I bought a pair ocarinas from Mountain Ocarinas (http://mountainocarinas.com/) a few weeks ago, so that I'd have something to play when I can't take the fiddle along. I'm quite happy with them - they're compact, durable, and they have a pleasant tone. They're both chromatic, though one is much easier to play in G, and the other is easiest to play in C. The G ocarina has a range from F# to b; the C has a range from B to e. What are some good trad tunes I can play on these?
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Surprisingly few G-tunes seem not to go down to low E or D (unless ingeniously modified). But some older Northumbrian / Border tunes don't go lower than G, because in at least some cases they were composed for bagpipes that didn't. They include:
Because He Was A Bonny Lad,
Jimmy Allen's
The Herd On The Hill
Bonnie Kate (NOT the Irish reel in D, another tune)
The Keelman Ower The Land
Felton Lonnin
Sir John Fenwick's The Flower Amang Them A'
- All in the Tunes database.
Other tunes include Miss McLeod's Reel, Owen Hackett's Jig and a polka I know as Scartaglen, whether correctly or not.
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
What a coincidence--I happened to catch the ocarina solo in "Wild Thing" on a TV nostalgia-fest of British Invasion acts, just last night! (It was the same lead singer, many years on, but probably not all of the original Troggs.)
I know that has nothing to do with Irish music--but how often does the ocarina come to your attention twice in 24 hours? It must be a sign....
I'm hoping that someone posts a tune that I recognize from my session, but can't play on fiddle. I know that if I bring the fiddle and ocarina to the session, the ocarina's going to stay in my pocket unless there's something I can play on it but not on fiddle.
The Troggs vocalist was/ is Elvis' dead twin brother Reg Presley.
He's more into crop circle research than ocarinas these days.
An ocarina at a session?!
Maybe I will take my French horn to the Kilkenny this evening...
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Hey, there's often a bass clarinet at my session, and it's a great addition.
yhaalhouse, did you check the link I posted at the beginning of this thread? - it has sound samples of my ocarinas. They're well tuned, and they sound enough like flutes that I think they could blend in nicely. If not, my session is nothing if not forgiving.
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
This thread is pretty old now so perhaps you Tall, Dark and Mysterious one have discovered new tunes that fits well in the ocarina - both about the octave range and the sound.
I'm gonna getting two mountain ocarinas too and I'd like to know how was your life with it since... March 2007 (date of your last post). Thanks!
PS. Also, if you care in a portable instrument with more octaves (althoug not chromatic) there's the new "walkabout" whistle of Carey Parks. It's sturdy, almost undestructible and since it's three-parts, it fits nicely in any pocket. www.parkswhistles.com
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Hi, Anal,
Just happened to stumble across this post. I'm really enjoying my ocarinas; I've been taking them to sessions and telling people, truthfully, that I learned to play them while waiting for buses. In the past year and a half, I've put maybe 120 hours into them - far, far less than I've put into the fiddle - but that's been enough that I can play them respectfully, certainly well enough to haul out to sessions. They're a good instrument for folks like me, who are obsessed with music but who are not multiinstrumentalists at heart: given a choice among instruments to practice, I'll take the fiddle over the ocarinas (or anything else, for that matter) anytime, but it's nice to have an instrument I can play literally anywhere. Let me know how your ocarinas work for you. The only problem I've found with them is that their pitch changes pretty dramatically depending on how hard you blow into them, and the G in particular is quite flat unless you play at full volume.
They've been a great conversation piece, too - see here http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17705/comments#comment368318 and here http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17994. And I've found that rangewise, roughly 25% of the tunes that I know/am interested in learning fit on one ocarina or the other, but there are some tunes (namely, all my limited-range Amaj reels) that I haven't bothered learning because they're awkward. I can only play the G ocarina in G and D, and can only play the C ocarina in C (not terribly useful) and G (which is sufficient for a number of Emin tunes); becoming fluent in the other keys seems more trouble than it's worth, at this point anyway. As I said, the ocarinas are not instruments I take terribly seriously.
Here are the tunes I can play on them, some more proficiently than others - all are in the Tunes database:
G ocarina:
Hector the Hero
The Old Favourite
Spanish Lady
Tripping Up the Stairs
My Darling Asleep
The Kesh
Brenda Stubbert's
Musical Priest
O'Keefe's slide
O'Rourke's reel
Paddy McFadden's slide
The Connaughtman's Rambles
The Silver Spear
The Stack of Barley
The Winnipeg Reel
Humours of Tulla
Upstairs in a Tent
Miss McCloud's (in G)
Cutting Bracken
C ocarina:
Danse Breton
Marie's Wedding
Samhardh, Samhardh
Trip to Pakistan
Up and Down Again
Wild One
Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
I bought a pair ocarinas from Mountain Ocarinas (http://mountainocarinas.com/) a few weeks ago, so that I'd have something to play when I can't take the fiddle along. I'm quite happy with them - they're compact, durable, and they have a pleasant tone. They're both chromatic, though one is much easier to play in G, and the other is easiest to play in C. The G ocarina has a range from F# to b; the C has a range from B to e. What are some good trad tunes I can play on these?
# Posted on March 12th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Surprisingly few G-tunes seem not to go down to low E or D (unless ingeniously modified). But some older Northumbrian / Border tunes don't go lower than G, because in at least some cases they were composed for bagpipes that didn't. They include:
Because He Was A Bonny Lad,
Jimmy Allen's
The Herd On The Hill
Bonnie Kate (NOT the Irish reel in D, another tune)
The Keelman Ower The Land
Felton Lonnin
Sir John Fenwick's The Flower Amang Them A'
- All in the Tunes database.
Other tunes include Miss McLeod's Reel, Owen Hackett's Jig and a polka I know as Scartaglen, whether correctly or not.
# Posted on March 12th 2007 by nicholas
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
The Concertina Reel fits into an octave (from F# to F# in the key of D). Sullivan's Polka fits into a single octave.
# Posted on March 12th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Oh, and because of the limitations of the human voice, the aires to most songs will fit into this range.
# Posted on March 12th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Anything in the GHB repertoire.
# Posted on March 12th 2007 by wormdiet
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
What a coincidence--I happened to catch the ocarina solo in "Wild Thing" on a TV nostalgia-fest of British Invasion acts, just last night! (It was the same lead singer, many years on, but probably not all of the original Troggs.)
I know that has nothing to do with Irish music--but how often does the ocarina come to your attention twice in 24 hours? It must be a sign....
# Posted on March 13th 2007 by mickray
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Thanks for your replies, all.
Right now I'm playing Kilfenora (http://thesession.org/tunes/display/56) and The Kesh (http://thesession.org/tunes/display/55) on the G. Kilfenora's easy, the Kesh a bit trickier. And I'm going to try to learn the Danse Breton (http://thesession.org/tunes/display/6932) on the C, though I'm not sure how ocarina-friendly that tune is - it's pretty dark.
I'm hoping that someone posts a tune that I recognize from my session, but can't play on fiddle. I know that if I bring the fiddle and ocarina to the session, the ocarina's going to stay in my pocket unless there's something I can play on it but not on fiddle.
# Posted on March 13th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Troggs vocalist...
The Troggs vocalist was/ is Elvis' dead twin brother Reg Presley.
He's more into crop circle research than ocarinas these days.
An ocarina at a session?!
Maybe I will take my French horn to the Kilkenny this evening...
# Posted on March 13th 2007 by yhaalhouse
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Hey, there's often a bass clarinet at my session, and it's a great addition.
yhaalhouse, did you check the link I posted at the beginning of this thread? - it has sound samples of my ocarinas. They're well tuned, and they sound enough like flutes that I think they could blend in nicely. If not, my session is nothing if not forgiving.
# Posted on March 13th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
This thread is pretty old now so perhaps you Tall, Dark and Mysterious one have discovered new tunes that fits well in the ocarina - both about the octave range and the sound.
I'm gonna getting two mountain ocarinas too and I'd like to know how was your life with it since... March 2007 (date of your last post). Thanks!
PS. Also, if you care in a portable instrument with more octaves (althoug not chromatic) there's the new "walkabout" whistle of Carey Parks. It's sturdy, almost undestructible and since it's three-parts, it fits nicely in any pocket. www.parkswhistles.com
Ciao
# Posted on September 14th 2008 by Anal
Re: Looking for tunes with octave-and-a-third ranges
Hi, Anal,
Just happened to stumble across this post. I'm really enjoying my ocarinas; I've been taking them to sessions and telling people, truthfully, that I learned to play them while waiting for buses. In the past year and a half, I've put maybe 120 hours into them - far, far less than I've put into the fiddle - but that's been enough that I can play them respectfully, certainly well enough to haul out to sessions. They're a good instrument for folks like me, who are obsessed with music but who are not multiinstrumentalists at heart: given a choice among instruments to practice, I'll take the fiddle over the ocarinas (or anything else, for that matter) anytime, but it's nice to have an instrument I can play literally anywhere. Let me know how your ocarinas work for you. The only problem I've found with them is that their pitch changes pretty dramatically depending on how hard you blow into them, and the G in particular is quite flat unless you play at full volume.
They've been a great conversation piece, too - see here http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17705/comments#comment368318 and here http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17994
. And I've found that rangewise, roughly 25% of the tunes that I know/am interested in learning fit on one ocarina or the other, but there are some tunes (namely, all my limited-range Amaj reels) that I haven't bothered learning because they're awkward. I can only play the G ocarina in G and D, and can only play the C ocarina in C (not terribly useful) and G (which is sufficient for a number of Emin tunes); becoming fluent in the other keys seems more trouble than it's worth, at this point anyway. As I said, the ocarinas are not instruments I take terribly seriously.
Here are the tunes I can play on them, some more proficiently than others - all are in the Tunes database:
G ocarina:
Hector the Hero
The Old Favourite
Spanish Lady
Tripping Up the Stairs
My Darling Asleep
The Kesh
Brenda Stubbert's
Musical Priest
O'Keefe's slide
O'Rourke's reel
Paddy McFadden's slide
The Connaughtman's Rambles
The Silver Spear
The Stack of Barley
The Winnipeg Reel
Humours of Tulla
Upstairs in a Tent
Miss McCloud's (in G)
Cutting Bracken
C ocarina:
Danse Breton
Marie's Wedding
Samhardh, Samhardh
Trip to Pakistan
Up and Down Again
Wild One
# Posted on September 20th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious