How to teach the ocarina to children

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The ocarina can be a good instrument for children, but that does not mean that any haphazard approach will work.

People often give ocarinas to children with no, or very little guidance, thinking that they look simple, and expect the children to be able to learn alone. It is highly unlikely that this will achieve anything.

Playing the ocarina, or any musical instrument for that matter, requires many different skills to come together at the same time. Without an intentional approach, it is easy to omit things, or try to do too much too quickly, leading to:

Mistakes being made that the child is unaware of, which become ingrained and difficult to correct.
The use of poor techniques, causing hand pain, or frustration, and easily leads to giving up.
A lack of demonstration of how rhythms, melodies and other aspects of music should sound when performed correctly.

The method outlined here is intended to make teaching the ocarina to children easier by breaking things down into simpler tasks, like building blocks that come together over days and weeks.

The importance of being a skilled role model

Firstly, it should go without saying that if you want to teach the ocarina to children, it is important to learn how to play the instrument to a pretty high standard yourself, as:

How can you guide anyone without understanding music?
How can you inspire anyone if you don't know how to make an impressive performance?
How can you correct mistakes if you don't know what those mistakes are?

The ocarina is not a toy. It is capable of impressive performance in skilled hands. Being able to practically demonstrate what it can actually do will inspire learners to improve.

Start with music fundamentals

Teaching the ocarina to children is considerably easier if you realise that music can be broken into fundamentals which can be learned separately.

I believe that it is best to spend some time, potentially over days or weeks, building some foundational skills before even picking up the instrument. Having that foundation in place will make one's first experience in learning to play the ocarina much easier.

Rhythm

In music, the term 'rhythm' refers to the temporal division of a melody or action into sections of equal duration. The concept is easy for children to learn with the help of practical games, for example:

Put on a metronome, or otherwise provide a steady beat.
On one beat, touch the belly
On the second beat, clap
On the third beat, touch the head
On the fourth beat, clap

Practice this repeatedly until it becomes natural. This has introduced and started to internalise the concept of a beat, and moving in time with it.

From here, you can start introducing things like subdividing the beat into two, or holding a note over multiple beats. These can be used as 'figures', distinct 'chunks' analogous to words, which can be combined in many orders to build more complex rhythms.

Start by introducing some simple figures through physical demonstration like clapping and repeating, and then start building more complex rhythms from this. Giving a physical demonstration of clapping offers the child visual and audio modelling of what they are to copy. Vocal associations like Kodály rhythm syllables can also be helpful.

By working on simple exercises like this every day, one is practically demonstrating what muscle memory is, how it builds, and that things get easier with regular practice.

The Maori stick game is another helpful rhythm game. Also, rhythm-based video games are a great option for learning rhythm from hands-on demonstration and imitation.

Rhythm notation

Once a child can perform some rhythms, it's a great point to start introducing the basics of rhythm notation. After they have been performing these exercises through clapping or rhythm syllables for several days or weeks, they already know what to do physically-and need only associate this existing knowledge with how it is shown in notation.

Start by performing a rhythm like one quarter note per beat, then introduce how this is notated on a simple single line rhythm staff. Build out from here by introducing other rhythm figures, like pairs of eighth notes, or half notes. Demonstrate the rhythm notation physically at first, and gradually reduce the modelling as the child gains experience.

You may want to introduce counting to demonstrate the concept of a time signature and beat grouping, how we can group beats into twos, threes, and fours. Use simple atonal instruments like egg shakers, or clapping.

To avoid confusion, pitch should not be discussed at this point.

Pitch and timbre

The teaching of pitch-concepts can begin at the same time as the basics of rhythm, but should take place separately. For example, one could structure a lesion to begin by spending a period of time teaching rhythm, and then a separate period introducing pitch.

I would recommend introducing pitch starting with some really basic demonstrations, like:

Play on an instrument or sing some high and low pitches, providing a physical demonstration of what that sounds like.
Demonstrate that notes of the same pitch can have a different timbre, or 'tone colour'. It can be demonstrated easily by showing the same note played on multiple instruments.

There are a few different ways of allowing children to experiment with pitch for themselves, such as:

Singing. For many children, pitch can be taught intuitively through singing. So one option is to sing a note, and then have the child try to copy it by ear. This should also be done separately from the teaching of rhythm.
Xylophone. For children who don't get on with singing, the xylophone can also be effective. They are mechanically simple, and higher notes are typically to the right, and lower ones to the left. Let the children experiment and hear how this sounds.
Improvised instruments. Improvising instruments by cutting plastic tubes to different lengths, and introducing how to make a whistle mouthpiece can be a lot of fun for children.

To some children, hearing pitch may not come naturally. In this case, a chromatic tuner can be used as a visual aid. Please remember that we have a lot of technology now. Use it.

Bringing things together: introducing the concept of melody

With some grounding in the basics of rhythm and pitch, it's a good time to start introducing the concept of melody to children. Melodies are a series of pitches performed to a rhythm, and one can build up to this by:

Starting by clapping the rhythm of the melody alone.
Singing or humming the song/melody, after the rhythm has been grasped.

Note that I do not advise introducing the concept of melody using the ocarina to start with. This instrument introduces more layers of mechanical complexity like breath control, tonguing and fingering, which will initially only serve to complicate the process, and potentially confuse the learner.

That being said, singing pitches by ear will not come naturally to everyone. I personally could not control the pitch of my voice before spending months singing intervals against a chromatic tuner, and gradually refining the pitch accuracy. In such cases, it makes sense to take a different approach.

Tuned percussion instruments like the Xylophone are a practical option because they are structured logically and mechanically simple to interact with. It is easy to physically model how to perform a simple melody, and the child copy it.

Another option for teaching the concept of melodies is a midi sequencer. They completely automate rhythm and have stable pitch. Playing a melody is just a matter of dragging note boxes around on a screen, and one can see what is happening as it is playing.

People are different, and it is a good thing to have several options available.

Introducing children to the ocarina

If you have followed the previous recommendations, the children should have the following skills at this point:

Sing some basic melodies.
Clap their rhythm.

The first step in introducing children to the ocarina is learning how to hold the ocarina, and how the instrument behaves:

Start by introducing how to hold the instrument, and pay attention to spotting and correcting mistakes. Holding the ocarina wrong, or too tightly, easily leads to hand pain.
Demonstrate a single fingering, and show that sound can be made by blowing into the mouthpiece.
Demonstrate that incorrectly covering a hole will cause the instrument to sound out of tune. Ocarinas are unique in that mis-covering a hole does not cause the instrument to screech, which can easily lead to errors due to a lack of feedback.

Intuition may suggest teaching the ocarina's low notes first, but there are notable advantages to starting with the higher notes, meaning G to high C (on a C ocarina):

The high notes require covering fewer holes, which means there is less opportunity to mis-cover the holes.
The pitch of the higher notes is much more stable, which reduces the need for precise breath control.
Teaching the high notes first entails supporting the instrument with the right pinky, which is an important skill to develop early.

This point was raised by Nicolas Miranda during one of the American ocarina festivals, who has taught the ocarina in schools. I am impressed by the technical competence of his students, despite only having weekly lessons.

Musical instruments need to be practised regularly to build muscle memory, and this could easily be practically demonstrated in a school environment by having a short lesson every day. Children would then intrinsically know the value of regular practice.

Breath control and ocarina experiments

This is a good time to introduce how to breathe from the diaphragm by placing one hand on the rib cage and one on the belly, breathing such that only the belly hand moves. See the article blowing an ocarina correctly for an explanation of how to do this.

One can then demonstrate how to blow at different rates: slow, fast, and varying between them. This can generate some giggles due to the funny noises one can make while doing so.

And then let the children learning the ocarina just experiment with how the instrument's sound changes at different pressures. For example:

Using a single fingering, explore blowing pressure. Guide the children to hear how the pitch and timbre changes when the ocarina is blown at different pressures, and how the instrument screeches when overblown.
Explore how notes sound when played together. Have two children, or a teacher and a child, play notes together on the ocarina at varying pressures. Explore and observe how the sound 'beats' when the pitches are in close unison, and sounds clean when the pitches match exactly.
See what dissonances can be created as a group. If teaching a group, ask them to see how bad a sound they can make together.

Doing this from the start shows how fingering and pressure are equally important. It also highlights the importance of listening to the sound of one's own playing.

Teaching children to play a melody on the ocarina

At this point, you've taught most of the fundamental skills of music. The child can perform some simple rhythms by clapping, is aware of pitch, and understands the basic concepts of a melody. They know how to hold an ocarina, and how to control their breath.

With those fundamental skills in place, teaching a child how to play a melody on the ocarina is a matter of introducing the fingerings for this melody. I would suggest doing so like this:

Teach them how to sing a melody and how to clap its rhythm.
Demonstrate how to articulate (separate) notes using the tongue.
Demonstrate how to finger the melody in small sections, and have them copy. Playing it should come naturally because they already know what it should sound like.
Demonstrate how different fingerings require different blowing pressures to sound in tune.

It then just comes down to repetition until the fingerings and breath pressures become muscle memory. Working with the child to practice every day would be highly desirable, and this would also be my recommendation in a school environment. Five minutes a day will achieve far more than an hour lesson a week.

This demonstrates through practical example how playing gets easier with repetitive practice. Don't ask them to practice on blind faith.

If you notice any mistakes in how the children are holding the instrument or with fingerings, do what you can to correct them as quickly as possible. Mistakes can easily make things way more difficult than they need to be.

Also, be aware that if teaching in a group, if all of the students are slightly out of tune with each other, it is physically impossible for anyone to hear their intonation. This is due to the interference of all the sounds, and lack of a strong reference of what the correct pitch is.

In the following example, dragging the slider changes the pitch of one instrument against a background of many that are slightly out of tune with each other. Notice how nothing you do will make the result sound good.

Intonation in a group can be addressed by having one student adjust their breath pressure to match their pitch with the teacher, and then these keep playing. Ask one student at a time to join in and tune their pitch to the whole of the previous group.

By introducing one child at a time, playing against a group that is already in tune, they can clearly hear what they need to do. Having a pitch reference from an instrument with a different timbre will also help.

Can they find other pitches that sound clean besides unison? That's a great way of guiding them to discover what intervals and chords are.

Encourage the children to learn music they enjoy

One of the prevalent issues I see in music education is the teaching of music that seems irrelevant or uninteresting from the children's perspective. By comparison, realising 'I'm playing my favourite song' is a fantastic feeling.

Thus, you also want to be teaching the children the skills that they need to learn and play the music that they are personally interested in on the ocarina:

Teach the children how scales work.
Show the children how to look up sheet music for songs they like.
Show then how to adapt it to the ocarina.

This is a great point to introduce how the vertical position of the note head in sheet music relates to the fingerings on an ocarina. Start out with a small range at first, and then gradually introduce more notes.

Articulation, ornamentation and musicality

Musicality is the aspects of playing that make music sound musical, and given a good approach, there is no reason that children can't acquire this skill easily, shortly after they have started playing an instrument.

One can introduce how, if every note is played exactly the same, music can sound monotonous. Musicality in playing comes from varying articulation, and adding ornamentation. It is easy to acquire those skills by ear and through mimicry.

Introduce two different ways of articulating notes, like tonguing and slurring.
Demonstrate what these sound like in a performance, and practice recognising them by ear.
Perform a small part of a melody 'musically, making use of the articulations demonstrated, and have the student(s) copy it by ear.

Demonstrating things aurally is initially advantageous because it clearly demonstrates how things are used in practice. By comparison, attempting to explain things through music notation from the start is liable to leave the child wandering 'what am I supposed to do'?

By introducing things by ear, it is straightforward for the learner to branch out into listening to and imitating real performances from recordings, freeing them to develop musically as they like.

Also, having the practical experience of playing things by ear, it is then easy to associate it back with symbols in music notations. One can then introduce how these things are notated, as well as concepts like phrases and motifs, by relating them to what the learner already knows.

there is a great deal of complexity in how humans perform music in reality. It is not held to a mathematical straight jacket, as notation can imply. Experienced musicians play through their own 'accent' acquired by ear.