instrument suggestions

great informal fun instrument. I wouldn't solo with just the uke (I'm not a fan of guitar solos, though). I think I'm going to build me a cigar box one.

 

xaphoon: nice sound, performance grade, needs tons of practice, tons. probably best for a reed experienced player to have something that's cheap and portable. piano: classic instrument. not portable. too formal! others to come....

instruments now

Well the ocarinas have mostly settled. I play all my plastics. Both mountain g and c and the black plastic noble. I play hymns mostly, some out of a celtic fake book I have, sometimes with the radio while driving. Stupid me I was on ebay and ended up winning a black noble ceramic on election day, ridiculously cheap. I never thought the bid would hold. I ordered more plastics for Christmas presents (hopefully the wrong people don't read this). If anything the black plastic noble is great for starting and casual use. I also will play and sing from the fake book with uke using the supplied chords. I seriously strongly suggest Uncle Rod's Boot Camp for chord practice sheets. Extremely effective ukulele drills. If someone were to ask me today for a safe conservative ocarina choice for use with performance and ensembling, I would absolutely steer them to buying a pair of poly mountain ocarinas, the 'g' and 'c' versions. Getting them right out of the box in the mail the quality is very high. The upgrade path from the poly doesn't buy much sound wise, mostly looks and a touch on the thumbhole ergonomics. Going over to transverses, well the price starts to jump quite a bit. And here you are dealing with clay which is more a hand process, even the tuning. There's a higher risk of inconsistent production or getting one with a breath curve you don't like. And frankly a 12 hole transverse is almost too hard to get right, its pushing the edge of physics for that type of instrument.

musical diversification

After dumping the triples I started to diversify. I ordered a mahalo ukulele to try it, and also was fascinated by the xaphoon (pocket sax). Unfortunately the pocket sax is even louder than the ocarinas and does require a lot of practice. The uke...well this is actually THE most practical instrument I've been working with. From looking at youtube, instruments themselves are okay. Solo voice is okay. Combining instruments with voice together bring out the best of both. In its most basic form a uke is a tiny strumming instrument that has no problem acting as pure support. A great effective very portable instrument. And even better the uke uke can be used as a crutch to get over any self consciousness and shyness. What matters then is to find proper vocal music to send a proper message! So of course we get into singing hymns and songs that tell of Christian virtue! Bingo, that's the right path! Just practice required, the uke requires a lot of that to get up to speed. I went to one uke gathering 3rd week of september just several weeks after getting the mahalo. Actually I upgraded to a dolphin the day before, I was still settling the strings at the uke meeting. The kids play the mahalo now. So finally a solid goal through all this mess. Be able to play this thing for Christmas carols, especially since my parents don't have a paino anymore.

ocarinas today

So I started spending more time with the mountains. Fewer holes. not as pretty. Playing the 'g' version I realized by using rising breath I could easily hit a high 'f' (note this is with respect to calling the base note 'c' treating it as a transposing instrument). The high 'e' can be hit with high breath covering middle left finger hole, high 'f' all open. Unfortunately the 'd' ends up a bit sharp using this method, that can be corrected during sustain. It just so happened a warmstone 'g' came up on ebay, so I grabbed that to have a nicer every day carry instrument. That and the hamlett erased whatever I made back with the sales and then some. The nbole plastic finally came and...well its great. I can play it in a relaxed maner in tune with what I want. Its just as effective as the MOs for staying in tune and has the extra rabge a transverse naturally has. Just have to be careful not to blow it too sharp is all.

Lose a few, gain a few (ocarinas)

I finally got the triple bass. I liked it. Low breath requiremens (almost a whisper for the subholes). The upper note on the first chamber was a little dicey but hittable with practice. The upper chambers were fine as well. Then I realized...this thing is big and heavy, waiting for my 2 yro to break. All songs I was playing at the time worked fine on a single chamber. So in short order I sold both triples. Almost what I paid for the bass, quite a bit less for the triple (but I kept the case and music book). I decided then for some wierd reason to grab a Hamlett 12 hole AC on a whim, he'd just released several. When I got that...sane problem as the dinda! Too high breath requirements to play in tune. I then ordered a new black noble plastic, another 3 weeks waiting. I put the dinda and Hamlett in the china cabinet, the get played about every 2-3 weeks or so, just to check if my breathing is getting any "better".

volume and tuning

Having two kids, one in full fay kindergarten who needs more the 10 hours sleep a night, I realized I wasn't going to get much playing done if any. While still waiting for the dinda I went and ordered a triple bass c from the tabao vendor called "bull" (his mark looks like a bull). Around this time I got the song yeonriji and its backing track. Trying to play this with the plastic triple I noticed I was still playing flat. And I couldn't sustain the effort needed to play it in tune with the track. When I got the dinda...same thing!

OAS (ocarina acquisition syndrome)

I ordered the taichi pendant from songbird ocarinas on a thursday. When I got home from the airport saturday afternoon (first one in august) it was waiting for me. It was pretty, it smelled nice and I played a couple of songs off the included song sheet. I also ran the scale a couple of times. So I wore it around and played it, even made up a few songs. One thing I noticed though...I could only play it a half step flat! The only way to get it close to in key was to blow as hard as I could every single note. That was NOT enjoyable. But I really liked the portability of the ocarina. So I caught OAS (ocarina acquisition syndrome). So less than a week later I ordered a transverse plastic bon soloist triple from korea. A week later while I was still waiting I ordered a dinda alto c from thailand. And a week after that while I was still waiting I decided to order a C&G poly set from mountain ocarinas in connecticut. The soloist triple came, and the mountains came a day after and the dinda some days after that. I started bringing them to work every day, practicing in the car, a few times in the park. The soloist triple? Awesome case, awesome songbook. I played several times through the exercises for a couple of weeks. I didn't spend too much time with the mountains, the triple was most of the focus.

ocarinas!

Well I'm back again after a bit of a hiatus. Back in the summer I was interested in swords. Real ones. Sharp. Got a couple, chopped a few bottles. Fun. Last week of July while I was looking around at places selling knives and swords I bumped into this page: baryonyx knife company Note the "music on the trail" shot of this curious instrument (at the time he had a plastic green one displayed). It's portable! I found a couple of forums, settled in on http://theocarinanetwork.com and then looked at what to buy. First one I grabbed was a pendant: a focalink taichi strawfire.

more to come....