Playing in D

[sberti (WindSong)]

The Ocarina Workshop site mainly use ocarinas in D for their learning systems.

I've just noticed that they are teaching the sheet music actually using the scale of D!

www.ocarina.co.uk/how-to-play-ocarinas/

I have always used my ocarinas as 'transposing' instruments. So if I'm playing my Sop G, I read the music as if it was a C instrument.

I'm wondering how many other people play music by reading the actual notes, instead of using it as a transposing instrument.

[Walden]

I imagine they chose D because it is the de facto standard for tinwhistle and much fiddle music. If one did begin by learning to play ocarina by conventional notation in D one could use Irish tune books that are laid out in that key, and have a lot of repertoire available.

[sberti (WindSong)]

Yes, that's the reason I also assumed they were using D.

Recently I asked Terry Riley why most of his instruments are either in D or G, while few are in C, and he said that people liked them since they were easier to play along with a guitar.

I'll have to admit that I find the G/D/A combinations on the guitar easier to play than the C/G/F, so I guess he has a point there, too.

On the Ocarina Workshop webpage it surprised me that they were teaching the real sound of the ocarina. So the sheet music notation of D = 'all the holes covered'.

(Every time I talk about transposing instruments it seems like it gets complicated, sorry. I don't think I describe stuff very well.)

But I have never played my G ocarinas by playing the actual concert notes.

For all my ocarinas, having all the 'regular' holes covered = C on my sheet music. I use the exact same fingering as if they were a C ocarina, playing them as transposing instruments.

So for instance, while playing my G, when I read and play a C in the notation (all the regular holes covered), the note that actually comes out of the ocarina is a G not a C.

I've gotten to wondering how many people actually play their instruments by learning the real concert notation fingering.

I thought most people played them as transposing instruments like I do, but I'm wondering if maybe I'm wrong... or is the Ocarina Workshop the unusual instance?

Am I making any sense?

[Walden]

It seems to me like if we were going to teach music diatonically that C would be the obvious choice. It would be a little silly for people playing a pendant-type instrument to make themself play using the specific key of written music of whichever key instrument they were on.

I think the only form of ocarina that it would make practical sense to use various keys of conventional notation would be a multi-chambered ocarina, because anything less than that is too narrow a range to be played chromatically.

Since a single-chamber ocarina is diatonic, or only generally is played in a few keys, there's no reason not to use it as a transposing instrument. Play an F ocarina using C notation, and it sounds like it's in F. No sense hunting down F notation and going through all the useless trouble of following a different scale, when it's the same fingering.

[Walden]

My point about his using notation pitched in D was that I suppose he still intends it to be used as a transposing instrument, but that he chose D over C because there was more material available in the British Isles in that key.

[sberti (WindSong)]

Yes, I suppose that's right about lots of music in D being available in Britain. So I guess that would make sense for the Ocarina Workshop.

I think there are some instances when people play the concert notes on their ocarina. I'm thinking of the video Canon Rock. The sheet music I saw required a double C instrument. And I've seen a few videos of people playing it on a double.

I think it was David Ramos that I heard say that it would fit on a single, if the single was a G. Since the guy in the video is playing it on a single, I assume he's playing the actual notes of the G ocarina. I haven't sat with the sheet music and video to try and figure it out.

What do you think?