Ocarinas United

I posted this in another thread in response to a question about my ocarinas but I thought it would be appropriate here too. It might give some insight to the inconsistencies of ocarina ranges.

Oddly, ocarinas do not have a universal, standardized naming system. The soprano/alto/tenor/bass nomenclature is largely dependent on the maker’s preference. It usually only defines a particular ocarina’s relationship with the other ocarinas in its family (meaning, the ocarinas made by that particular maker). So, outside of individual ocarina families, this system is useless. Only when ocarina makers agree on a universal system will it mean anything. The problem with this is not every ocarina maker produces the same range of voices. For example, Songbird ocarinas are relatively higher (as a family) than, say, Anita’s Ocarinas. This is not even taking into account the makers who do not produce particular keys. Many ocarinas are in tune with themselves but may not match up to a “real” A=440 pitch. I suppose this is part of the reason for the absence of a universal system. I believe the lack of a universal naming system, as well as a lack of really good printed material for the ocarina (method books, etc) have contributed to keeping the beautiful ocarina in the "folk instrument" category for so long (at least in the West).

Interestingly, my alto C ocarina (and my Zelda replica) is in C5. It is the same pitch as Anita Feng’s soprano C and also the same pitch as STL’s tenor C. It's no wonder people are confused!

Spencer Register wrote:I posted this in another thread in response to a question about my ocarinas but I thought it would be appropriate here too. It might give some insight to the inconsistencies of ocarina ranges.

Oddly, ocarinas do not have a universal, standardized naming system. The soprano/alto/tenor/bass nomenclature is largely dependent on the maker’s preference. It usually only defines a particular ocarina’s relationship with the other ocarinas in its family (meaning, the ocarinas made by that particular maker). So, outside of individual ocarina families, this system is useless. Only when ocarina makers agree on a universal system will it mean anything. The problem with this is not every ocarina maker produces the same range of voices. For example, Songbird ocarinas are relatively higher (as a family) than, say, Anita’s Ocarinas. This is not even taking into account the makers who do not produce particular keys. Many ocarinas are in tune with themselves but may not match up to a “real” A=440 pitch. I suppose this is part of the reason for the absence of a universal system. I believe the lack of a universal naming system, as well as a lack of really good printed material for the ocarina (method books, etc) have contributed to keeping the beautiful ocarina in the "folk instrument" category for so long (at least in the West).

Interestingly, my alto C ocarina (and my Zelda replica) is in C5. It is the same pitch as Anita Feng’s soprano C and also the same pitch as STL’s tenor C. It's no wonder people are confused!

When would your ocs become available? Great input, by the way!

Spencer Register wrote:... I believe the lack of a universal naming system, as well as a lack of really good printed material for the ocarina (method books, etc) have contributed to keeping the beautiful ocarina in the "folk instrument" category for so long (at least in the West).

Interestingly, my alto C ocarina (and my Zelda replica) is in C5. It is the same pitch as Anita Feng’s soprano C and also the same pitch as STL’s tenor C. It's no wonder people are confused!

And this is exactly why I was feeling the need for the chart I have been working on.

For example, Mapram "Alto C" - is in the exact same range as TNG "Tenor - C".

I really feel the pain about ocarinas not being tuned to 440 standard. When I purchase something advertised in "G", I was expecting an instrument in "G", not in "F#+". This is a problem that makers need to be aware of.

In my chart, I have kept the manufactures names for ranges in tact, but as you can see by the colour scheme, what they call Alto, I have lumped in with the tenors.

As players and interested parties, we could develop our own standard naming convention here at OU (Ocarinas United), and translate between manufactures names, and our standards. Kind of like software developers do

I mentioned this in Spencer's first thread, but I've had discussions about developing a universal system based on relative ranges. The basic idea is when a certain percentage of pitches within an Ocarina's range fall between one or two octaves (say, C4-C6), it would automatically be assigned to the given group/name (i.e. - Tenor, Alto, Bass, etc).

For example, if one ocarina's range is A4-F6 and another ocarina is E4-E5, they would both automatically be considered "Alto" Ocarinas because the majority of pitches in both ranges fall between C4-C6 (which most maker's consider an Alto). A bit complicated, but it could catch on, especially if we had the makers back it up.

Or we could dispense with Alto, Tenor etc, and go with a key reference.

"High-C" for a C ocarina who's low C is a C6.
"Mid-C" for one who's low C is a C5.
"Low-C" for one who's low C is a C4.

In this way, a Hind Bass Sweet potato in "C" would be a "Low-C", a Mountain C would be a "Mid-C", and a TNG Soprano pendant C would be a "High-C".

Other keys would follow suit.

Since the hind Tenor F has F4 as it's lowest F - it would be a "Low-F" and a TNG Alto F would be a "Mid-F" since it's lowest F is an F5.

There may never be a "High-F" since this would be very high having a low F of F6.

Just a thought I've been having....

Gerald

I posted about month ago the exact same naming system as Gerald_G just did. Link. Though I used alto, tenor etc instead of high, low. Imho it's a good naming system. It's clear and simple. The only problem with it is that there won't be many ocarinas named "soprano". Most every ocarina is either tenor or alto, but I don't know if that's a problem in the end.

The good thing with that kind of naming system is that you can tell the ocarinas range by just looking at the name. Most ocarinas are tuned so that they play one whole octave (the lowest note is key note) plus some notes above it depending on the number of holes. This means that a Alto C ocarina will atleast play range of C5-B5 plus something. 12-hole ocarinas of course plays 2 notes below the low key note.


Whatever the case, I hope there were some kind of universal naming system so that when you have two ocarinas, for example Alto C and Alto F, you know which one of them is higher pitched. Currently the naming of ocarinas is a total mess.

I've updated the chart - added the Fabio Menaglio ocarinas. Could a moderator please remove the attached file from my original post ?

Thanks
Gerald

I believe you can remove the attachment by yourself too. Click the edit button and look down, there should be "remove attachment" button or something like that.

If there is I can't see it. Partly I think, things have changed to maybe a newer version of the forum SW since I attached the file.

You can no longer attach a file in this forum, and so I think the remove attachment buttons got removed with that change.

I just noticed it's not possible to attach files to General Discussion posts. Why is that so?

Gerald_G wrote:You can no longer attach a file in this forum, and so I think the remove attachment buttons got removed with that change.

You might be able to remove the file from your profile. This be your profile. There's a link called "User Attachment Control Panel". See if you can remove it from there.

Yes - thanks so much that worked !
I'd have never thought to look in my profile to remove a file from a post !

Gerald

Do you think you could do the double and triple ocarinas from Focalink?

http://www.focalink.com.tw/product_en.php?classmaster=6

I'm thinking a seperate chart for doubles and triples is a good idea. Maybe one that shows the range of each chamber per ocarina somehow.

As time allows, I hope to make one.

Gerald_G wrote:I'm thinking a seperate chart for doubles and triples is a good idea. Maybe one that shows the range of each chamber per ocarina somehow.

As time allows, I hope to make one.

Sounds like a great idea. I look forward to it.

Also, as soon as I get my new Songbird ocarinas, I'll try to find out where they fit on the chart and [s]demand[/s] politely request they be added. :)

Hi. I want to know about the range of Songbird sweet potatos, specialy the XL . Yes, is A to G, but ¿WhichA? Is like Alto pendant or like Bass pendant? Anyone knows?

¿Why are not included in the range image?