Coda extended range ocarina

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ubizmo
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Coda extended range ocarina

Post by ubizmo »

After years of development, Karl Ahrens, of Mountain Ocarinas, has recently released the "Coda EDC Flute", which is an extended range, dual-chamber ocarina instrument. "EDC" means "every day carry," to convey the important point that Coda is designed to be a durable and portable instrument that you can have with you all the time without fear of it warping, cracking, breaking, etc.

You can find out more at https://codaedc.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxDHcW ... oFY7ECfa7g.

I'm not affiliated with the company except as a friend and "test pilot," as well as a player of Mountain Ocarinas for quite a while. I've played a number of Coda prototypes over the past few years as Karl worked to arrive at a design that both played well and could be affordably produced and sold. Coda is significantly more complex than the usual ocarina, or even the usual dual-chamber ocarina.

For one thing, Coda does not require the player to move the fingers of one hand to a different set of tone holes when switching chambers. He or she need only switch windways; the fingers stay put. In addition, there's overlap between the two chambers, which means that B5, C6, C#6, and D6 can be played on either chamber. Although this is a bit daunting for the new player, it turns out to be a huge advantage as you get used to the instrument. It gives you more flexibility with respect to when to switch chambers, which can help a great deal with phrasing and overall playability of certain tunes.

The two chambers are an octave apart, and the C major scale is fingered the same on both. Some of the other notes have different fingerings in the two chambers, similar to the way fingerings vary on a recorder. Because this is an ocarina-type instrument, all notes are played as fundamentals or first harmonic. Consequently there is virtually no risk of squeaking or note-splitting, as can occur in the higher registers of a recorder. All notes on Coda are "pure."

The actual range is C5 to C7, fully chromatic. In addition to the chamber overlap I mentioned, there are alternate fingerings available for many notes. Again, this isn't something a new player would bother with, but as you gain familiarity with the instrument it can be a real advantage.
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Sedi
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Re: Coda extended range ocarina

Post by Sedi »

Already ordered mine. And it created quite the hype on FB in the "Ocarina Network" group. It probably won't make it to Germany in time for Xmas but I'm thrilled that it was finally released. I hope they sell like hot cake and we will maybe get different colors in the future. The blue protoype looked quite cool.
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