The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119426 Message #2591530
Posted By: Ross Campbell
18-Mar-09 - 01:00 AM
Thread Name: ocarinas silly to superb
Subject: RE: ocarinas silly to superb
Jack -
I have indeed got a crateful (or two or three!) The floats I'm talking about are rigid plastic, about 1/4" thick, usually about the size of a bowling-ball. There are two basic designs - the most common is the bead type with a straight-through hole for threading on a rope - the other has moulded on lugs for tying on (usually broken on the ones I find).
The first might suit the flute-style mouth-hole, however I never had much success trying to get sound out of flutes or piccolos (the nearest I've got to anything like this is blowing across the top of a bottle or stoneware jug, which I can usually get to sound a clear note after a bit of practice).
Because the lugs on the second type stand proud of the spherical surface, I thought they might be adapted as I described, possibly using a slotting drill to make the airway, and chiselling and filing to form the fipple-wedge. I'm not sure the angle between the lug and the surface allows what I'm thinking of - I'll haul one in tomorrow and have a closer look.
Are you stuck with whatever note you find, or is there scope for tuning? eg with an extra hole which is never covered? Or does that distort the scale? The Italian system you describe seems to have provided more than the eight notes of the major scale. Are these semi-tone differences in the successive fingerings? Can you overblow into the next octave?
Thanks for the (finger) tips! I wouldn't have had a clue where to start. As far as I remember, the Langley ocarinas used a four-hole system with different-sized holes and combination fingering to get the scale (I thought I had one somewhere in the house, but haven't seen it for some time).
Just had an idea - drilling a single hole in each of a set of floats and "tuning" with water to different levels would make an intersting wind-chime. If I ever get around to any of these things I'll let you know.
Ross