heard of the instrument without Zelda’s influence on pop culture, but I still didn’t discover it through the games which is supprising to plenty of people.
Same!! I'd heard of it cause of Zelda, since I had friends who liked LOZ, but I didn't buy one because of the games
I've never played Ocarina of Time, but I simply love how the instrument sounds and it's just something you don't see every day and I'm all for niche stuff! Been thinking about learning to play it for a while...
This video made me feel like sharing my brief (thus far) but somewhat complicated ocarina journey. Andy, I hope you'll enjoy me indulging a little!
I got my first ocarina about 1 week ago and have learned a tremendous amount from videos like yours even before the instrument arrived. Now that I've had it, I'm confidently playing Bubblegum KK and the Pokemon Centre theme song after 1 week of light practice.
I do have a bit of a music background. I used to play musical instruments and have Grade 5 (aka intermediate) level certificates in piano, violin, and musical theory, which I got before I went blind from childhood glaucoma at 16. My mother was a music teacher before she retired and was the one who quite literally beat the music into my head through my childhood and teenage years before I stopped after losing my eyesight. Maybe it's the Asian kid in me but now that it's years past the trauma, I kinda started missing it.
Which is why, as an adult, I've entertained the idea on and off about getting back into music. I never thought of instruments like the recorder or ocarina as "serious" instruments anyone could play masterfully until (a) I heard the Azumanga Daioh anime soundtrack, which has tons of recorder sections in it, (b) I watched a video of a professional recorder player that absolutely bklew me away (pun intended) and (c) my girlfriend randomly suggested one day for us to learn the ocarina together because she saw it on TikTok. Before that conversation, I had never even thought about the ocarina beyond being that funny instrument in the title of that Zelda game I never played.
8-10 hours of RUclips video research later, and buying 2 Bravura Altos for my gf and I from Amazon, here I am. Learning a "proper" instrument again after more than 10 years of stopping after my blindness. And learning to play silly video game music on it.
Most importantly, I'm learning how to have fun with music again. This time without the verbal abuse thankfully.
I'm having enough fun that I'm even entertaining ideas like: What if I stick with it for years and get good enough to play it semi-professionally? Right now, that sounds like it'd be such a great life experience, and I wonder what my local ocarina community is like.
Once I get more practice in, maybe I'll go look for other people in my area. If there isn't one, maybe it's time I organise an ocarina meet-up in my city myself. Maybe, like you, I can make some great friends along the way tootin away on this funny but beautiful-sounding little instrument.
TLDR: Andy, I'm exactly the kind of person you're talking about. If it weren't for educational, welcoming creators like you who didn't make the topic of learning more about ocarinas approachable and understandable, I wouldn't be in this position right now. Having fun with music, adding +2 people to the population of the global ocarina community, and writing this silly comment for you. If the ocarina community was overly snobby and gatekeep-y, I probably wouldn't have found it approachable enough to be worth the effort getting started.
I know you probably read most of these comments and I hope this makes your day. Because your videos certainly have made a difference to my life. Looking forward to learning more about your ongoing non-profit initiatives (I work in the non-profit space too) and happy tootin' everyone!
I'm so happy the ocarina helped you get back into music! I think one of the instrument's biggest strengths is how approachable it is to learn, despite being niche/obscure to actually find the right materials to learn with. Who knows, maybe you'll end up inspiring your own local community to play the ocarina more, too!
Comments like these definitely make my day (though I often forget to check comments 🧎🏼♂️), and it's thanks to support from you and everyone who watches that I keep making videos, even when I disappear for months on end! Keep it up!!
I consider the ocarina as a serious instrument.
Thank you for oc videos Andy
Thank you! It was a revolving door though, since I went straight back for a 2nd master's that would only require 7 additional classes 🧎🏼♂️
Andy, you may want to look at the history of the BMG Movement (Banjo, Mandolin, Guitar) in the late 19th century. This was a movement to elevate these three instruments to the level of art instruments on a par with orchestral instruments. An excellent source of information on this is the book “The Guitar in America” by Jeffery Noonan. I think the ocarina faces the same problems these three instruments did in that they were not taken seriously. The solution was to create art-level music for them, and to support high-level players who were true artists on their respective instruments.
It definitely worked for BMG, who knows for Ocarina..
I was going to mention that ! Especially since they are still instruments that have a lot of really casual players (including myself, actually, for both the ocarina and the guitar), but also a lot of serious, very skilled players. I think that's probably the best case to help understand what could help long term :D
I love this videos, thanks Andy. I really like your approach.
I think if we want to take the ocarina on its own terms, then we need more compositions for the instrument. Alas, I am not a composer. But I'm sure there are people out there who are!
(And yes, I agree on your final points. The ocarina can be all of these things and more! And we should welcome everybody who has an interest into playing the ocarina.)
multi-faceted ocarina is the best solution, hard agree with all these points! thank you for making this :)
I've found that I love the ocarina because of how easy it is to play a little, put it down, go back later. I used to play flute, but if I were to try and play it again, I'd have to 1. Find it or buy an expensive new one, 2. Put it together just right, 3. Make sure it's the right temperature, THEN I can play. Since I mainly play for stress relief, I only play for a few songs at a time, so it would make no sense to pull out a flute just for that. Ocarina for the win!
I’ve been playing the ocarina for about 4 months. I’m so glad I found your channel.
I feel like the multi chamber ocarina largely escapes this prejudice of being less serious, even if it's just because of how much more complicated it looks.
I do view single chambers as kind of a stepping stone, the range is just too limited to play a large repotoire of music.
Multi-chambers certainly help for "professional" appearance! However, I've been to some ocarina performances in Japan, and multi-chambers are generally *only* used in solo performances, and even then, single chambers are preferred if they don't need additional range. On top of that, ocarina ensembles also use single chambers, aside from a few small exceptions for specific songs.
I think this might be because of the added challenges multi chambers have on certain runs (e.g. if you have to switch chambers rapidly), but funnily enough, single chambers seem to be more frequently used than you'd expect in the professional realm
There's a history behind these types of instruments that stretches back further than Italy. It doesn't make most people take them more seriously, but it's interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
Agreeing with essentially everything in the video. I started playing ocarina just after 6th grade I think. I accidentally started out with a South American Ocarina and gave up on it for just a little bit until I found a video by David Erick Ramos on different ocarina types and I realized what was wrong. Then in 8th grade, I bought a double chamber ocarina with my first ever paycheck, but I was almost ready to give up on by freshman year because it was so lonely, I felt like it didn't belong anywhere, and I couldn't play it seriously. But then I found out about the history, learned about all the passionate artists who make them, saw musicians like Tomohiro Ibaraki, found a friend who played too, and continued working on it. Now I'm headed to college majoring in music education and once again it's hard that in a group full of other musicians there still isn't really a place for the instrument I'm so passionate about while others are able to pursue the instruments (or singing) that they love most of all. But it's also okay. And as a music teacher I know I'm introducing English pendants and not recorders. Because they're good beginner instruments. And every bit of music from the Legend of Zelda (which I became a casual enjoyer of after playing for a few years) has some beautiful music which is excellent, but also some really good beginner ocarina player music. I think the best things we can do to promote the ocarina as a professional instrument though, is to produce more material for professionals. More songbooks, more supplies (like cases etc), and especially access to international music that already exists. I'd love it to have songbooks from Sojiro, You Xuezhi, the GOB's repoitoire, etc. But who knows where this will go
@@marymoocow1276 former music ed student. I feel you. If your college does recitals, we had them weekly, I would learn a “serious” piece or rather a piece taken seriously at music school like Bach, anything that is on the cusp of shredding will be enough. I think if you play that and execute well, you might win some folks over. You can also approach a hip professor to get an ocarina ensemble started if you have enough interested people. I would type up an estimated cost of what it would cost to get ocarinas and some sheet music with proposed sheet music as well. Just make it easy for a professor to say yes. Be the change!
That's amazing! The ocarina is definitely lonely IRL, and I tend to stay off social media otherwise, so I don't end up engaging with the online communities too much. It'll definitely be because of people like you actually working to get the ocarina in schools, exposed to more people, and working to solve the resources/materials problem.
I should reach out to some of my Japanese ocarina contacts 🤔
I have never played ocarina of time. I heard about the ocarina because im weird and love all unusual world instruments.
I have two friends that I've gotten to play the ocarina; both because of Zelda. The most recent one only got it to play Zelda songs cause he's a huge Zelda fan, and the other is branching to other songs like Phantom of the Opera.
I, myself, picked up a poorly tuned one at the ren faire, then got curious what a good one sounded like. Now I'm hooked. I play largely folk/fantasy/nerd music with it. I'm more casual than I'd like to be with it, but I adore it all the same. I also didn't come to it cause of Zelda, but I did know what it was because of Zelda
I don't think we really need to worry, same thing happens in reverse with things like guitar and violin with people thinking if you play a certain type of music or play an electric it's not viable fsr. Just play the thing and have fun. You can take it more seriously if you want, or don't, it's really up to the musician
I got an Ocarina of Crap for my. 12th birthday, and I did play a bunch of Zelda songs, plus a few pop culture tunes. I had always loved music but had never been that serious about it. But the ocarina (even a trash one) made my love of music very profound, and I began taking more "serious" lessons for more "serious" instruments. I play guitar now, but recently I picked one of my four ocarinas, played Epona's song (and a couple others) by ear, and fell in love all over again. now I have an intense musical problem. I consider myself to be quite talented, and could go far. But I don't know how to read sheet. I read tabs for guitar, and read music for piano, but it takes forever. I was wondering, with the ocarina's small(ish) range, would it be simple enough to learn to read sheet? and if so, do you have any recources for sight reading sheet with the Ocarina? thanks for reading this, I appreciate any help I can get, since I mostly teach myself.
I wouldn't have known what an ocarina was if it weren't for Legend of Zelda. I was gifted a bunch of cheap crappy potato ocarina's with very nice art very reminiscent of Mexico on them. Some of them were more animal shaped, but they were always described to me as a "flute" as a child.
I would like to see more sheet music on imslp for ocarina. I think it would be cool if we could get some transcriptions of Bach pieces. The limited range is a challenge to overcome, but with some clever arranging I think its possible.
The ocarina has a very large skill gap that requires an immense time investment to overcome.
Sure, it can be compared to a simple recorder on the surface, but there's one quality that sets them miles apart: Breath control.
With most wind instruments, you get more or less the same tone depending on how hard you blow within a wide range. If you blow too soft or too hard, the sound will fizzle out or crack after a certain deviance from the baseline air pressure or there will be an implicit curve in how much force is required from low to high notes. (i.e. less for low, more for high.)
However, with the ocarina even minor variations in air pressure can create as much as a whole tone of difference in pitch, either up or down, without ever altering finger placement. The exact amount of pressure required to make any individual note be properly in tune will vary between finger placements without regard for the pitch. And further compounding this issue, the exact amount of pressure required for a proper pitch and the range of variance for each note as well as the exact timbres will vary even more between individual instruments.
Learning the fingerings and note names is one thing, but to actually become proficient with an ocarina it requires intimate knowledge of your specific instrument's individual nuances. While most instruments share this quality to some degree, the ocarina takes it to the Nth degree. Imagine a guitar that changed its pitch across a 3 note range depending where your fingers are positioned relative to the frets. *_That_*_ is how the ocarina do~_
Content for Andy?
I love ocarinas, I love ocarina music, and I love the GORGEOUS tone and timbre they can have, but I just don't see them taking off wildly in America as professional instruments. There are good reasons for this:
Intonation
The ocarina septet referenced in this video I assume to be a professional ensemble. Though they played their pieces very well, there were many places where it was out of tune, the balance was off, or the some notes didn't speak quite as well as others. Don't get me wrong, I'm amazed at how well the performers were, but a craftsmen is only as good as his tools. I could hear them correcting the pitch on held notes almost right away, which is super impressive! It's the ocarina's problem that it was out of tune. It appeared they were all using the same kind of ocarina too. Different models of instruments should have more tuning consistency than this.
Dynamics
Though this group did a great job keeping well-balanced, there were times when the upper voices just overpowered the others. This seems to be a common problem in ocarinas. You either get really loud ones (usually high voices), or ones that don't carry. You pretty much just don't play dynamics on an ocarina, not without messing up the intonation worse than it already is.
Tone Quality in Extremities of Range
There is also the issue of the tone quality some notes had. I noticed in the melody, some notes were WAY airier than others. I'm guessing this was due to them using alternate fingerings to curb the intonation to something acceptable, but that's just a theory. The thing is, as range-limited as many ocarinas are, if you get toward the extremities of their range, the tone quality (and often volume quality) goes out the window. In most other already accepted-as-serious instruments, the tone quality only varies slightly with range, usually depending more on the player's skill than the instrument. They also get loud or quite, but the player can vary their dynamics quite a lot to counteract that. with ocarina, you just don't have it.
These are problems observed in a professional ensemble with professional-level instruments. If you listen to live professional ensembles of string quartets or standard woodwind quintets, you just don't notice these things. Everyone is in tune, in balance, and there tone quality only changes when they want it to (mostly). Until the ocarina can overcome these limitations (maybe via metal ocarinas?) it ain't goin' nowhere.
PS Durability is not a widely talked-about concern of other already-accepted-as-serious instruments, to boot.
I think I literally wrote an academic essay with proper form on the use of ocarinas in western music by accident, in a comments section on RUclips, in my free time. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
I hadn't realized you just made a video on this, I'll go watch it now.
Ocarina Andy likes his Ocarina candy!
Great haircut, Andy! So, here's my thought on this since I'm part of a few ocarina communities. I honestly disagree that we should break away from Zelda when it comes to promoting the instrument. First off, because of the Ocarinas of Crap, we know that most people are going to hear of the ocarina because of Zelda, like you said...but if we turn away those people who are interested in the instrument, they may end up buying those low quality instruments. They'll try playing them and learn that it doesn't sound very good and probably give up on them. Most people know of the ocarina because of Zelda...that's how I was and I really thought that the ocarina was a made up instrument as well until I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it was indeed a real instrument. So I bought my first Zelda ocarina and I fell in love with playing it.
Now all four of my ocarinas are Zelda replicas, but that's not to say that I'd be against buying a non-Zelda ocarina, because I might someday. I would like to learn the traverse style ocarina and so I think buying one with an angled mouthpiece would be easier for me to play because it puts just a little less strain on your wrists. Even though at the moment, I don't really have an interest to play another type of instrument, I still feel the benefits of playing music. It just feels good, is relaxing, and it helps your memory since memorizing music is the best way to play music. I honestly never saw myself playing a musical instrument, and yet here I am. I do think replacing recorders in school with ocarinas would be a great change! Ocarinas are just fun. They're fun to hold, easy to carry, and they can be a bit more forgiving when it comes to playing in tune. I personally wish I would've picked up an instrument when I was growing up, but I didn't and now I kind of regret it. But the ocarina is great to try learning on your own, I just need to learn to actually read sheet music and I should be off to the races. The day I can play by ear though, that's when I think the sky would be the limit.
But yeah, my final thought: I do think those in the ocarina community that think we should distance ourselves from Zelda, I feel that they're kind of more on the snobby side and their attitude might turn people off from the ocarina and see the community as toxic like the Linux community in a way. If someone is turned onto the ocarina because of Zelda...then that's great! If you want to play a Zelda replica, that's awesome! If you find you love the ocarina so much and you want to play other versions, then that's wonderful! But what's the point if you're just going to chase people away because they're not up to your standards in what an ocarina should be?
I absolutely made this video to address some snobby/gatekeepy behavior in *small areas* of the ocarina community. Their hearts are (probably) in the right place, but an *exclusive* ocarina community simply isn't a community at all.
My business mind says *the more people who want to play the ocarina, for any reason, and buy from reputable makers, the stronger a foundation the community will have* I.E. If reputable makers are making more money, then we get more makers and ocarina variety, so gatekeeping people who don't "ocarina correctly" really just hurts the foundation of the community more than anything. No makers = no ocarinas = no community
The comments on this video have made me really happy seeing how generally positive and welcoming my community is! I know the ocarina from Zelda, and if I didn't, I wouldn't even be here.
WIND WAKER THEME!!!
The music situation in America is cheeks. We have elevated people to a point that if you aren’t on American Idol then you ain’t shit. Instrumentally if it isn’t in a symphony orchestra it ain’t shit. Amazing musicians can do insane stuff and people might not even care cause it’s already been done or they saw it on RUclips already.
My 5 year old daughter has music in school like once a week maybe even every other week. In Hawaii, all them kids could sing and play ukulele cause they did it every single day because it’s a part of their culture.
Mass proliferation is just one huge mainstream artist away though. If Taylor Swift busted out an ocarina all her fans would jump on it. But then again do we really want that? I’m not sure either way. But music is for everyone. Ocarina is for everyone!
Side note, recorder isn’t taken seriously in music school or by the general population probably cause of the garbage ones everyone played in elementary schools. So if we do it, gotta do it right. Osawas for everyone! Or at least NbNs!
Good points! Playing instruments is so not *normal* in American culture or education for the most part. I definitely agree there are "wrong" ways to spread the ocarina (e.g. out of tune Amazon ocarinas of crap), but I don't think there's any wrong way for anyone to personally enjoy the instrument either.
The best way to make something intolerably uncool is to mandate it in schools. Recorders have gone through a renaissance (heh :P) since being phased out from schools, and this is continuing strongly, with public perception continuing to change. I pray we will not be the ones playing the "conformist" instrument. Would it be an objective improvement on the recorder as a teaching instrument? Absolutely. I think things like melodions and other small keyboard instruments (which I've heard were introduced in a few schools in Asia) or little harps/lyres in cases would be even better at setting children up for what they most likely want to progress onto (if they want to "progress", those are great instruments), i.e. piano and guitar, which, alas, are the "default" instruments in our society.
Other countries like South Korea actually have ocarinas in a lot of schools, yet the ocarina is also well-known / respected there. I definitely agree with your point of tailoring the "elementary school stepping stone" to facilitate the specific musical skills that the child might want to pursue, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to add the ocarina as an *option* in more schools.
before we start teaching the ocarina in schools, we should start pronouncing it correctly
the word comes from Italian and means "little goose"
in Italian, words starting with O (and generally the letter O wherever it's found) are given an 'oh' sound, not an 'ah' sound
I am aware of how it is pronounced in Italian + its linguistic origin. It is pronounced slightly differently in Japanese, too, and different again in Korean.
Language is full of loan words whose pronunciations change when spoken in different languages! I am Ocarina in English. "Oh" and "Ah" are both correct-just depends on the language you're speaking, and in English, either pronunciations is correct.
Think how we say "opera" as "ah-pera" in English, when in Italian, it's be "oh-pera." Same concept