The Thursday’s mini concert offers listeners a chance to experience something different, and even try the instruments hands-on if they so wish.

A series of Spring Ocarina Experience classes and mini-concerts are coming up in Okinawa City and Chatan the next couple weeks to promote the music of Okinawa and its role in local culture.

The free concerts begin next Thursday, May 16^th, at the Okinawa City Social Welfare Service Corporation Center at 2 p.m.  The Center is located at 1-14-29 Sumiyoshi in Okinawa City.  The second is Friday the 17^th, also at 2 p.m., at the Mihama Ward Assembly Hall.  A third takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23^rd, at Mihama Public Hall, 15-1 Mihama in Chatan.

The events are held to inform differet cultures of the ocarina’s voice, which is described as very gentle, natural and relaxing to people in Okinawa.  The ocarina is a wind instrument in the category of vessel flutes. Variations do 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 may also be used, such as plastic, wood, glass, metal, or bone.

Visitors can actually perform an ocarina and experience the tones.  The mini-concerts by ocarina players will take place alongside the experience classrooms. Although an ocarina is not Okinawan unique culture, visitors can enjoy the ocarina’s tones.

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