27/09/2024
【Ocean Unboxing + Review】
Ngl, this ocarina is kinda beautiful. I decided to call it Ocean as that's the theme of its box.
The inner finishing feels incomplete (like I can still feel the small particles coming out from the chamber), but the ergonomics is quite good in some areas. It has a longer shape compared to Ancient. Only the outermost shape is polished. A lot of inner surfaces are unpolished and can be seen from the holes. The finishing even though looks good, has a surface that becomes sticky when you have moist hands and is not friendly for long play.
The upper surface is a little flat, which makes it difficult to hold in my hand and is causing strain to my muscles. Subholes are too far away from the main holes for my hands.
A4 and B4 have too huge of a breath drop. The high notes from B5 onwards produce screechy tones, and it gets worse the higher the note. D6 has a sudden huge breath pressure jump, which is bad. The ocarina has a huge dynamic range, which means that low notes require extremely low breath pressure, and vice versa. I don't really like this. Sharps and flats also have non-linear breath curves.
I'd say the ocarina is only suitable for playing songs that use the C5~C6 range, simply due to its non-linear breath curve. One thing that I will give it credit for is that its highest F6 still has a warm tone and does not pierce my ear as much as I thought. Milt technique can be used on this ocarina and i was able to achieve a highest note of A6.
Overall, I'd say this is a below average ocarina. It is an ok first ocarina, but I wouldn't recommend it for serious play. At some point you're gonna need to switch to a more decent ocarina. These kinds of ocarina also have a downside of possibly making the player pick up bad habits that are tailored specifically for badly tuned ocarinas. My recommendation is that if you are considering learning the ocarina seriously, get another more decent quality ocarina. Otherwise if you're just trying to get a feel of whether you like the ocarina as an instrument, feel free to try this one out as its price is pretty friendly to newcomers.
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#オカリナ
#陶笛