We at Songbird Ocarina believe that there are two great ways to learn ocarina: experimentation and by learning from other players. This month, we want to reward you for doing both! We want to see your video tutorials demonstrating various ocarina techniques and instructing on all levels, from begginer to advanced. You don’t have to be great at teaching. Just show us what you’ve learned and if possible, give us a few tips in the process!

Here are the rules:

• Contest begins May 11th via our Youtube channel
• Participants must be subscribers to Songbird Ocarinas’s Youtube
• Entries must be submitted as video responses on YouTube
  • If you are unsure how to post a response, here are instructions
  • Use the tags “Songbird Ocarina”
• Entries must demonstrate some aspect of playing the ocarina (e.g. – how to hold, how to play the major scale, how to play a Song of Time, how to improvise, etc).
• Songbird will nominate three contestants for each of the following categories, and then they will go to vote on our Facebook Polls, where the submissions will be judged by a jury of your peers. Those three categories are:
  • Best Production Value
  • Most Helpful
  • Most Creative
• The prize for each category will be a $100 gift certificate, to be used on songbirdocarina.com or in our Workshop, located in Downtown Los Angles, CA.
• Deadline to submit videos is June 8th, voting will take place June 15th-17th and winners will be announced June 18th.

If you have questions about the contest, please leave a comment below or email us at SongbirdOcarina@gmail.com. Good luck!

One of the biggest questions asked by new and experienced ocarina players alike is, “What is the best way to clean my ocarina?” The ocarina actually requires very little maintenance as long as it’s well taken care of (wash your hands before playing, don’t play right after eating, don’t spill anything on it, etc). But, in order to keep your ocarina in tip-top shape, here are a few tips to clean your ocarina inside and out!

Tip 1) Wipe the outside with a damp cloth
In most cases, this should not do any harm to the ocarina, especially if it’s ceramic and glazed. If your ocarina is burnished (polished without a glaze) or strawfired, it should still be fine, but make sure the cloth isn’t too wet. The part you’ll especially want to wipe is the mouth piece (where you put your lips).

Tip 2) Give a sharp “Draw” right after playing
Because the ocarina lacks a spit valve, it’s always best to give a sharp draw (or suck) right after playing. Yes, this is a little gross. But hey…it’s just your saliva, and you don’t want it to clog your ocarina’s windway. If you forget to draw after playing and your saliva dries out, it should be fine.

Tip 3) Use a needle to clean out mouth piece
Sometimes you’ll find some dried up gunk at the opening of the windway and the easiest way to clean it out is with a small needle or safety pin. Just gently move it back and forth along the edge and when you’re done, follow the next step.

Tip 4) Give it a sharp blow
This will blow out any thing you loosened during the last step, but may also help clear anything lodged towards the back of the windway. The best way to do this is to cover all the tone holes (finger holes) and blow the heck out of it! After one or two tries, the windway should be clear, but if not, try our last tip.

Tip 5) Push a strip of paper down the windway
Get some newspaper or advertisement paper and roll it up until it is small enough to fit into the mouthpiece, but just thick enough so it won’t tear or break. Push it down the windway until you can see it at the “sound hole” or window and then pull it in and out several times to clear it out. Alternatively, you could also use a pipe cleaner. After this, give it one more sharp blow and you should be good to go!

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What did you think of these tips? Do you have any ocarina cleaning stories or tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

The 2012 International Ocarina Festival will be held in HongSung, South Korea on the weekend of May 11-13. This festival, sponsored by Noble Ocarina of Korea, will be the largest ever, boasting an attendance of 60 different ocarina makers from around the world with a total projected attendance of 5000 ocarinists!

The Festival Grounds (look at the baby ocarinas!)

Some of the activities will include the official opening of Korean Ocarina Museum, an ocarina marching parade, student competition, several exhibits, an ocarina market, and concerts throughout the weekend featuring master ocarinists such as ‘Milt’ from Japan and the Gruppo Ocarinistico Budriese (GOB) from Italy.

For a small taste of what to expect this year, check out this recap from the 2011 festival in Budrio, Italy.

Once the festival is over, we’ll be sure to post some pictures and videos recapping the event. What do you think about this year’s festival? Would you like to see something like this happen in the US? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: ocarinafestival.kr

This video raised a lot of questions for us. Is that a real Gibdo? How did it get an ocarina? And how did it learn to play so well?! But after our initial freak out, we calmed down and realized it was actually Suki022, a new ocarinist that has been posting ocarina videos over the last 3 weeks and she’s doing great! Check out a few of her performances below.

Super Mario World Underwater Theme

What did you think of her playing? Let us know in the comments below!

This week on the broadcast, David discussed a few updates on the Doo Dah Parade, posting more on the blog, the new Songbird “Ocarina Traveller” and attempted to perform the Hey Arnold theme and Rue’s Lullaby from Hunger Games. Tune in every Tuesday night at 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern! http://bit.ly/songbirdvokle