The ocarina is a wind instrument most notable for its pure ethereal tone. Quality transverse ocarinas are capable of creating everything from beautiful, mournful, slow melodies to highly ornamented tunes. They have a straightforward fingering system similar to a flute or tin whistle, and are fully chromatic. Most ocarinas are small, easily slipped into a pocket or bag, and played wherever it takes your fancy.
Yet, despite their apparent simplicity, playing the ocarina well can be difficult. Often, the approaches which are intuitive lead to bad technique, and there are many hidden challenges. Serious Ocarina Player will give you a solid foundation and help you avoid common pitfalls, preparing you to play better and faster.
Control your own journey
Serious Ocarina Player teaches the ocarina, music, and the practice process from first principles. It guides you to create your own practice approach, enabling you to play the music you want to play from the start, and create your own exercises tailored to your needs. Learn how to learn.
The book never leaves you asking 'why is this useful to me', it explains the design ideas behind exercises, and shares examples from which you may extrapolate. The examples are intentionally simple to be beginner friendly, but the principles are applicable at any level.
Do you prefer to play by ear instead of reading sheet music? This is accommodated for also.
All of the details
Music is complex, irrespective of anyone's attempts to make it appear otherwise by omitting critical information. Serious Ocarina Player includes everything you need to know to learn to play the ocarina well.
Playing music is a mechanical process and missing information will not help you learn to play.
Interactive elements
Unique to the online version of the book are many interactive elements demonstrating the things being explained, or providing you with convenient practice tools like a metronome and chromatic tuner.
Kinaesthetic focused
A kinaesthetic response is a autonomous association between a trigger and a result, like 'I want to go there', and having the actions of getting up and walking happen automatically. It would be overwhelming if we had to think about every muscle movement to do that.
Kinaesthetic responses can be used in many aspects of music, like being able to look at notation, or hear a song, and instinctually know how to perform it. Serious ocarina player focuses on developing these kinaesthetic responses directly, without slow and cumbersome logical analysis.
The Fundamentals of Excellent Performance
The basics
- The history and capabilities of the transverse ocarina.
- Identifying ocarinas designed as serious instruments, and how to choose one.
- Single chamber versus multichamber ocarinas.
- Understanding ocarinas in different keys and octaves.
- The different kinds of timbre and playing characteristics ocarinas can create.
- The fingering systems of single chamber and multichamber ocarinas.
How to start playing
- Holding ocarinas, and avoiding hand pain.
- Blowing an ocarina to create a clean, controlled tone.
- Effortlessly playing the high notes of single chambered ocarinas.
- Playing in tune, and the impact of ambient temperature.
- Reading sheet music and playing by ear.
Developing your technique
- How to approach practice in an effective way.
- Identifying playable music, and adapting music to the ocarina.
- Performing and using Classical and Celtic articulation/ornamentation.
- Recording an ocarina in a studio setting.
Frequently asked questions
Finally, this book contains answers to many frequently asked questions, such as:
- Is the ocarina easy to play?
- Is the ocarina a good instrument for young children?
- Why does my ocarina have airy high notes?
If you have questions about playing the transverse ocarina, look no further than 'Serious Ocarina Player'.