Common Ocarina Mistakes to Avoid

There's a particular sound a room makes when someone picks up an ocarina for the first time and blows far too hard — a startled, breathy shriek, followed by an apologetic laugh. I've heard it more times than I can count at folk sessions, and I made every one of these mistakes myself before anyone thought to mention them. None of them are complicated to fix. Most of them just need naming, so you can spot them before they become a habit.

Mistake 1: Blowing like it's a candle to put out

The single most common ocarina mistake, by a wide margin. An ocarina responds to a slow, steady stream of breath, not a forceful gust. Blow too hard and the note cracks, jumps sharp, or breaks apart into that shriek I mentioned. The fix is almost embarrassingly simple: ease right off, aim for something closer to gently fogging a window, and let the tone settle before you try to get louder or more expressive. Breath control is a skill that develops with time — it isn't something you can force your way past.

Mistake 2: Assuming every fingering chart is the same

Pick up two different 12-hole ocarinas from two different makers and you may find the fingering doesn't match at all. Sub-hole placement, note order and the overall system can vary between manufacturers, even at an identical hole count. Learning a fingering pattern from a video or a friend's instrument, then getting confused when your own doesn't respond the same way, is a wasted afternoon and an unnecessary knock to your confidence. Always use the chart supplied with your specific instrument, not a generic one you found online.

Mistake 3: Trying to learn every note in one sitting

Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing, and it's also how people burn out on a new ocarina within a fortnight. Racing through a full fingering chart before your first three or four notes are secure tends to leave everything half-learned and none of it satisfying. Slow down, master a small handful of neighbouring notes, and add to them gradually. You'll actually sound musical far sooner this way, even though it feels slower at the start.

Mistake 4: Treating breath pressure as one setting

Here's something that catches out players who've moved past total beginner: breath pressure isn't a single dial you set once. Higher notes on an ocarina typically need a touch more air pressure than lower ones, and every instrument has its own curve. Players who keep the same breath pressure right across the range often find their higher notes go flat or won't speak cleanly at all — not because anything is broken, but because the demand on their breath has quietly changed underneath them.

Mistake 5: Skipping the tuner

It's tempting to trust your ear alone, especially once a tune starts to feel comfortable. But ears adjust to whatever you're already playing, which means small tuning drifts can go unnoticed for weeks. A cheap tuner or a free tuning app, checked now and then during practice, catches problems early — whether that's your own breath control drifting or, less often, a genuine issue with the ocarina's own tuning.

Mistake 6: Storing your ocarina carelessly

Clay and ceramic ocarinas in particular do not forgive a tumble off a shelf or a squeeze at the bottom of a bag. Even plastic ones suffer from being left somewhere damp or dusty for months at a time. A simple padded case, kept somewhere stable, prevents the single most avoidable kind of loss: a perfectly good instrument cracked or clogged through nothing more than carelessness.

Mistake 7: Letting moisture sit in the windway

Breath carries moisture, and that moisture has to go somewhere inside an ocarina. Left unchecked in the windway, it can dull the tone, cause odd gurgling sounds, or, for porous clay instruments, gradually cause damage. Get in the habit of letting it air out after playing, and follow the maker's specific cleaning guidance rather than guessing — clay, ceramic and plastic all behave differently here, and a method that suits one can harm another.

Mistake 8: Buying an ocarina on looks before checking the basics

A beautifully glazed finish or a striking Zelda-style shape can be genuinely lovely — and genuinely irrelevant to whether the instrument plays in tune. It's an easy trap: buy for how it looks on a shelf, then discover the tuning, hole count or fingering doesn't suit what you actually wanted to play. Our complete buyer's guide covers exactly what to check before you spend anything, so this particular mistake never has to happen to you.

Where to go from here

None of these slip-ups are signs you've picked the wrong instrument or lack any particular gift for it — they're simply the well-worn potholes on a road plenty of players have travelled before you. If you're just starting out, our beginner's guide walks through your first note and first tune at a gentle pace, and the best ocarinas for the money is worth a look before you buy or upgrade. For the fuller picture of how the instrument actually works, our ocarina explainer fills in the background.

The bottom line

Every one of these ocarina mistakes is ordinary, forgivable, and easily corrected once you know to look for it. Ease off the breath, trust your own fingering chart, go slowly through your notes, and take a little care in how you store and clean the thing. Do that, and the ocarina will reward you with exactly the warm, singing tone that made you want to pick it up in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions