Zelda Explained What Is An Ocarina Anyway

Zelda Explained: What Is An Ocarina, Anyway?

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Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time made its titular musical instrument widely known, but the ocarina’s real-world history goes back thousands of years.

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Zelda Explained What Is An Ocarina Anyway

The ocarina’s appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time burned the instrument into the minds of many fans. Ocarinas had been featured in previous Zelda games, but Ocarina of Time made its titular ocarina a core part of the game’s story and mechanics, not to mention the foundation of its iconic soundtrack. Ocarina of Time brought the relatively obscure instrument into the public consciousness, but even fans are unlikely to know the ocarina’s real-world origins in ancient history.

An ocarina first appeared in the Zelda series in A Link to the Past, but in this case, it was just referred to as a “Flute.” Perhaps developers chose to make the Flute’s sprite resemble an ocarina rather than a traditional flute because its unusual shape gave it a more mystical feel. Regardless, the ocarina returned in Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy – this time actually called an “Ocarina” – and later in Majora’s Mask, The Minish Cap, and Hyrule Warriors.

Without Ocarina of Time, however, the instrument likely wouldn’t have become so well-known, and it may not have gone on to appear in those subsequent games. Part of what made the Fairy Ocarina and Ocarina of Time so memorable was the player’s ability to actually play them, note for note, on the Nintendo 64 controller. It provided a tangible connection between the player and the game’s world, further enhancing what was already a sense of immersion and realism not achievable in Zelda’s 2D games. If what several prominent online ocarina vendors say today is true, this connection led many to seek out real ocarinas, boosting the ancient instrument’s popularity to levels it may have never reached before.

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Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time – The Instrument’s Real-Life History

According to Virginia Tech’s OnMusic Dictionary, the ocarina is believed to be more than 12,000 years old, making it one of humanity’s oldest instruments, and has cropped up in the histories of many different cultures. It is similar to the Chinese xun and the Japanese tsuchibue, but ocarina-like instruments have been discovered from ancient Egypt, India, Central Africa, and even 15th century Germany, according to OcarinaForest.com (via Archive.org). The ocarina that Zelda fans know has its most direct roots in Mesoamerican cultures like the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas. The Aztec ocarina was introduced to Europe in the 1500s and would later be iterated on by Italian brickmaker Giuseppe Donati, who invented in 1853 a transverse “sweet potato” ocarina capable of producing a full musical scale (as opposed to the select few notes of older ocarinas).

Because of this new, modern ocarina’s resemblance to the body and neck of a bird, Donati chose the name “ocarina,” which translates to “little goose,” according to OcarinaForest.com. Various events made the ocarina popular in communities like Japanese documentary-goers and the American military, but the instrument’s popularity today is mostly owed to Zelda. According to OcarinaForest.com, Ocarina of Time replicas have become “among the most sought after ocarinas,” and manufacturers say demand for the instrument soared after Ocarina of Time’s release. Songbird Ocarinas, for example, says “demand for ocarinas expanded exponentially” after the game came out.

Although Link’s ocarinas resemble Donati’s, transverse ocarinas commonly come in four-hole, 10-hole, and 12-hole variants. The Fairy Ocarina and Ocarina of Time, meanwhile, are depicted with seven holes, due to the limited face buttons of the Nintendo 64 controller. Composer Koji Kondo was still able to use these notes as a basis for a soundtrack many regard as the best of any video game, with many songs building on simple tunes played on Link’s ocarinas. The result is a deep association between the ocarina and one of gaming’s greatest titles, earning the humble instrument a place in many Nintendo fans’ hearts.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/zelda-ocarina-time-instrument-origins-history-real-life/

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