Our another instrument that we’ve practiced in music class for a long time is "Ocarina". We live in the countryside. "Jih-Guang- Dau-Shiang" which means sunshine and rice’s aroma in Chinese is our favorite music. And our teachers love it, too. The lively melody is like the the south wind blowing gently. The melody conveys the quiet and contented feelings of our agricultural leisurable time, so this track is also one of the most frequently listed music when we are invited to perform on events or press conferences handled by Changhua County Government. The origin of Ocarina in Tuku began around 2014. At that time, Changhua County pushed the development of music education including string instruments such as violin and wind instruments such as flute, Ocarina and Chinese flute. Because Tuku Elementary School is located in the south of Changhua County and close to Zhuoshui River, seldom people learn instruments. Considering the price and convenience of instruments, the school decided that Ocarina which is convenient to carry and similar to the way of learning recorders could be another musical instrument in our school.
Around 2015 our teachers have allied with professional music teachers from other schools which are also small-scale and applied for Project of Arts and Humanities and they support each other. Up to now, there’re totally 11 allied schools to jointly develop music education in south Changhua. Isn’t it cool? We invite the professional teacher Wan-ju Liao together with internal teachers Ya-hui Huang and homeroom teachers to work together. The 1st and 2nd graders learn to play the 6-hole Ocarina. The 3rd and 4th graders learn to play the 12-hole Ocarina and recorders. The 5th and 6th graders learn how to perform with Ocarina and it’s the advanced course.
“Shiun” meaning an ancient earthen is more orthodox than “Ocarina.” In the history of Western music, Ocarina is classified as flute. Particularly, most of flutes are tubular, while “Shiun” is spherical or egg-shaped. It’s a kind of edge tone or closed tube instrument, unlike other flutes which are open tube instrument. In early times, “Shiun” is made of natural materials such as clay, bones, and shells. Nowadays it is made of ceramics, so it’s called “Ocarina.” While Ocarina could be made of many types of materials, but we usually practice with plastic Ocarina, because it’s cheap and not easy to break when falling into the ground. Although we usually practice with cheap plastic Ocarina, we won the second place in the Ocarina competition handled by Changhua County Goverment!
- source:
- Chung-Hua Folklore and Feats Troupe (2019). Ocarina.Taken from
http://www.mfa.org.tw/04_todi.htm