I got a $20 12-hole plastic Zelda Ocarina at Christmas only because a teenage boy I know wanted to learn to play the Zelda songs. If I was buying one ocarina for him, I was buying an ocarina for me and the other boys too. Besides the fact that it’s honking loud and can’t be played softly, it has a very nice sound. My friends like this ocarina way better than pennywhistles.
What other relatively inexpensive, easy to learn, different and nice sounding folk wind instruments are there?
Ocarinas are great fun.
I like the mountain ocarinas http://www.mountainsocarina.com/
Watch this guy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzR5Ns_eom8
and the
Charlie Hind Ocarinas http://hindocarina.com/
Harmonicas are a blast too.
Doc
I’ve kinda switched over to ocarina from whistle, and the ocarina I play is a Mountain ocarina. The main reason for the switch, and that choice, is portability/indestructability. I’m not a professional musician, but it’s important to me to have a way of making music. I love the whistle, but my family gets tired of it fast. I keep one in the car, but it’s not always convenient to carry one around with me. The ocarina (some of them, anyway) is more portable, but the clay ones are pretty fragile. The Mountain is designed precisely to be taken with you anywhere. Even the high-end models are just about indestructible, and carry a lifetime guarantee anyway. As a result, I tend to have my ocarina with me every day, all day, either on the neck strap or in a pocket. And since I have it with me, I play it.
The ocarina doesn’t have the whistle’s range. I guess the range is more similar to Irish/Scottish pipes (I’m not certain about that, however). But a lot of Irish or Scottish trad tunes can be adapted to be played on the ocarina, usually by dropping the B part down an octave. That’s what I did in this version of “Crested Hens”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDUAi106Nwo.
The polycarbonate models are pretty inexpensive too.
I suggest a Chalumeau or Xaphoon. These are small “Pennywhistle” type clarinets. You can also get some realy good PVC Bagpipe “practice chanters”. I also recommend a small tenor Native American Flute with a drone pipe. (use google image search)
I think my next wind instrument may be a Xaphoon.
And don’t forget to check out the Susato webssite for Gemshorns, Crumhorns, and others. They’ve got quite an impressive lineup these days.