I bought three of these beauties (the green one, the blue one and this violet and lilac one) for a LARP (live action role playing game). I counted on them being beautiful, and if they did sound decently that would have been a plus.
They are surprisingly good. Of course, the range is limited, they are small and super cute, and they only have four holes, so you get from do to la sharp, and that’s it. So you can’t expect it to have the range of a piano, but again, this is no toy: it’s a real instrument, which sounds beautifully when well used. My husband, who suffered seven years of forced violin playing and got honor grades, upon hearing me play the green one, said: “Hey, that’s good! That’s an instrument! Where did you buy it?”
It would have been hard to use without the lovely notebook that comes with it. It includes digitation notes so you know which note equals what, and then scores with the digitation (is that the correct word in English?) under the score. It’s really simple to use and if you can read scores, once you finish with the included booklet, you should be able to play other songs (other songs that go from do to la sharp, because again… four holes).
A lovely creature. I am impressed with both the ocarinas and the booklets, and I’m now intrigued about other ocarinas of the same company. I want to try the 7 hole celtic one (which comes with a booklet of celtic songs) and the 8 hole that has the shape of a brown bird. But first, I’ll make the most of these three.
Would buy again if any of them broke… I have three, I hope at least mine can survive my toddler, but harder items have fallen to his destructive exploits, so wish me luck!
