How To Make a Clay Flute
Clay flutes, better known as ocarinas, are wonderful instruments that appeal to musicians and nonmusicians alike. Small and portable, they produce a clear, inviting sound. In a few easy steps, you can make your own.
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Instructions
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1
Choose your clay. Many different types of clay can be used to make a flute. If you use self-drying or modeling clay, allow the flute to dry before playing. This type of clay will be necessarily unless you have access to a kiln. Most people find modeling clay to be the cheapest and simplest way of creating their flute.
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2
Form some of the clay into two rounded bowls. These bowls don't have to have the same shape, so long as the opening of each bowl is roughly the same size. Attach the two bowls together to make a hollow, spherical shape.
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3
Make a whistle nozzle. This should be a small chunk of clay that you'll eventually use as a sort of mouthpiece. Attach it your hollow clay structure at an angle, so that the end of the nozzle is even with the edge of the structure. The whistle nozzle is optional, but easy to implement, and most clay flute players find that it aids in their overall control of the instrument.
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4
Insert a narrow stick through the whistle nozzle and into the body of the flute, until it touches the inside of the sphere just past the joint between the nozzle and the body. Be careful not to push the stick too far, or you'll pierce the flute body incorrectly. Use a knife to cut a small hole in the flute just past the nozzle connection. The opening of the hole should be perpendicular with the nozzle at the nozzle side, and at a 45 degree angle at the other side.
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5
Cut additional holes into the clay flute. The placement of these holes isn't as important as the total number of the holes, and the size of them. A flute with more holes will produce a higher pitch. Don't cut more holes than you can comfortably finger while playing. For your first flute, it is advisable to start with only three or four holes. The flute shouldn't have more than six holes, or else it will become difficult to play.
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6
Tune your flute. Remove the stick from Step 4. When all of the holes are left open and you blow into the flute, it will make the tonic pitch. Leaving only the hole closest to the nozzle open will make the next pitch in the major scale. Closing all holes except for the next adjacent one will produce the third pitch. You can tune the holes by making them larger or smaller.
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Tips & Warnings
If you want your flute to be louder, try enlarging the hole you cut with a knife in the top of the flute.
Don't make your holes too large. It is much easier to enlarge the holes than to reduce their size while tuning.
