Is the ocarina a good instrument for young children?

Ocarinas can be a good instrument for young children because they are mechanically simple, however this does not mean that you can give a child an ocarina and expect them to master it, or achieve much of anything, without guidance.

There is a great deal more to playing the ocarina than the obvious factors like fingering. Wind instruments often look easier than they are because many playing techniques happen inside the body:

• The tongue is used to separate (articulate) notes.
• Breath control must be developed to play in tune.

There are many other factors that go into playing instruments like holding the instrument correctly, internalising the fingerings, developing a sense of rhythm, training one's ear, learning to read music, and developing musicality.

None of these things are that hard to teach, but It is extremely important that adequate guidance is provided for them to be grasped.

Introducing the ocarina to children.

To begin, it is important that the child's fingers are large enough to cover the instrument's finger holes. If the holes are not correctly covered it will be impossible to play the instrument in tune.

From here, one can teach a child to play the ocarina by breaking it down into skills that later come together:

• Introducing some simple rhythms by clapping, or making it into a game of touching different body parts to a beat.
• Introducing how to hold the ocarina, and demonstrate how opening more holes results in a higher pitch. Ask them to identify high vs low pitch by ear.
• Then one can start to show breath control, demonstrating how two notes sound together when they are vs are not in tune.
• One could then teach some fingerings, articulation, and work up to playing some some simple tunes by ear and through physical demonstration.

Providing in-person demonstrations of the instrument played well is important, because it enables the child to observe how you interact with the instrument and how it is supposed to sound, subconsciously.

By introducing and developing skills separately, when they are later combined its much easier for a child to grasp. The page 'How to teach the ocarina to children' covers my thoughts in more detail.