Large Triple Ocarina and Stand 9" H X 9" W X 9" D

This triple ocarina is beautiful on its stand; it can be played on its stand or held for playing or placed on a table. The individual ocarinas are tuned to play together a standard pentatonic scale; with cross fingering, a diatonic scale can be played. As always with these bigger flutes, beautiful low chords can be produced.

By blowing harder, the increased air pressure produces higher pitches and chords; decreased air pressure produces lower tones. Each mouthpiece reacts a little differently to changes in the air pressure; thus as always when playing wind instruments, playing true intervals may require a good ear, and/or small adjustments to air pressure, or slight shading of a finger hole.

The two ocarinas with five holes can each be played one at a time or together as a double ocarina, especially when learning to play it.

The third ocarina has palm holes to play chordal drones.

This triple ocarina is a bit heavy & might be happier in biggish hands.

Double Pelota Flute

played by dipping up & down to roll the pelota up & down, thus changing the flute’s length. This is a prehispanic concept and was also found in children’s toys.

Please see the Pelota Flute page for a video of 2 people playing See/Saw using one double pelota flute

SOLD

After Crows Feast, left: 

5.5"H X 3.5"W X 1.5"D

These are double pitch jump/trumpet flutes.

Blow through the round tube; the sound will vary with your air pressure and the pitch will jump higher & lower. While blowing, experiment with buzzing your lips like a trumpet on the end of the tube. By rolling your fingers on & off the red beak slits, the sound will be altered. Try using all these techniques together! Closing one slit completely will block the sound, enabling the player to hear each flute individually.

The instrument on the right has been sold.

Y Space Flutes: varied sizes - from 6" long X 5" X 1" H, or 5" X 4.5" X 1" H

Each arm of the Y is a separate flute; blow harder & softer through the short tail while rolling your thumbs or fingers to open & close the ends of the Y. This will produce a great range of sounds & intervals from harmonics to intense and varied combination tones. The lowest open interval between the two tubes has been variously tuned.

Double Space Flutes

The long tube on both the pink & green flutes is about 8” long. The brown & green flute is 6” long.

With a warmed up flute, correct air pressure and fingering positions, these flutes produce pure unisons; octave, 3rd, 4th & 5th intervals; and a range of harmonics, all of which produce both combination and heterodyne tones both difference & addition tones, plus beats & buzzes. These sounds slice throughout the head, and are remarkable for both hearer and player. The flutes are challenging to tune as well as record & play back.

The longer tubes of the pink & green flutes have larger holes that can play lovely folk-type melodies. The small tubes have smaller holes that produce sounds that create intervals with the longer pipe, plus a range of combination tones, both addition & difference.

In the bottom picture, the brown flute on the left has an 8.5” long tube with bigger holes & a shorter tube with small holes that play combination tone melodies. Both tubes of the two smaller middle flutes have teeny tiny holes that play combination tone melodies. The yellow flute is 5.5” long.

For further information about combination & heterodyne tones, please see my article entitled ENTRANCING SOUNDS on the resource page.

Triple Flute Mask I

13" W X 6"D, from the back across the middle tube. 

To play all 3 tubes, blow into the central rectangle. The 2 side tubes play more or less into your ears, & the middle more or less into your 3rd eye. The tube on the player's right contains a finger hole; the 2 others can be played as harmonic flutes. Another similar triple flute mask is available. Fun to play & to see played.

These flutes are fragile; two survived the construction process. The right tube of this flute mask was broken & almost invisibly repaired; it plays as before.

A Pair of Double Flutes

15"L X 1.75"W: shorter one; 21.5"L X 2.25"W: the longer one has a thumb support on the back. Blue engobe with yellow glaze

The top large flute needs big hands & fingers to play its deep, beautiful intervals. The smaller flute can be used several ways: 1.) use both hands to play the 6 finger holes of the R shorter flute; 2.) use the right hand to play the top 4 finger holes on the R tube, and the 1st & 2nd fingers on the left hand to simultaneously play the bottom 2 holes on the R flute with the adjacent 2 holes on the longer L flute; 2a.) add any remaining fingers to play the bottom hole on the longer flute. 3.) if desired, the R hand can play the top 4 holes on the right side & the L hand can play the bottom holes holes in the L flute.

Long biggish fingers will help.

The small flute was damaged and repaired, and plays as well as it did before.

These three double flutes were inspired by a simple and lovely West Mexican double flute. On each flute, one of the pair is narrower in its bore than is the other; this is visible in the picture above. A narrower bore should produce more higher harmonics with increased air pressure.

Pair of double flutes

18.5"L X 2.5"W X 1.5"D, top longer flute in this picture; 20"L X 2.5"W X 1.5"D, lower flute.

This pair is inspired by two similar Mayan quadruple ceremonial flutes; each double flute here in length, position & size of the holes, placement & size of the mouthpiece, the partial closing of each tube & the cone on the longest flute were all modeled on the Mayan flutes; the wall thickness of the ancient flutes was very thin, & the walls of these two flutes are much thicker, meaning they are heavier but more sturdy. The end of each tube is partially closed with a small hole in the middle. As on the Mayan flute, the longest flute has a cone shape at its end; this seems to deepen the sound and to enable quiet overtones. On the bottom flute in this picture, the lower holes cannot be reached by the fingers in play. They may have been used to tune the fundamentals, as might the small end holes on all the tubes. The set of triple holes may have been staggered to allow the R hand to play them together, while the L hand played the holes on the bottom of this flute. These 2 flutes play softly & beautifully together.

Large Triple Ocarina:

Each of the 2 chambers with 5 holes plays a pentatonic scale.

Using two relatively easy cross fingerings, a diatonic scale can also be played; some chromatic tones are available.

The 3rd chamber is the drone.

Large Double Ocarina

11"H X 9W" X 4.5"D 

Designed for big hands and fingers, each ocarina can be played individually and together; this is very useful while learning to play it.

Each ocarina play a classic pentatonic or five note scale. Two relatively easy cross fingerings are used to play a diatonic scale. Some chromatic tones are also relatively easy to produce with cross fingering.