Do the Ocarina

My brother is very good at picking out presents. (My husband would do well to consult him for special occasions, really!)

For my birthday this year, he gave me an ocarina. I had never heard of this ancient wind instrument. It dates back about 12,000 years.

The instrument is like a recorder or whistle flute. It is about as big as a large potato.

According to the Hal Leonard book my brother gave me, the instrument has been discovered in meso-America, Central Africa, India, and China. Some were clay, others were made from animal horns. Apparently numerous cultures independently developed the instrument.

In 1853, Giuseppe Donati in Budrio, Italy, created the first concert-tuned ocarina. The instrument then traveled all over the world. In the 1900s, it came to the United States and was known as the "Sweet Potato" instrument. Soldiers took the ocarina with them during WWI, and the government issued them to soldiers in WWII. 

In 1928, Takashi Aketagawa of Japan further improved the instrument by making it 12-holed and capable of playing three more semitones.

In the 1960s, John Taylor of England invented the pendant cross fingering system, creating an entirely new standard fingering system for the ocarina.

The ocarina was used in the 1985 Japanese documentary The Great Yellow River, which created a resurgence of interest in the instrument. Nintendo helped this along by incorporating it into the Legend of Zelda series of videogames. This has inspired a new generation of players.

So far I have managed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Happy Birthday. We'll see how I get along with it.

Thank you, my brother, for such an intriguing gift!

Here is a youtube video of someone playing the ocarina who knows how to play it: