New Tablature Schedule#
This site is about Ocarinas. I am posting new melodies in sheet music and tablature form every day. (Well, not every day. I currently have about 100 tabs I’ve created but haven’t had time to add them, formally).
Requests#
Let me know if there is a special request that you’d like me to tab out and I’ll do my best! I cannot read music, and I’m tone deaf (really). So I need to see the actual sheet music to transcribe it. It’s helpful to have a youtube link so I can hear the melody, but without the sheet music, not much I can do.
What Songs Can be Played?#
For the most part, any song that you can sing, hum or whistle, you can play on an ocarina. Nearly all church hymns fit the vocal range that matches an ocarina. And sheet music for them is easily searchable (that is why you might see more in that category on this site). If it has deep base or high tweets in it, the normal ocarina probably can’t do it.
Your Comments Encourage Me#
Please comment on the melodies/pages and feel free to use the tablature editor. Basically just click the notes and then click preview. When it’s perfect, save that string, or send it to me so I can add it. Blind adding is not available at this time, and if I don’t know the song I won’t add it. I’ve lost quite a bit of motivation, had some life changes, and it really encouraged me to see people commenting on the site.
4 hole, 6 hole, 12 hole, etc#
Many of the songs that you can play on a 12, 6 and a 4 hole ocarina are the same. Anything you can play on a lower hole ocarina will play on a higher hole ocarina. More holes = More range. Less holes = less range. Not all songs that play on a higher hole will play on a lower hole ocarina. I’m more apt to transcribe a 6 hole song because it will also fit on my sister site: 12holeOcarina.com
Donations#
In the 13 years I’ve ran this site, 3 people have donated. I greatly appreciate that gesture! My costs before moving to the new tech stack were about $15 a month (13x12 = $2340 for hosting) for the server and I’ve paid about $800 out of pocket for themes and people to work on the site. In addition I’ve spent roughly $500~ in testing ocarinas, buying books related to sheet music/tablature. I wrote all of the code for the tablature editor and am not counting that labor, but I’ve put in probably 200+ hours or more in tweaking the site, managing, coding, etc. A good coder (not me), might make $100 an hour for development.
So you may not think your $10 donation helps, but it actually helps A LOT! The new server costs are practically nothing, so I don’t have that same overhead, but new songs cost me time and money if I pay someone else to add them (the only realistic way I have time).
Current Metrics#
For the last few years the site has drawn about 27k unique visitors a month, after I filter out bots and scanners, and I’m honored that many people enjoy what I built. Donations, though, are vanishingly rare: 3 in roughly 2 million visitors. Comments run a few times higher, but still tiny. I kept the site ad-free by choice, but at some point I will likely need to sell something to justify the time. The new tech stack makes keeping the existing tabs cheap; new content still costs me time and money, so please do not expect a lot of it.
How to Keep the Site Going#
If you like the tabs and want me to keep working on the site, please encourage me with words or dollars. I like both.
- Donate via Ko-fi
- Donate via PayPal
- Send me a private message through the contact form
- Or leave a public comment on the page (comments coming soon)