|
| ||
| |||
|
|
||
|
THE TRAVELLER'S COMPANION
The ocarina originated in some early South American civilisations. It was
a hunting tool. Its primitive whistle was tuned to mimic the mating call
of birds, the birds thought they were attracted to an exited mate but the
clever Indian ocarina hunter was thinking of food and not mating. It wasn’t
too long before the hunter realised the ocarina could also be used for entertainment
and added a spiritual voice to ceremonies.The Story Of New Zealand's Ocarina  So how did the ocarina end up in New Zealand and develop
a New Zealand look? In a nut shell it is a love story. A mother gave a simple
ocarina to her son, the son fell in love with the sweetness of the instrument
and dedicated his life to creating the perfect ocarina, the more he played
the instrument the sweeter it sounded, and the more time he spent experimenting
with blowing techniques, the more he became aware of the vastness of his
imagination and the vastness of the landscape of the music possible from
the simple vessel flute.Our ocarinas are created from Nelson New Zealand white porcelain type clay, in all there are between 35 and 40 steps in the creation process. Some of the processes are carving the original, mould making, sounding, tuning, burnishing, firing, polishing and finally playing. During this time the ocarina has many hours of playing to achieve perfection in notes, tones and sounds. We use a western scale that allows the instrument to play a wide range of musical styles from blues, classical jazz, folk, tribal etc., but still allows for the primitive nature sounds and music of the birds, the wind, the rolling ocean. It’s a particularly good instrument for recreating the eerie and passionate sounds of certain Mäori music and of course it’s excellent for the South American rythms. Our ocarinas because they have been made and played now in New Zealand for over 30 years has developed a strong New Zealand personality, with the carving and sound incorporating a lot of pacific design and music capabilities.  Each ocarina has thousands of year’s history in it making
and if you have an instrument you are part of the history and evolution
of the ocarina. If you spend time playing your ocarina it will reward you
many times over with beautiful sounds and hopefully bring joy to those around
you listening.Look after your ocarina like you would treat anything that is special and it will last forever, stay perfectly in tune and sound even better with age. All the best Woody Woodward 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
