Ocarina ranges correction

• Aug 23, 2025 - 19:41

Hi!
This has been requested before, in this post: https://musescore.org/en/node/334882.
I agree with everything said there by user AstralAstrid.
But I thought I would make a new post, since it seems the issue was never adressed.
(EDIT: Link Markdown didn't work)

This is about ocarina nomenclature and range.
(I'll use international pitch names in this post, with A=440 being called A4, just like Musescore does by default).
Musescore 4 currently includes nine different predefined ocarinas. In the program as it stands right now they are from low to high:
C bass, Bb Alto, C Alto, F Alto, G alto, Bb soprano, C soprano, F soprano, G soprano.

I will get to the names in a bit, but my first point is (just like the previous post) that the suggested ranges for the C and Bb ocarinas are currently an octave too low in Musescore. For example, the beginner range for a C Alto ocarina is currently defined as C4 to D5. It should be C5 to D6. The ranges for soprano C and Bb and bass C ocarina should similarly be an octave higher than they are.

I found this out just by playing along to Musescore on my own ocarina. There is a lack of academic sources out there for the pitches in Hz, but if you just google any video of a soprano ocarina and listen, you can hear that this is the case. Soprano ocarina lies in the same general register as the high range of a piccolo flute. You could also refer to this listing by Thomann (https://www.thomann.se/intl/thomann_12h_ocarina_c3_purple.htm), where an Alto C ocarina (notice the AC written on the mouthpiece) is said to play from a'-f''', which is A4 - F6 put in Helmholtz pitch notation. An ocarina without subholes lacks the low A and the B, and the high range can be tricky, thus we get to C5 - D6 as the beginner range for an Alto C.

Now we get to the names. This can be a bit confusing, and there are different systems. Professional ocarinist David Ramos has made a video about this, which I recommend a lot: Ocarina Ranges and Classifications (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfCX4Gw490w).
Anyway, if we stick to the use of the Soprano, Alto and Bass naming scheme, then C is supposed to be the highest instrument of each category. Soprano G therefor is supposed to be lower than a Soprano C. This incidentally makes it so that the pitch ranges of the Alto F, Alto G, Soprano F and Soprano G ocarinas are already correct inside musescore.

You will also find instruments below the bass ocarina in C, these are also called bass (like this one: Focalink BG (https://www.steinocarina.com/productsDetail.php?id=253), and then an octave below that you have also the Contrabass in C: Focalink Contrabass C (https://www.steinocarina.com/productsDetail.php?id=254), which actually has the range C3 - E5, like the current regular bass one in Musescore is set to.
An ocarina in F that is higher than a soprano C is often called a sopranino F.
I like that Musescore includes Bb ocarinas, aven though that tuning is much more uncommon than C, F and G. And yes, those would go below the C of the same category, as they currently do, but their pitches should be an octave higher, just like the C instruments.

So, with that information, here are the actual pitch ranges (the beginner ones) for each ocarina from high to low.
The ones in parenthesis are rarer and less standardized:

(G Sopranino: G6 - A7)
(F Sopranino: F6 - G7)
C Soprano: C6 - D7
Bb soprano: Bb5 - C7
G soprano: G5 - A6
F soprano: F5 - G6
C Alto: C5 - D6
Bb Alto: Bb4 - C6
G Alto: G4 - A5
F Alto: F4 - G5
C bass: C4 - D5
(G bass: G3 - A4)
(F bass F3 - G4)
(C ContraBass: C3 - D4)

When it comes to the "Professional range", I think this should be based on the 12-hole ocarina, which is the standard professional design. As you saw from the link to Thomann above, a 12-hole A C plays from A4 up to F6. I.e. we extend the beginner range by a minor third in both directions. This goes for every ocarina in the list above not in parenthesis. For those in parenthesis, that are rarer and harder to make, you can generally expect the range to be a bit narrower, oftentimes going from one semitone below the beginner range to a whole tone above.

This post got a lot longer than I expected going in. I can of course change the instrument properties myself, but I would love it if the standard ranges were corrected. Especially since custom instrument templates aren't currently possible.


Comments

Thank you for boosting this! Also, just to note, in "standard" nomenclature (or, as standard as you'll get) the range of a voice is key ~f - ~e, so an alto F is lower than an alto C, and an alto E is higher. The F above then becomes Soprano F. That's the norm I've seen, and wheat I use as a general rule.

In reply to by AstralAstrid

Oh, I should have thought about that. I know that this is almost always the case for ocarinas in D, with the Alto D meaning a whole step up from to Alto C, as you say.
We see ocarinas in E and Eb so rarely, but I guess it makes sense to have the break between E and F.

I think this situation with the ambigous breaking point is the reason that some makers label the range from F below Alto C down to Bass C as the tenor range, Songbird for example. Their Muse ocarina does come in D, Eb and F, (or it least it used to at different points) and they perhaps thought it would be a bit strange if the D and the Eb were labeled as bass ocarinas, but the F as Alto. That makes more sense to me than the STL "Tenor C" thing at least, which only creates confusion.

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