Where Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen comes from#
This is an African American spiritual, sung by enslaved people in the American South and carried into the wider world after the Civil War. It was among the songs printed in the 1867 collection Slave Songs of the United States. Like most spirituals, it has no single named author and exists in many slightly different versions.
Its call-and-response shape and small range make it approachable on a 6-hole ocarina, staying within an octave from C to C. The feeling lives in the phrasing more than the notes, so it suits a slow, expressive tempo where you can lean into the long, sorrowful lines.
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen Ocarina Tab#
| A | C | D | F | G | A | A | A | A | |||
| A | C | D | F | F | D | C | |||||
| A | C | D | F | G | A | A | A | A | |||
| C | A | G | A | F | F | ||||||
| F | C | C | C | A | C | C | A | ||||
| C | A | A | G | ||||||||
| A | C | C | C | A | C | C | C | A | G | F | |
| A | G | F |