What is an ocarina?

Ocarina is a closed mouth wind instrument.

The ocarina is a closed-mouth wind instrument unique to the Han nationality, and it is a kind of wind instrument made of burnt clay in ancient times, round or oval, with six holes (nowadays, there are eight holes, nine holes, ten holes, and double-octaves, etc., and the six-hole ocarina is uncommon), and it is also called the "ceramic ocarina".

Initially, most of the ocarinas were made of stone and bone, and later developed into pottery, and now there are also made of stone, bone and ivory, but pottery is the most common, and there are various shapes, such as oblate, oval, spherical, fish-shaped and pear-shaped, etc., of which the pear-shaped is the most common.

The origin of the ocarina is related to the labor and production activities of the Han ancestors, the early prototype is a stone used for hunting, due to the natural cavity or hole in the stone, when the ancestors threw such a stone to the prey, the air flow through the cavity on the stone to form a whistling sound, which whistling sound inspired the ancient ancestors to make a musical instrument, the early ocarina is so produced.

The ocarina later evolved into a simple musical instrument as society progressed, and gradually added sound holes and developed into a melodic instrument that could play tunes. The shape of the ocarina is as big as a goose egg or an egg, slightly pointed at the top, flat at the bottom, hollow, with a mouthpiece at the top, three, four or five holes at the front, and two holes at the back, which varies from ancient to modern times.

Ocarina tone characteristics

Ocarina tone sad, deep, mournful, continuous, the sound of the human feelings extremely endowed temperament, has a very rich expressive power, such as broken gold cracking stone, ancient and simple, desolate and mournful and so on.

Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia-Ocarina