About Snake Charmer#
You have heard this tune your whole life, usually as musical shorthand for something exotic or mysterious, from a snake charmer’s basket to a desert scene in an old cartoon. It is properly titled The Streets of Cairo, and it spread through the United States after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where a version of it accompanied a Middle Eastern sideshow. Similar melodies existed earlier, so its true authorship is tangled and much argued over.
On the six-hole ocarina it stays in a snug range from D to A. Its slinky, repeating shape is more about even timing than tricky fingering, which makes it a fun one to shape with a bit of expression.
Snake Charmer Ocarina Tab#
| D | E | F | E | D | ||
| D | E | F | A | E | F | D |
| F | G | A | A | A | A | |
| G | E | F | G | G | G | G |
| F | D | E | F | E | D | |
| D | E | F | A | E | F | D |