The song of the Ocarina

By Diego Modena & J-P. Audin

Information for the adult before working with the kids

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The "Ocarina song "is a piece of music which is dedicated to the Ocarina flute.

.The ocarina is an ancient wind musical

instrument—a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from clay or ceramic, but other materials are also used—such as plastic, wood, glass, metal, or bone.

The musical topics of this lesson are:

The musical phrase and the melody structure
The symmetry of the musical phrases
The different of the sound timbre between the Cello and the flutes

The musical phrase

Musical conversation is like any other conversation in any othe language and it is built from musical sentenses.

The musical sentence is a piece of music that has a clrear musical idea.

It is the smallest period in a musical composition that can give in any sense the impression of a complete statement.

In this melody there is a conversation between the Cello and the Pan flute and the Ocarina flute.

After the introduction, the Pan flute plays a short musical sentence and the Cello imitates it and answer in a very similar sentence.(this returns twice).

After that the Ocarine flute playes a long sentence and the Cello imitates it and answer in a very similar sentence.

There is a musical symmetry here as the Cello "answers " the flutes in a sentence that has the same length and almost the same melody .

If we refer to this" musical talk" as a human talk, we can say that the Cello reflects to the 2 flutes , what they say.

You can see that in the next 2 videos:

In the left one you see the original performance of Modena and in the right one the focus is on the performing instruments and the melody structure.

.

The melody structure is:

The sound timber

The sound timber is the "color" of the sound and it is a result of the way the sounds in produced. For example: the Accordion timber is different from the flute, and the flute timber is different from choir or a piano etc.

In this leason the children will have to destingwish between the timber of the Cello which is a string instrument and the sound of the flute or the Ocarina flute which are wind instruments

first listening

First listenning

Explain to the children that while listening to the music , they will have to imitate your movements:

In the music introduction, move your shoulders.

When you hear the flute or the Ocarina, move your hands
When you hear the Cello, move your legs
At the last part in which the Ocarina leads the music and the Cello join from time to time, ask the kids for free movements of their own.

If you want, you can choose different movements for each part of the music!

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Once the music is over, ask the children if the music was happy or sad?
What musical instruments did they hear in the music?

Tell the children that in this music there are 2 kinds of flutes: Pan flute and Ocarina flute.

Introduce the pictures of the 2 flutes to the children and say that this music is dedicated to the Ocarina flute and it is called:"The song of the Ocarina".

When we heard the music, did we move only one part of our body?

Tell the children that when we heard the Cello we moved our legs and when we heard the flute or the Ocarina , we moved our hands

At the introduction we moved our shoulders and at the last part we had a free movements

Ask the children if there we repeating parts in the music?

Yes, the Cello always repeated and reflected what the flute and the Ocarina played.

Cello and second listening

Introducing the Cello

bigstock-Four-Musical-Instrument-String-

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The Cello is part of the a string instrument family. It is played by bowing or plucking its four strings, which are usually tuned in perfect fifths an octave lower than the viola:

Please listen to the Cello's sound from our music

Second listening

Tell the children to stand up, sit down and try to confuse them.
Tell them that now, the flutes(Ocarina and Pan)will tell them to sit down in their musical language(when they hear the flutes, they will sit on their chairs).
The Cello will tell them to stand up.(when they hear the Cello , they will stand up)
In the introduction, while sitting on their chairs, ask the children to wave their hands
Repeat this activity and ask the children to give different ideas as for what to do when you hear the flutes and what to do when you hear the Cello.
For example:
Walk with the flutes and stop walking with the Cello,
change your seat when you hear the Cello etc.
Pass a ball in a circle from one child to another, in one direction.When you hear the Cello, change the direction of passing the ball.

Unknown Track - Unknown Artist

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third listening

Third Listening

Arrange the students in 2 groups: The boys will hold the parachute and stand around it.

The girls will stand under the parachute

In the introduction the boys and the girls will move their bodies very quietly.
When you hear the flutes, the boys will tap gently the parachute,in the Cello, the girls will tap the Cello from down to up
At the last part the girls will get out and join the boys for moving the parachute up and down
Do it again and switch roles.

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Forth and Fifth listening

Explain to the children that in the "Ocarina song " melody,we hear a "Musical chat" between the Cello , the Pan flute and the Ocarina flute. The flutes "says" a musical sentence and the Cello reflects and imitates it with a small change at the end of each sentence.
Introduce the idea of reflecting and imitating with movements: invite one child that will imitate your movements , without music!
Ask the children to stand near their chairs. They are going to move in the Cello parts and imitate one child that will stand in front of the whole class and move with the different flutes.At the introduction, at the "in between part "and at the last part they will move near their chairs with free style.
Arrange the children in pairs and decide who will dance with the flutes and who will imitate their friends with the Cello.At the introduction, at the "inbetween part" each child will move as he/she wants and also in the last part.
Do it again and switch roles(movements leaders)

Here is the music video

Identifying the Ocarina flute

Tell the children that in this melody there are 2 flutes: the Pan flute and the Ocarina flute.

As the name of the music is Ocarina Song, the musical sentense that the Ocarina playes is longer than the Pan flute sentense.

A game with a ball:

Arrange the children in a circle:
In the introduction, the teacher holds the ball and the kids move as their body while sitting in a circle.
When you hear the Pan flute,pass the ball from a child to the next one sitting near by .
When you hear the Cello, stop passing the ball.
When you hear the Ocarina, pass the ball to the other direction.
At the" In between" part move your heads from side to side.
At the last part, ask the children to go back to their seats.
At the end talk with the kids about the Ocarina sentense and ask them if they felt that is was longer than the Pan flute.
You can do it again and count the number od kids who get the ball in the Pan flute playing and in the Ocarin

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structure

The structure of the melody

Illustrating the structure of the melody

Please print the musical instruments cards which are in the paper clip sigh,6 times and cut the cards for each instrument.
Invite 4 children:

One child gets 3 blocks:one for the introduction, one for the part in between and one for the last part.

The second child will get with the Pan flute picture.

The third child will get 6 cards with the Cello picture.

The forth child will get 6 cards of the Ocarina flute

FYI:The Cello perform 6 times, the pan flute 4 times and the Ocarina flute twice. I give the children more cards on purpose and I want them to listen very carefully and think!

Put on the music and ask the children to put their card on the floor when they hear that "their instrument" plays. At the end you will get a line of pictures that shows the melody structure

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playing percussios

Playing percussion with the music and the melody structure cards

Once you have the structure of the melody cards on the floor,bring a triangle, a bell, maracas and rhythm sticks and ask the the children to decide:
Which instrument will play with the Cello?
Which instrument will play with the Pan flute?
Which instrument will play with the Ocarina flute?
Which instrument will play the introduction, the "In between part" and the last part?
Once you decide, divide the class into 4 groups and gives them the different instruments.
Put the music on and point at the different pictures to show the children when to play, according to the music.

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making an Ocarina flute

making an Ocarina flute out of Air dry clay

For making an Ocarina flute you need the following things:A screwdriver, Air dry clay, whistle candy as you can see in the following picture:

The children has to prepare 2 flat circles of 7 cm diameter.
In one of them make 4 holes, 2 on the left and 2 on the right.
Connect the 2 circles just on their sides ,leaving empty space between them.
Connect the whistle in the middle and close the circles around the whistle.
Let it dry and then blow the whistle. if you close the holes with your fingers, you change the tone.

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the legendof the Ocarina

The legend of the Ocarina flute

The Indian tribe who lived near the long river,used to lit a bonfire during the cold winter days to keep warm and to cook their food.They believed that in the woods , near the long river, lived the Fire bird and once a year, the bird picked a family and lay an egg in that family bonfire.The person or the family that finds the bird's egg in their bonfire,needs to take good care of it until the chick is born.As a reward, the Fire bird will give the egg's keepers a good advice or a present.

One day a few young children found a clay egg in their family bonfire .They decided that it belonged to the Fire bird.They took very good care of that egg as they wanted to get a present or good advice from the Fire bird and they waited for the chick to be born . Days past but nothing happened.Finally the kids decided to take the egg out of the fire and do some holes in it to help the chick come out. Once they did the holes, nothing happened! After consulting with each other, they decided that maybe the chick feels too hot and they start blowing air through the holes that they did in the egg.Once they blew air through the holes , they heard a sound. They thought that it was the chick's voice and put the egg on the floor, waiting for the chick to come out but...nothing happened. After a while , they blew air again through the holes and heard that noise again. They looked inside and understood that there is nothing inside that egg and probably it did not belong to the Fire bird. They played with that egg and found out that closing different holes with their fingers creates different sounds.

This is how the Ocarina flute was discovered and they named it Ocarina because it reminded them of a goose's sound and goose in their language was called Ocarina.

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reflection wit mirrors

Reflection with mirrors-A scientific activity following the musical reflection

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For this activity you need to print the attached file in which you have the pictures for the reflection activity (ignore the Hebrew headlines) You also need to prepare 2 mirrors:One in a shape of a square and one in a shape of a cylinder(look at the picture) Do it with a mirror wallpaper glued to a cardboard cylinder

A discussion

Tell the children that the Cello in the music repeated the melody of the flutes.It repeated their melody with a slight change at the end
Can we do a similar thing with our talking?
Ask one of your students to say a sentence and you repeat after him with a slight change.It can be a change it your voice timber or in your style of talking at the end of the sentence.
Ask the children if we can act like the Cello in a drawing game?Can we copy our friend picture with a slight change?
Arrange the group in pairs and ask the children to decide who draw with the flutes and who draws and imitates with the Cello.at the introduction they will not draw and at the last part they will draw the frame for their work
Can we do something similar with mirrors?can we copy with a slight change while using mirrors?Yes we can do it and it is called reflection
Mirrors can reflect the same picture or change it a little bit due to its shape
Reflection with mirrors can create a new picture
the teacher will put the square mirror in the middle of the picture of the girl with the star above her hat
Ask the children what do they see? we see a very similar girl but smiling or sad, depends from which side is you put the mirror

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Show the children what happens in the other 2 pictures when you put a mirror in the middle or at the side of the picture.

Introduce the cylinder mirror and the pictures that goes with it

Ask the children what is hiding in that picture, put the mirror in the circle and find out

playing by a rhythmic score

Playing by a rhythmic score

Read it without music

Play it without music

Play it with the music

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MUSICKID

musical activities for early childhood

The song of the Ocarina

By Diego Modena & J-P. Audin

Information for the adult before working with the kids

View All

The "Ocarina song "is a piece of music which is dedicated to the Ocarina flute.

.The ocarina is an ancient wind musical

​

​

​

​

The musical topics of this lesson are:

The musical phrase and the melody structure

The symmetry of the musical phrases

The different of the sound timbre between the Cello and the flutes

​

The musical phrase

Musical conversation is like any other conversation in any othe language and it is built from musical sentenses.

The musical sentence is a piece of music that has a clrear musical idea.

It is the smallest period in a musical composition that can give in any sense the impression of a complete statement.

In this melody there is a conversation between the Cello and the Pan flute and the Ocarina flute.

After the introduction, the Pan flute plays a short musical sentence and the Cello imitates it and answer in a very similar sentence.(this returns twice).

After that the Ocarine flute playes a long sentence and the Cello imitates it and answer in a very similar sentence.

There is a musical symmetry here as the Cello "answers " the flutes in a sentence that has the same length and almost the same melody .

If we refer to this" musical talk" as a human talk, we can say that the Cello reflects to the 2 flutes , what they say.

You can see that in the next 2 videos:

In the left one you see the original performance of Modena and in the right one the focus is on the performing instruments and the melody structure.

​

.

.

​

​

​

​

The melody structure is:

​

​

​

​

​

The sound timber

The sound timber is the "color" of the sound and it is a result of the way the sounds in produced. For example: the Accordion timber is different from the flute, and the flute timber is different from choir or a piano etc.

​

In this leason the children will have to destingwish between the timber of the Cello which is a string instrument and the sound of the flute or the Ocarina flute which are wind instruments

​

First listenning

Explain to the children that while listening to the music , they will have to imitate your movements:

In the music introduction, move your shoulders.

When you hear the flute or the Ocarina, move your hands

When you hear the Cello, move your legs

At the last part in which the Ocarina leads the music and the Cello join from time to time, ask the kids for free movements of their own.

If you want, you can choose different movements for each part of the music!

​​

​

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Once the music is over, ask the children if the music was happy or sad?

What musical instruments did they hear in the music?

Tell the children that in this music there are 2 kinds of flutes: Pan flute and Ocarina flute.

Introduce the pictures of the 2 flutes to the children and say that this music is dedicated to the Ocarina flute and it is called:"The song of the Ocarina".

When we heard the music, did we move only one part of our body?​

Tell the children that when we heard the Cello we moved our legs and when we heard the flute or the Ocarina , we moved our hands

At the introduction we moved our shoulders and at the last part we had a free movements

Ask the children if there we repeating parts in the music?

Yes, the Cello always repeated and reflected what the flute and the Ocarina played.​

​

Introducing the Cello

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The Cello is part of the a string instrument family. It is played by bowing or plucking its four strings, which are usually tuned in perfect fifths an octave lower than the viola:

Please listen to the Cello's sound from our music

​

​

​

Second listening

Tell the children to stand up, sit down and try to confuse them.

Tell them that now, the flutes(Ocarina and Pan)will tell them to sit down in their musical language(when they hear the flutes, they will sit on their chairs).

The Cello will tell them to stand up.(when they hear the Cello , they will stand up)

In the introduction, while sitting on their chairs, ask the children to wave their hands

Repeat this activity and ask the children to give different ideas as for what to do when you hear the flutes and what to do when you hear the Cello.

MUSI CKID

When we heard the music, did we move only one part of our body?

Yes, the Cello always repeated and reflected what the flute and the Ocarina played.