Sunday, February 02, 2020

poly-oc

All our instruments series, episode 21


So, well, a year ago I started this series thinking with just under 50 instruments and 52 weeks to a year, I should get through in a year or so. In the event, I got 20 done and the total number of instruments in the house went up by a dozen, so give me another four years and I may have caught up.

Anyhow, we're still stuck in the 00s, which is when the young musician was at primary school and learned to play a plastic ocarina called poly-oc (TM). I think the school handed out both the instruments and the instruction book, as I don't recall buying either. They were produced from 1988-2004 according to this website, so we just caught the tail end of them.



It irritates me that I don't really understand the physics of the ocarina - so wouldn't be able without the fingering table to tell you which combination of open holes might produce which note. (The Ocarina Workshop website says the location of the holes doesn't matter, and they are all different sizes, so is it just the combined size of the open holes that determines the pitch?)

Still, the book has a little diagram for each note, so even I can play a tune with that help. So for the video I tried Au clair de la lune.


No comments: