playing in the right key

I’ve been to my first meetup on Saturday! Playing the ocarina by myself got kinda boring over time, so I wanted to jam with some people. It has been my first time to play with other people, so it was kinda hard to play along, since most participants were pretty good musicians. Still, it was a lot of fun to meet them, everyone was very open, patient and encouraging.

For anyone who struggles at these kind of gatherings, few tips. First try to identify the key of a song - usually people let you know about the key of the song before starting it anyway. After that it’s probably just hitting the notes that fit with that key. For my instrument, an alto C ocarina, the easiest key to play in is C major. I can just use the regular fingering pattern and everything sounds perfectly okay (assuming yo don’t screw up the rythm).

So in order for my future self to be able to play in tune, here’s a list of scales with tabulature for alto C ocarinas: (In order to be able to play the red marked F# you need to overblow that note)

Major scales (ordered by number of sharps)

C Major

G Major

D Major

A Major

E Major

B Major

F# Major

note: the last E should be an E#

Db Major

Ab Major

Eb Major

Bb Major

F Major

Minor scales (ordered the same way as Major-scales)

C Minor

G Minor

D Minor

A Minor

E Minor

B Minor

F# Minor

C# Minor

G# Minor

Eb Minor

note: the C should be Cb (not present in the online editor)

Bb Minor

F Minor

I used the 12holeocarina editor to create these scales.