How to get the best sound from an ocarina's high notes

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Getting the best possible sound out of an ocarina's high notes is mostly a matter of how you are blowing into the instrument. We need to ensure that the angle of the instrument, and tongue's position allows smooth airflow.

Angle the ocarina so that you are blowing directly into the windway, avoiding a 'kink' at the lips. Keep your head up and hold the ocarina straight in front of you.

A diagram showing an ocarina being blown at a poor angle, with the ocarina angled sharply down. This will increase turbulence and result in a worse tone

Ocarina being blown correctly, creating a smooth air passage from the mouth into the instrument. The ocarina is held parallel with the ground, with the head in a normal upright position

Position your tongue at the base of your mouth. Raising the back of your tongue or positioning the tip of your tongue too close to your upper teeth will disrupt airflow. See Blowing an ocarina correctly for some tips.

Rear of tongue raised (bad) A demonstration of a poor mouth posture for blowing an ocarina. The rear of the tongue is raised, resulting in turbulence, which will create a noisy tone

A demonstration of a poor mouth posture for blowing an ocarina. The rear of the tongue is raised, resulting in turbulence, which will create a noisy tone

Tongue too close to teeth (bad) A diagram demonstrating a poor ocarina blowing technique. The tongue is too close to the teeth, resulting in turbulence and a noisy tone

A diagram demonstrating a poor ocarina blowing technique. The tongue is too close to the teeth, resulting in turbulence and a noisy tone

Hold the ocarina by its ends, keeping all of your fingers away from the holes. Blow the ocarina using a chromatic tuner to check if your pitch is correct.

If the ocarina sounds good now, then any issues with the high notes were caused by your blowing technique, tongue posture, or hand posture.
If the ocarina still sounds bad, you probably have a bad instrument.

Other factors that affect high note clarity

There are a number of factors that affect the perceived clarity of an ocarina's high notes, including tongue posture, as noted. However, there are other things that have nothing to do with player technique.

Uneven sound projection: Ocarinas, like all acoustic instruments, do not project sound equally in all directions. Most of the sound projects forward, away from the voicing and you, by extension. The high notes can thus sound worse to a player than they actually are.

$Whe you play an ocarina, the majority of the instrument's sound goes directly away from the voicing, and you by extension. The sound you hear as a player is a combination of sound diffracted around the instrument, plus environmentally reflected sound. What you hear is not the same thing listeners hear, and I advise getting someone else to blow your ocarina so you can hear it from a listener's perspective$

It is a good idea to hear how your ocarina sounds to a listener. Get someone else to blow it — preferably using good technique — and have a walk around. You'll notice that:

The ocarina sounds much louder if you stand directly in front of it.
Airiness in the sound will be much less obvious at a distance.

Room acoustics: The furnishings of a room are another factor that can make your high notes sound louder or quieter than they actually are. Give this a try:

Play a continuous note in a room with few or no soft furnishings.
As you play, move around within the room. What do you hear?

You'll hear that the sound volume seems to change depending on where you are standing. If you happen to be playing in a location where the pitch of the high note falls into a dip, it will sound worse than it is.

There are two things you can do about this. Try different locations in your room to find one that sounds best. Alternatively, you can install acoustic treatment to reduce sound reflections. I highly recommend this if you intend to record yourself. See How to record an ocarina for more.

Psychology: When you're new to an instrument, a lot of mental energy goes into things like fingerings, rhythm, and what note you are going to play next.

As you spend more time playing, these factors will move into your subconscious, and you won't have to think about them. You'll pay more attention to the sound of your instrument and hear things that were always there, but you were not conscious of.

Finally, here are a few common technique mistakes that can lead to worse-sounding high notes:

Be sure not to shade finger holes

The right ring finger is close to, and shading the right ring finger hole of an ocarina. The pitch of an ocarina's hole will be affected whenever there is an object in close proximity to it, and having a finger close (a few mm) above a hole will somewhat reduce its pitch. This is generally a problem as it requires more pressure to be used to sound the fingered note in tune, and the note will sound more airy

Even if a finger hole is open, there is a notable distance where the presence of a finger will 'shade' the hole, causing the ocarina to play flatter than it should. If you blow harder to compensate, the tone will sound more airy.

Watch yourself playing in a mirror and check your finger positions. Especially pay attention to your left-hand fingers when using the palm grip on ocarinas with a short tail.

Keep your palm out of the air stream

As you play higher notes, you blow harder, and the air leaving the voicing is moving at high speed. If this air hits your left palm, it's going to make a noise.

Air leaving the voicing of an ocarina can impact the left hand and make a noise. This can be avoided if the hand is rotated from the wrist to move it out of the airstream

Try to adjust your hands to keep the palm out of the airstream when you're playing the higher notes. If you're playing with the three-point grip, an easy way to do this is to open the pinky hole by rotating the left hand at the wrist, pivoting on the index finger.

Breath pressure and temperature

An ocarina's high notes have a relatively narrow pressure range in which they sound best. If you blow too softly or too hard, they will sound airy. Blowing too hard also brings out a harsh timbre.

Determining the best pressure to use is fairly easy, as the ocarina's pitch changes with pressure: if your pressure is wrong, the note will be out of tune. This can be easily checked with a chromatic tuner.

If you are playing in tune but notice that blowing softer or harder produces a better tone, it's likely that your room temperature differs from the ocarina's tuning temperature. You can find out more by reading Playing ocarinas in warm or cold environments.

Closing notes

In a well-made ocarina, playing the high notes cleanly should not be a chore. It's normal for these notes to sound somewhat airy due to the instrument's physics, but this should never be excessive.

Generally, 10-hole, 11-hole, and multichamber ocarinas will have a more balanced timbre across their range than 12-hole single-chamber ocarinas.

You may have encountered the 'acute bend' elsewhere, in which case you may wonder why I have not mentioned it. I believe this is an acoustic effect that increases the perceived loudness to the player by bouncing sound off their chest into their ears.

From what I've observed of others doing this, it makes little difference to an observer's perspective. It can sound worse because the sound coming from the voicing is directed downward, away from the audience. For this reason, I do not recommend using this technique.