I was weirdly excited to write this review, just because I haven’t found many in-depth reviews on ocarina stuff in general, but this curriculum in particular. I may have gone a bit overboard. Be warned that this will probably be one of the longest, most nit-picky reviews you will ever read, and some of the things I nit-pick, I don't even care about.

I do not work for, nor am I in any way associated with STL or any other ocarina-related company. I paid my own money for the products being reviewed. All of the opinions in this review are my own and I was not bribed to say anything positive or negative about the products.

I bought The Art of Ocarina Volume 1 method book and DVD combo pack a few years ago for my husband’s birthday. He ended up not using it.

I knew some basic music theory and was fed up playing the recorder only by ear and from tutorials online. The Art of Ocarina looked like it would hold my interest better than The New Nine-Note Recorder Method by Penny Gardener which I had tried to use to learn to read sheet music previously. It worked; I can now read sheet music—and play the ocarina.

As I was working through the book, I added sticky notes here and there where I had a comment or correction or to make, so this review contains a lot of what I thought of the book as I went through it, rather than vague remembrances. As a result, it’s really detailed and long, possibly longer than the book in terms of text-words since most of the book is sheet music and exercises.

The Art of Ocarina Volume 1 method book costs $32 USD on its own at the time of this review. It is for 12 hole “sweet potato” shaped ocarinas tuned to the key of C major. Bass, tenor, soprano—it matters not.

I think 12-hole in-line ocarinas have the same fingerings, but translating from the sweet potato ocarina pictures in the book to an in-line ocarina might be a bit confusing. If you haven’t already purchased an ocarina and are planning to work through this book, I recommend sticking with the sweet potato shape if at all possible.

I think the book could work for 11 and 10 hole ocarinas as well, but you wouldn’t be able to play any of the tunes and exercises that use the respective subhole(s). The subholes are introduced in lessons 9 and 10. In lessons 9 and 10, five tunes make use of the low B, one makes use of the low Bb, and two make use of the low A--six tunes total. In lessons 11 and 12, two tunes make use of the low B, none use the low Bb, and one uses the low A--two tunes total. In the repertoire section, five tunes make use of the low B, no tunes make use of the low Bb, and one tune makes use of the low A--five tunes total. In lesson 12, the exercise to introduce the low C# uses the low B and A. Aside from two exercises in the "Scales and Exercise" section, which are devoted entirely to the subholes, the rest of the exercises and scales do not use the subholes. So not counting the six tunes from lessons 9 and 10, 38 of the 45 tunes in the book do not use the subholes at all, and I think 43 would be playable on an 11 hole ocarina.

The fingering charts in the method book are for ocarinas with the Taiwanese subhole arrangement (subholes covered by the middle fingers of each hand), rather than the Japanese subhole arrangement (subholes covered by the middle and index fingers of the right hand), but you could easily reference the fingering chart of your Japanese-style subhole ocarina and sort out the differences—all the other fingerings on the ocarina should be the same.

As a side-note, I recommend that beginners use a digital chromatic tuner when learning to play the subholes, just because the breath cut between the low C and the subholes is so drastic that it can be really challenging not to blow the notes too sharp and/or the low C too flat. There are subhole exercises (2 and 3) on pg 76 of the book that would work well with a tuner. Conversely, a beginner might not blow hard enough on the high notes, making them sound too flat, which a tuner would also help with. Exercises 4 and 5 on pg 77 would work well with a tuner in perfecting the high notes.

The book is 97 numbered pages long, plus 3 pages of introduction (denoted in lowercase Roman numerals), 2 pages of table of contents, and a copyright page (103 total). Every lesson opens up with a “Lesson ___” page, which is formatted to always be on the right. To make that always show up on the right, 4 lessons have “Write down your own practice notes here:” pages. That means that the actual lesson-content and introduction pages (which aren’t always jam-packed) add up to about 82 pages, which is still quite a bit longer than a lot of instrument method books that I’ve seen.

The book is formatted and arranged in a way that’s easy on the eyes. The font size of the text and music varies a little bit, just so that things aren’t awkwardly split up over two pages, but it’s never written in teeny-tiny print like a pew Bible, nor is it ever printed huge to create an illusion of more content than there actually is.

There are 12 lessons; a section of exercises, scales, and arpeggios; and a repertoire section in the back of the book with 12 pieces to solidify what the student learned in lessons 1-12.

The 12 lessons slowly incorporate more and more pitches until the student knows all of the notes on the ocarina, including all the sharps and flats (EDIT: The book neither teaches nor has tunes or exercises to practice the high D#/Eb), though they aren’t denoted by both enharmonic names in the lessons, just for the sake of not confusing the beginner.

The tunes and exercises in this book use standard musical notation, not the “easy to learn notation system” that STL has sometimes been criticized for. Along with introducing more pitches as the book progresses, it also introduces more complicated rhythms.

I’ve read on The Ocarina Network before that this book teaches mostly music theory. I didn’t find this to be the case. Most of the book is exercises, tunes, and advice on how/what to practice. The information on basic music theory I found a bit spotty actually. For instance, most note values are explained in the book, but rest values are not. Ties are explained in the book, but slurs (which look very similar) are not, and both are used in the music quite frequently. I’m inclined to say that if a person doesn’t know what a quarter note is, they don’t know what a quarter rest is either, and both should have been explained if the absolute beginner in music was the target audience, especially since the pairing of a book and DVD seems to imply that a teacher isn’t necessary.

The note explanations also assume that the quarter note is holding the beat, as with 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, etc. time signatures. This is fine, at least in the beginning, since the first non 4-time time signature is on tune 44 in the repertoire section, at which point the student should be well-grounded enough to know when to look something up outside of the book. However, time signatures in general are never explained in the book or in the DVD, not even for 4/4 or 3/4 time. 6/8 time is briefly explained in the DVD when the student gets to tune 44—but that’s tune 44! Key signatures are briefly touched on in the DVD in a couple of spots, but not with enough depth for a student to really understand them.

For the absolute beginner, I would recommend an additional resource for learning basic music theory. There are plenty of free websites, Youtube channels, etc., or you could buy another book like The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory by Michael Miller to reference when you have questions or need something explained just a bit better than it is in the book or DVD. Or, if you know someone who is a more musically literate than you are, a musician friend or family member perhaps, you could also ask them.

The book itself is held together with comb binding, so it lies flat on a music stand or tabletop instead of trying to close all the time. To me, the pages seem like regular, high-quality printer paper. Pages with content are numbered, skipping numbers on pages that have no content, like the “Lesson ___” pages. The book is printed clearly with all black ink, rather than in color. The pictures on pg 22 that show how to use support fingers for the high notes are also printed in black and white. The front and back covers are printed in color on a medium card stock and are glossy on the outside. This is what the front cover looks like: