It’s day 5 and the final day of ocarina reveals of a week-long marathon leading up to the 82nd New England Folk Festival in Marlborough, MA from April 24-26! This set, batch 26, consists of the first four of my newest larger alto pendant ocarina size (SN 071-074)! This set is consists of a stunningly beautiful selection of woods that has a bit of personal meaning for myself, and I feel that I saved the best for last with this one. A summary of the woods and key for each ocarina is as follows:
SN 071 (C5): curly eucalyptus, figured bubinga, redwood
SN 072 (C5): curly eucalyptus, figured bubinga, redwood
SN 073 (C5): curly eucalyptus, figured bubinga, redwood
SN 074 (C5): curly eucalyptus, figured bubinga, redwood
The woods of this set are particularly stunning, and really stand out. I had an exceptional block of figured eucalyptus set aside for over a year, saving it for a special ocarina set. When I began working on my pendant development, I knew I had to use this for a larger pendant. And as soon as I saw the iridescent golden wood and wavy eucalyptus grain, I knew I had to pair it with a top of incredibly deep and rich figured bubinga from my personal reserves. this bubinga is left over from my personal custom tsugaru shamisen build, and was specifically used for part of the dou (body). The chatoyance and deep color of the bubinga is mesmerizing, and is some very high grade bubinga. Finally, I decided to use a bit of a different selection of wide grained redwood for the mouthpiece.
Like the prior alto pendant set, this set is characterized with an incredibly rich and smooth tone. Because of the extra hard and dense woods used, this sweetness is layered on top of a beautiful resonance when you hit the proper breath technique just right, really letting these ocarinas sing with an extra level of richness. These ocarinas are very low breath ocarinas, which speak with a gentle whisp of air at the low end, and playing effortlessly on the highest notes. The clarity and tone is truly amazing on these. When I was getting to know this batch a bit more after it was completed, and working on the recording for the unveiling video, I was so moved by the tone, response, and look (especially given the personal sentiment of the bubinga used for this build) that I immediately decided to keep one of these ocarinas, SN 071, for my own personal collection. An ocarina like this is just too good to pass up, even for myself as a maker!
Finally, this is my first ever set of alto C5 ocarinas. I have been steadily working my way to this incredibly popular and versatile key, and with the details of the tuning and voicing now finally worked out, you can be sure there will be more alto C5 pendants to come!
Full in-depth details of every ocarina, as well as the story behind the pendant development, features of the pendants, sound samples, and a full song demo from this batch is now available on the Bretti Musical Instruments YouTube page:
Pendant Ocarina Unveiling Marathon Day 5 – Batch 26
Fantasia for Nausicaa – Alto C5 Pendant Ocarina
Additional details for the new pendant ocarinas can also be found on the dedicated Pendant Ocarinas page, where I include all of the general details, range, available keys, dimensions, and other resources. Although this is the final set of pendants for this ocarina marathon, I still have one more instrument set to go, a very special reveal of a brand new instrument offering at Bretti Musical Instruments!
