Ocarina
An ocarina is a wind instrument, closed at both ends to produce an enclosed space, and punctured with four to thirteen finger holes. A mouth tube projects from it, often from the side, and one sound hole is added, usually on the underside of the instrument's body. They are usually earthenware, although inexpensive alternatives made with plastics exist.
History
The ocarina is a very old instrument, believed to date back some 12,000 years. It is of particular importance in Chinese and Mesoamerican cultures (where they are often shaped as animals, many times birds). Its common use in the Western countries dates to the 19th century, when the modern form of the ocarina was invented by Italian Giuseppe Donati. The name is derived from Italian (ocarina 'little goose', for the instrument's resemblance to the animal).
Classification
The ocarina is not a closed-pipe instrument, contrary to common belief, since the sound is created by resonance of the entire cavity (which is not pipe-shaped). This has different acoustical physics from a pipe. Technically, the cavity acts as a Helmholtz resonator (see below).
Musical performance
The ocarina has an unusual quality of not relying on the pipe length to produce a particular tone. Instead the tone is dependent on ratio of the total surface area of opened holes to the total volume enclosed by the instrument. This means that, unlike a flute or recorder, the placement of the holes on an ocarina is largely irrelevant -- their size is the most important factor.
The resonator in the ocarina is incapable of creating harmonic overtones. This means that the technique of overblowing to get a range of higher pitched notes is not available in the ocarina, so the range of pitches available is limited.
Different notes are produced by fingering the holes, opening and closing more or less of the total hole area. The tone is then produced through the sound hole. The tone can also be varied by changing the strength with which one blows through the instrument.
Appearance in works
Ocarinas experienced a slight surge in popularity in 2002 due to the release of two popular games for the Nintendo 64 entitled Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 1998, and Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask in 2000, in which the hero Link used the instrument to travel through time and magically manipulate his environment.
