The US military thought a lot about how to entertain its soldiers because there was a lot of downtime during a war and most of them were draftees who didn't necessarily want to be there, Another thing they did was publish pocket paperback editions of books back when paperbacks were less common.
Carter?
"Yes sir?"
What is it, Carter?
"An ocarina, sir"
Bring it up here!
I've had a really nice, small "English four-hole" unglazed terracotta pendant ocarina since I was a kid. They are actually really fun to play and very visceral, in a sense; the way you can get a chromatic scale from only four hole sizes combinatorially is intellectually satisfying and weirdly easy to learn.
It came with some sheet music that shows each note as a box with four dots in it that can be shown as either open or closed:
It sounds unusually sophisticated — perhaps even better after forty-plus years -- and it's actually a relatively new design. The ocarina is ancient but the four hole chromatic design dates from the 1960s, so it's newer than those Gretsch ocarinas in the article.
You can get them in all sorts of shapes and sizes -- Thomann sell hand-painted clay 4H ocarinas in the shapes of strawberries and clownfish.
I wish we'd been taught to play these in school instead of with those Aulos descant recorders that everyone in British schools, particularly teachers I imagine, grew to hate.
Indeed. I mentioned Hind above. Charlie Hind makes soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and double ocarinas, made from rosewood, cocobola, and other woods. [I'm not affiliated at all; just a fan of his products]: https://hindocarina.com/sweet_potato.shtml
Interesting that they don't seem to have had much cultural impact. I've never heard of these, never seen them in war films. You don't hear songs wistfully using a wartime ocarina or referring to them.
Ocarinas have the great advantage over recorders that you can safely play them without hearing protection. I have personally measured the loud notes on both a soprano recorder and an alto recorder and the SPL meter measured over 100dB(A) at the ear (indoors, so this includes reverberation too, but most recorders are played indoors). Note that standard recorder fingering allows for almost no control over dynamics; each note has a single set volume that it must be played at to sound in tune. (Advanced technique allows slight control over dynamics with alternative fingerings.) For this reason I do not think recorders should be used in schools.
This reminds me of my very first internet purchase. Back in the late 90's, when Ocarina of Time first came out, there was a website that a friend of mine found (back when you really felt like you found something on the internet) that sold basically perfect replicas of the titular ocarina, it even came with a silk pouch and a booklet that showed you how to play all the songs from the game. I think it was just some rando making clay instruments out of their house and figured they'd try to sell them on this new marketplace. I've still got it somewhere.
It feels like the internet is missing stuff like that now, or it's at least harder to find. Nowadays Nintendo would shut that seller down, or the seller would just be drop shipping them from Alibaba for a 500% markup.
Hey I remember that site! I bought one from there as well, although I couldn't afford the actual replica so settled on a brown squarish one that came as a necklace.
Your memory reminded me of Mountain Ocarinas, which I happened upon probably around 2010. It looks like The Internet Archive has a snapshot back from 2000 https://web.archive.org/web/20000902223226/http://www.mounta... . Just some guy with a website selling his custom-designed instruments.
It looks like they stopped producing them in 2024, but that is still a long run. Though they did stop making wood ocarinas at some point in that time frame.
Ocarina? Immediate clickbait for me; one of my hobbies is playing obscure musical instruments. I have one of these, made of rosewood. Great if you're a little bit more serious about learning, and highly recommended (by me): https://hindocarina.com/sweet_potato.shtml
Slight tangent, how would you recommend learning when you can't find anyone in-person? I was able to get adequate with a six hole from just tabs but am failing at anything bigger.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 51.8 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Editions
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082557
It came with some sheet music that shows each note as a box with four dots in it that can be shown as either open or closed:
https://ocarinasongbook.com/fingering-charts/four-hole/
It sounds unusually sophisticated — perhaps even better after forty-plus years -- and it's actually a relatively new design. The ocarina is ancient but the four hole chromatic design dates from the 1960s, so it's newer than those Gretsch ocarinas in the article.
You can get them in all sorts of shapes and sizes -- Thomann sell hand-painted clay 4H ocarinas in the shapes of strawberries and clownfish.
I wish we'd been taught to play these in school instead of with those Aulos descant recorders that everyone in British schools, particularly teachers I imagine, grew to hate.
Indeed. I mentioned Hind above. Charlie Hind makes soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and double ocarinas, made from rosewood, cocobola, and other woods. [I'm not affiliated at all; just a fan of his products]: https://hindocarina.com/sweet_potato.shtml
It feels like the internet is missing stuff like that now, or it's at least harder to find. Nowadays Nintendo would shut that seller down, or the seller would just be drop shipping them from Alibaba for a 500% markup.
It looks like they stopped producing them in 2024, but that is still a long run. Though they did stop making wood ocarinas at some point in that time frame.