Hautboy found this page stating that Aketagawa started making ocarinas inspired by Fiehn's around 1928, and that he found one in a department store. That implies that Fiehn were distributing ocarinas outside of Europe.
Hautboy found this page stating that Aketagawa started making ocarinas inspired by Fiehn's around 1928, and that he found one in a department store. That implies that Fiehn were distributing ocarinas outside of Europe.
I have just been listening to some traditional Japanese flute music. Not so much shakuhachi as the music for the Noh drama. This uses a special kind of fife with a narrowing insert in the bore that makes it overblow by a seventh rather than an octave. Both this Noh music (with its spare and explosive percussion) and the shakuhachi use extreme dynamic contrasts - it's like they practice by spitting holes through a brick. I don't know any other tradition that uses flutes for such wild ferocity.
An ocarina can get some way towards that, if you use a single-chamber with limited range. But the Japanese makers went the opposite way. Wider pitch range and drastically restricted dynamics, to fit in with the blandly mushy easy-listening idiom of American postwar light music (which is where the anime/game style comes from). The only ocarina players I've heard attempting the grit you find in old Japanese music were a young Korean trio. Korean trad has teeth too.
Are there any Japanese makers who get this?