How to play the ocarina: a 12-hole beginner’s guide

Learning how to play the ocarina is quicker than most people expect. You can make a clean first note in a minute, and a simple song within a week. This guide is for the 12-hole alto C ocarina, the most common kind: how to hold it, where the fingers go, how much to blow, and what to do when a note sounds wrong. It ends with a first-week plan and a first song.

Hold it

Hold the ocarina flat in front of you with the mouthpiece towards you, your left hand nearest the mouthpiece and your right hand towards the tail. Your thumbs go underneath, on the two thumb holes. Let the ocarina rest on your thumbs, so that your fingers are free to lift.

Keep your shoulders loose. If your wrists ache after a few minutes, you are gripping too hard: the ocarina is light, and it needs holding, not squeezing.

Cover the holes

Cover each hole with the flat pad of your finger, not the tip. A hole that is not quite sealed leaks air, and the note squeaks or sounds airy and sharp. Press gently: the seal matters, not the force.

Leave the two tiny sub holes beside your middle fingers open. They are only covered for the three lowest notes (and later for C♯ and D♯), and the side of a finger resting on one makes a note sound about a semitone low.

Your first note: low C

Cover all eight holes on top and both thumb holes, leaving the two tiny ones open. That is low C, the lowest note of the main scale and the one the fingering chart starts from.

Now blow gently and steadily, as if you were fogging a window. Low notes want little air. Hold the note for a few seconds and keep it steady.

Breath

The higher the note, the more air it wants: gentle for low C, D and E, steady and medium in the middle, firm for the high notes. Too little air makes a note sag flat; too much pushes it sharp and, on low notes, can make it crack. Keep the stream steady rather than strong. If the high notes are the problem, read why high notes sound airy or flat.

Tonguing

Start each note with your tongue, as if you were whispering “doo”. It gives every note a clean start, and it is how you play the same note twice in a row: “doo doo”, keeping the air flowing and tapping the tongue again for each note. Without it, repeated notes blur into one long note. If a tune has the same note several times in a row, tongue every one.

When something sounds wrong

• A squeak, or an airy, sharp note: a hole is not sealed. Check each finger, flat pads, pinkies too.
• A note about a semitone low: the side of a finger is probably covering one of the tiny sub holes.
• The high notes sound flat: they want more air than the low ones. Blow firmer as you go up.
• Everything sounds a little flat: a soft breath or a cold ocarina. Warm it in your hands for a minute and blow a little more.
• A rattling or bubbling sound: moisture in the mouthpiece. Cover the holes and blow it out firmly, or tap it dry.

Your first week

Ten to fifteen minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday. A plan that works for most beginners:

• Day 1: hold it, seal every hole, and play low C for five seconds at a time. Rest between notes.
• Day 2: add D and E by lifting the right pinky, then the ring finger. Go C, D, E and back, slowly.
• Day 3: tongue each note with “doo”. Play E E E, then D D D, then C C C.
• Day 4: play your first song, below. Slowly: a steady beat matters more than speed.
• Day 5: add F and G, which finish opening the right hand. Climb from C to G and back.
• Day 6: a second song using those notes, such as Ode to Joy or Mary Had a Little Lamb.
• Day 7: replay everything from the week and notice what has become easy.

Your first song: Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns uses only three notes, E, D and C, and one of the easiest rhythms there is. Play it slowly, with a clean start on every note.

How to read these tabs

Each note is a small diagram of the ocarina. A filled circle is a covered hole and an empty one is open. The note’s name is under the diagram, so you can check it against the fingering chart. The width of a note shows how long it lasts: a wide box is a long note, a narrow one a short note, and a gap is a rest. Bar lines divide the song into groups of beats. Read left to right, one note at a time.

Tabs show you what to play and for how long, and they need no sheet music. There are more in the ocarina tabs collection, from the easiest tunes up.

Learning without a teacher

A good teacher gives you three things: someone to listen, someone to correct what you cannot hear yourself, and a sensible order to learn things in. You can replace most of that.

• A sensible order: a chart plus a short list of songs from easy to harder, such as easy ocarina songs for beginners, and a rule of thumb: add one or two new notes at a time.
• Showing you how: videos and photos show the grip and the fingers. Watch once, then put the screen away and try.
• Listening to you: this is what a book or a video cannot do. Record yourself, or play in front of a tuner, and compare what you hear with what you meant to play. An app that listens through the microphone does this for you as you play.

What a teacher still does better is spot habits early: a tense hand, a note always played flat. If you can, have one lesson in person, or ask someone who plays to listen for ten minutes.

Where to go next

• Easy ocarina songs for beginners, in the order to learn them.
• Why high notes are airy, flat or squeaky, and how to fix each.
• Which ocarina to buy, if you do not have one yet.
• The full ocarina tabs collection.
• The Zelda ocarina songs: the short in-game tunes, as tabs.

Practise with an app that listens