Blog

This is a proposal, and 'request for comments', for a grading system for ocarina players. It was based on studying the ABRSM and Trinity College curriculums for flute.... Read More -->

Sound puzzles are often divisive among players, with many ending up getting stuck, and unable to pass them. However I believe this approachability issue lies in the design of existing implementations, not audio puzzles as a concept.... Read More -->

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There are many different ways of learning and practising intonation on the ocarina. Playing in tune depends on having something to indicate when you are, or are not in tune. Commonly, people use graphical chromatic tuners, but there are many other options as well, all of which have different pros and cons.... Read More -->

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I stayed with one of my Russian friends for a few days who is an advocate of the Svirel. The Svirel is an ancient Slavic wind instrument popular with all Eastern Slavic countries, yet was unknown to me. It is a parallel bore fully chromatic instrument that mostly does not use cross fingerings.... Read More -->

Ocarinas have a limited range, and people try to solve this in two ways, adding more holes to a single chamber, and adding additional chambers. But for someone playing the ocarina as a serious instrument, which approach is better?... Read More -->

Imagine that you've heard an instrument that captivates you, it's so pure and unusual. You find out that this instrument is called an 'ocarina' and want to learn it, so you buy one. But without realising it you bought an instrument that is unplayable, you struggle for some time, but regardless of what you do, you cannot make it sound like the music that inspired you. Or perhaps you cannot find the guidance you need to learn, or cannot find music that interests you. Sooner or later, you quit.... Read More -->

The Budrio ocarina festival is an awesome event that attracts ocarina players and makers from around the world. The festival is in Budrio, a small town outside of Bologna. Getting there is pretty easy, but how isn't obvious as a first time visitor.... Read More -->

People frequently approach the ocarina without a mentor. I was no different. I started not only by myself, but with almost no guidance at all. In hindsight, I can see that this wasted a great deal of time. Some of the mistakes I was making, I only became aware of over a year after I started, when I went to the Budrio Ocarina Festival.... Read More -->

I (Robert Hickman) was recently interviewed by Zijun Luo of the website "The Ocarina Museum". The interview goes into some detail about my history with the ocarina, how Pure Ocarinas came to exist, and what motivated me to write my two books.... Read More -->

Covers different ways of promoting the ocarina, like using skilled performances instead of visual gimmicks... Read More -->

Over the time I have been involved with the ocarina, one thing which has stuck out to me is the poor approach of players learning the ocarina. There is a tendency for new players to make little progress. Many are either stuck at a basic level, or give up pretty quickly, leading to a lack of advanced, and even intermediate, players.... Read More -->

Giorgio Pacchioni is an Italian ocarina maker and skilled player who I've been in dialogue with recently. He has raised some interesting points, and I wanted to bring them to a wider audience with an interview.... Read More -->

Italian ocarinas and directives of the instrument have two thumb holes, and the second of these serves a dual function. This makes playing needlessly complex, and we explore ways of solving the problem.... Read More -->

I think the best way of describing the 2019 ocarina festival is 'interesting', as it was quite different from usual. The market was dominated by European makers for the first time I've seen, there were many interesting ocarinas on show, and the main theatre which usually hosts the concerts was closed.... Read More -->

Learning to play music is often considered a difficult task, and I believe that a large part of this falls on the instruments themselves. The instruments and approaches traditionally used for teaching music to children stack the odds against the learner. Frequently instruments like the recorder are used, but while they look simple, they have numerous hidden pitfalls.... Read More -->

Musical instruments and video games have more in common than you may expect. Ultimately, both define a possibility space. In the case of a game, this can be an environment for a player avatar to navigate, while the possibility space of a musical instrument is its notes, range, timbre, and ornamental capabilities. In both cases there are a limited set of possibilities. Musicians are simply exploring the constraints of a system in a similar way to someone playing a game.... Read More -->

Teaching music to children is sometimes viewed as a difficult task, and music itself is often considered a skill that must be inborn. I don't believe so. I've been on both sides of this fence as I did not understand music as a child. Since learning music as an adult I've been questioning why this happened. The following points on teaching music to children arose from this study.... Read More -->

Within school music education musical instruments are taught in groups, and there are a number of problems that arise when teaching the early stages of instruments in this way. This article explores these problems, and I share some ideas on how to solve them.... Read More -->

Recently, I've been watching some interviews of video game designer Jonathan Blow, and found his approach to teaching game mechanics in The Witness fascinating. The game teaches its mechanics intuitively, with no invasive tutorial and no words. This leads me to question if the same idea could be applied to musical instruments. Is it possible to design a musical instrument be naturally intuitive to a new player?... Read More -->

A side effect of the ocarina's widespread use as a musical toy is that their development has been relatively stagnant for some time. As far as I'm aware nobody has thoroughly examined them under the light of modern research techniques and computer simulation. As people become aware of the ocarina as a serious instrument this will start to happen and its pot luck what will result. The problem is that any new discoveries would be patentable. Should such a discovery be a 'game changer', something that everyone wants, this could seriously disrupt the ocarina community. I don't think this would be a positive thing.... Read More -->

In my opinion, the easiest instrument to learn is a MIDI sequencer, such as LMMS: with such a program, it is easy to play cleanly articulated, in tune, and in time notes within a few minutes by dragging and dropping them on a timeline. The need for numerous hours of rote practice is completely obliterated. Plus, you can listen to your results on headphones, never worrying about embarrassing yourself. However you may still be left wandering what to do, and that hints at a deeper issue... Read More -->

One need only look at players like Michala Petri and Lucie Horsch to know that the recorder is a capable instrument. Yet what most people associate with the instrument is classrooms of children producing high pitched sequels and playing out of tune. I feel that the ocarina could easily end up in the same position... Read More -->

As an instrument maker, you may assume that music has played a deep roll in my life. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Throughout my entire childhood music was a troubled subject for me, the preverbal 'black art', and I only came to understand it as a young adult. This is my story.... Read More -->

For several years after picking up music, I believed that I was incapable of playing by ear. This assumption had been drawn as I believed 'playing by ear' meant 'the ability to play something perfectly on first exposure'. Naturally I tried a few times, failed and gave up.

I began to reassess this assumption after sitting in with the fiddle teacher at a local traditional music group. He is an exceptionally good player, who both learns new tunes and teaches exclusively by ear. I only had limited exposure to his teaching as he left shortly after I joined the group. However in this limited time I did gain insight into how to approach playing by ear.... Read More -->

Tunable single chamber ocarinas have existed for a long time, using a moveable plug to displace chamber volume. However I have never seen efforts made to apply this to multichamber ocarinas, double and tipple ocarinas. Although, it would have benefits to a player.... Read More -->

Current tunable ocarinas are based on the idea of inserting a tuning rod into the chamber. By sliding in or out, it occupies part of the chamber volume, changing the pitch. This design has existed for a long time, with historic examples in the ocarina museum in Budrio. However, it also isn't very effective. In this article I'm going to explain the value of tunable ocarinas for players, and explore some ways of improving them.... Read More -->

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Over the past years, I have had the opportunity to play ocarinas in a very wide range of situations. This has meant dealing with freezing temperatures in the middle of winter, to barely tolerable highs in the summer. Whenever I have played with other musicians, I've always experienced difficulty playing in tune from the first note. So I decided to study the issue scientifically.... Read More -->

It is commonly thought that the shape of an ocarina does not matter acoustically as the entire volume is always in oscillation. I have come to question this assumption... Read More -->

My trip to Budrio ocarina festival in 2015 gave me so many ideas that I have been working on my ocarinas constantly, and neglected to write about my second trip to the festival and Budrio, the birthplace of the modern ocarina. So let’s update on the interim, better late than never right?... Read More -->

Having seen a few uninspiring 3D printed ocarinas, I was curious if it is possible to create a playable musical instrument using current technology. Playable meaning in tune, with good ergonomics, a good appearance and a musical tone. This is how it went.... Read More -->

What can I say about my trip to Budrio ocarina festival, the biannual gathering in the Italian home town of the instrument? No words really do justice to the experience, it was an utterly fantastic. Really the most enjoyable thing I've done in recent times. Here are some stories of my trip.... Read More -->