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AngelAdept — Ocarina of Time

Published: 2012-05-05 20:46:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 668; Favourites: 30; Downloads: 12
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Description Took me long enough to finally post this! Here is the ocarina I made for my 12th grade AP Physics class in 2002-03. The physics project part of it was how to accurately tune the instrument, which I did decently for do-re-mi-fa-so and less well for the higher notes. The shape and decoration were, of course, inspired by the now-classic Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The art teacher who taught ceramics, under whom I was taking an independent study at the time, was very impressed with the way it came out. I still can't believe I got it to work with relative ease.

I tried to make this ocarina look as much like Link's Ocarina of Time as I could, not only in decoration but also in size and shape. I should have put a ruler or something into the picture to show scale ... oh well. It's about 8 inches long or so, though, with somewhat thick walls of about half an inch, give or take a bit. The tone of this instrument is much deeper than in the video game due mainly to its size.

White clay with blue and yellow slip for decoration, covered with a clear glaze. And before you ask, no this is NOT for sale!
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Comments: 10

SageFeathers [2012-09-15 23:40:39 +0000 UTC]

You made this? This is really awesome!

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AngelAdept In reply to SageFeathers [2013-01-27 20:12:33 +0000 UTC]

Yup, I made a working replica of the Ocarina of Time and got high school class credit for it. Doesn't get much more fun and awesome than that!

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tintinabar [2012-05-09 17:21:05 +0000 UTC]

Wow! It's even cooler than I expected. Also, man, my high school physics class really was lame.

How do you even go about shaping and tuning an instrument? Especially one that warps time and space.

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AngelAdept In reply to tintinabar [2012-05-12 03:26:07 +0000 UTC]

When I made the ocarina, I started with a half-sphere and a cone of clay and joined them together. Then I added the mouthpiece and cut the slot in it. You can't see the square hole on the back that the actual sound comes from, but getting the size, shape and angle of that hole to be right was the trickiest part of the whole project. Then when I tuned it, I just added holes in the front of the right size and location by trial and error, sitting in front of a piano and trying to match the notes by ear. The tuning became more and more difficult with each additional note on the scale.

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LinksLove [2012-05-05 22:51:50 +0000 UTC]

That is flippen awesome. That could not have been easy to do, but it looks great, and if it does work, even just a little, thats even better.

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AngelAdept In reply to LinksLove [2012-05-05 22:54:17 +0000 UTC]

Thanks. It was actually a lot easier to make than I expected, but then, I had the dolphin-shaped ocarina to practice on.

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LinksLove In reply to AngelAdept [2012-05-05 23:11:49 +0000 UTC]

Even so, that seemed like a pretty ambitious project, and it turned out pretty well!

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AngelAdept In reply to LinksLove [2012-05-06 00:19:29 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it overall.

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sunmoon58 [2012-05-05 22:40:21 +0000 UTC]

That's amazing! Especially if it played notes!

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AngelAdept In reply to sunmoon58 [2012-05-05 22:43:52 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! Yeah, I could actually play part of Zelda's Lullabye on it.

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