The ocarina is an ancient instrument originating in China. The word “ocarina” itself is actually an Italian word, which means “little goose”, where the “oca” part means “goose”, and the “rina” part signifies a feminine diminutive form. This is because the shape of the standard 12-hole ocarina resembles the head of a goose.
In China, the xun (simplified Chinese: 埙; traditional Chinese: 塤), which is considered to be the ancestor of the ocarina, has been widely used as a wind instrument for thousands of years.
Ocarinas are made out of many different materials, but the most common are clay and plastic, with wood being far more demanding and coming in at a distant third place. Also, ocarinas come in many shapes and sizes, with ranges varying from sub-bass or contra-bass, which can go down as far as B2 – to soprano – which can go as high as F7.
A “standard” ocarina has one chamber with twelve holes, but this varies widely among manufacturers. There exist ocarinas with two, three, four, or even five chambers, which cover multiple octaves, but those tend to be very heavy, especially if they are made of clay.
Ocarinas are featured prominently in many songs and compositions by Wrong Destiny because they are wonderful instruments with a very pure tone. Ocarinas require next to no maintenance, and there are (in most cases) no moving parts to complicate things. On top of that, ocarinas are easy to get around, easy to learn, easy to play, and – with some special techniques – not too demanding for recording and editing.