Been Forever!

Hey! To anyone still checking this page out, I appologize for letting it fall behind.
I've been pretty slow in making ocarina's lately.
I haven't much spare time to make ocarinas and getting them fired is pretty difficult now that I don't have access to a running kiln.
If you've been keeping up with me on youtube, you'll see I've made a couple more ocarina's though my latest, my first bass failed unfortunately.
My Dagger ocarina was a great success though!...that is assuming nothing goes wrong while firing it.
It looks and sounds great except it has a tendency to give off some squeeks on the highest notes if you play too softly but that will be fixed on the next one.
Also, on my youtube, you'll see I bought a kiln but have no where to put it or plug it in because it runs off 220V...and it's pretty big.
So for now, I've just been playing randoms and not been too too active.
Hopefully I'll get things moving again and I'll be back here to post again when I do!
Don't worry, I won't stop...but slowing down has obviously happened.

Bad news and a New occy!

So I've got terrible news!

The place I get my stuff fired is shutting down.
So I don't know what I'll do about firing my ocarinas....there's a few alternatives but they're all outdoor styles that involve fire.....I don't really have a yard or any decent space outdoors to do it.

So I'm really kind of bummed out about the situation....I'll probably keep making my ocarinas but I won't be able to finish them off:(

But on another note, Here's a pic of the second last one I made, it's out being fired right now along with my latest but those might be the last ones I get fired :(

Hi to my followers!

I just wanted to say Hi and thanks for keeping up with my page.
Although I'm not updating on here very often, when something interesting comes up in my ocarina travels I'll try to post it on here.
Even if it ends up on youtube, I still may mention it on here and try to give you at least something interesting to read!
Thanks Shawn and Luis!
Glad to see interest in my page and ocarinas!

Frustration...Blah

So I posted the video to youtube showing an interesting idea.
This came to me when considering how to fix/make use of an already broken home made ocarina.
This ocarina, I made last week was basically scrap because when making the ocarina you have a certian time limit because once the clay gets too dry, it limits what you can do with it.
After I made the initial shape, I halved it, hollowed it out and then had to leave.
By the time I got back the clay had already dried too much. I tried attaching the halves but within 20 minutes the seal had begun cracking.
The worst was at the tip, the rest wasn't too too bad and I think while trying to fix it, everything else ended up ok except at the tip.
The tip was bad enough to make in unworthy of spending any more time on it though.
That is, until the thought came to me!
I remembered seeing Karen Dunster's Tube Ocarina.
It's a tube shape with a mouthpiece attached and rather than individual fingering holes it has a large hole on 1 or both ends, I'm not sure. To play it you palm the hole/s and slightly uncovering the palm raises the pitch.

That gave me the idea to chop the end off my ocarina where the clay seal was crumbling.
It worked out pretty great, I spent a few hours carefully shaving out the inside of the hole and sanding the tip down more and more until I started to reach the higher notes. I was in the key of A and probably getting up around a B or a C. I was even considering putting in a thumbhole for the left hand to give it just a little more to play around with.

Unfortunately while I was sanding it up making it look pretty I ended up pressing to hard and busting it around the remaining seal.

So After all the work the first time and then all the excitement and careful tedious work the second time I end up with nothing....except I guess experience and a good idea.....
What a pain in the ass, I guess check out youtube to see an almost of what it could have been.
I put a temporary coil around the seam to just give a demo before I crushed it. There was no way to fix it...aside from glue....maybe I should'a just glued it!!! It wasn't THAT BAD!!!
Ahhhh crap.... I guess too late now!

Here's another

Pretty much the video says it all.
Herro if you're interested cool, let me know and if not than I'll make you another one:)
No biggie on my part if you wanna wait for a better one, it's just I don't want to leave you waiting forever so I thought I'd give you the option of taking it if you wanted. No feelings will be hurt if you'd rather wait, you know it, I know it, everyone else can see too that it's not one of the best ocarinas ever so take your pic:p
Little off tune, little bit airy on high notes and needs a decent breath to play it. I did make another one fairly recently but that ones already claimed and it turned out great but it's only a 5 hole. I know you were looking for a 10-12 hole.
Either way, check the vid and the pic out:)

Moose's Occy attempt

So here's my last ocarina I made for a friend.....Unfortunately it didn't work quite right.
I'm not sure what the problem is.
Very likely it's the SH *soundhole* as is the usually problem with ocarina's but after playing with it and doing tiny adjustments I can get it just right. The higher notes are getting airy. It was in C and I was super happy about it but as I started tuning up the holes the higher got airy and I made changes to the SH which changed the fundamental pitch...it fixed the airiness for awhile but then tuning it more the holes again got airy..... So I don't know if I'll bother trying to fix it or just start over.
It's not a bad shape, a little fatter than I was shooting for though, I'll try putting a video up later maybe.

Cool!

Today while exploring some ocarina pages and forums I just happened to stumble upon a very interesting and explaining picture! It was labeled water whistle and thought...hmmm I wonder....
Sure enough this is what the lady on Canada must have been talking about!
This must be her Lergök, it definitely looks like the shape of one I saw pictured but interesting now to see it's insides, it shows why they put the water in and gives it a warbling effect! Awesome!
This picture was found on the yahoo ocarina club! Great place to get information, find help and advice and brainstorm! Great group of people!

Happy Canada Day Indeed!

Today was a lot of fun!
I went to a local pub with the wife and mother in law where the wife sang some songs and dueted with a couple friends. A few other friends brought out a guitar, a harmonica and the owner of the pub pulled out his fiddle! So sure enough, how could I resist taking out my ocarina and playing along! We played a few great tunes, a few I knew and a few celtic tunes I couldn't even imagine following but all in all it was a lot of fun!
A bunch of the people there didn't have a clue what I was playing but 2 actually did surprisingly. First was a guy who said the only reason he knew what it was is because it came up in a crossword puzzle so he looked it up and researched it a little bit.
The second person was a lady who said when she was a kid living in Sweden, her and all her friends used to have and play ocarinas shaped like birds. She called them by a different name, Lergök, which turns out is ocarina in Swedish. The most interesting thing is she said they would all pour water into them while they played! She wasn't sure exactly why it was that they did that but being younger and they all did it, it wasn't even a second thought for her. When I first started playing my ocarina I noticed her watching quite intently but didn't think much of it because you can often get stares when playing "Such an odd and unusual flute". Later on though, my friend asked me if he could see my ocarina and I obliged. He took it and gave it a shake, looked to the woman and said "Nope, dry! No water in here!" then told me to go talk to her.
She said she recognized the sound immediately "Wow, I know that sound! I haven't heard it in years!" she said was her first thought. So I had a good talk with her and her companion about playing and now making ocarinas and they were both impressed by my playing skills and getting into making them.

A very good day for my ocarinas and spreading the word!
Happy Canada day everyone!

So here's just an idea of the ocarinas I've been making. This is the 10th, my latest ocarina. I'd say it was nearly perfect, Maybe the top highest notes were slightly out of tune, otherwise, the sound clarity was awesome and not a hint of airiness! Unfortunately I broke it before I took it in to fire :(
I was going to trash it but decided to keep it just because it was my tenth ocarina and first nearly perfect ocarina. After it broke it ruined it's sound but I thought I'd just glue it back together and paint it and this is how it turned out. Pretty awesome I think!
Let me know what you guys out there think about my paint job! All it needs now is a clear coat to really make it shine!

Not just Occy's!

Although my main focus is on ocarinas but my youtube channel will, from time to time have videos concerning different subjects, like using handgrips or discussing video games and other topics!
I'm mostly about ocarina's but that's not all I'm into!

Starting out

Well everyone interested....Like I already said, I'm new to this and I'm just starting out so give it awhile, come back and see how this page is growing and what other things happen to show up :)
So far I don't have much...or anything at all! But wait! Soon enough there'll be a bunch more about the ocarina's I'm making and maybe some other interesting things!
Thanks for checking my page out!