The North Country Workshop

An Alaskan workshop that reverse-engineered Alan Albright’s wooden double ocarinas from the objects, wrote to him, and was taught by him.

The North Country Workshop sold double ocarinas from doubleocarina.com — soprano, alto and tenor, each with two chambers, made in Alaska, which is what “North Country” means.

The people who ran the workshop may be living and have not been asked about this page. They are not named here, though the site named them — see what the museum holds. Alan Albright’s part of this story is told from his own material, which he gave the museum permission to use “any way you see fit”. Nothing else from the site is reproduced beyond short quotations.

A double ocarina sounds two notes at once, from one breath. It is harder to make than a single, and far fewer makers attempt it: of the makers whose sites this museum holds, only Alan Albright, Charles Hind and this workshop built their work around them.

And this workshop exists because of Albright.

A craft handed on, in six steps

Their own About page tells it plainly, and it is the clearest account of transmission the museum has found:

it was the music of Nancy Rumbel and Eric Tingstad that first introduced [them] to the magical sound of the ocarina… Nancy plays several created by Alan Albright. By the time they came upon them, Alan was no longer making these beautiful instruments. They tried others of wood and clay by artisans from North and South America, China to Russia, but none had the appeal as the ones by Alan.

After years of searching and questioning woodworkers, [he] purchased tools and tried to figure out how to reproduce them. Nearly successful, they jubilantly wrote to Nancy and then to Alan to discuss it with them. Alan sent his blessing to them to continue the work and has spent many hours tutoring them on the fine points of woodworking and instrument design.

The high point of this tutelage came about the spring of 2001 when Alan and Nancy spent a week with them in The Woodworkers Dream workshop with expert woodworker John Hartvigson, giving them invaluable experience and guidance.

So:

  1. Albright makes wooden double ocarinas, roughly 1975–85.
  2. Nancy Rumbel plays them, and records with them.
  3. A couple in Anchorage hear the recordings, want an instrument, and find the maker has stopped.
  4. One of them buys tools and reverse-engineers the instruments from the objects.
  5. They write to Rumbel, then to Albright.
  6. Albright gives his blessing and teaches them — ending in a week together in Alaska, spring 2001, with Rumbel there too, and the woodworker John Hartvigson, who afterwards joined them in making the instruments.

That is a living transmission, not an influence. A maker who had stopped taught strangers to make his instruments again, in person, and the instruments went back on sale.

The instruments, and a question they answer differently

Four holes per side — three on top and one thumb hole — an octave each, in whatever hardwood was available. And this, from their order pages:

Each instrument varies slightly but is tuned to itself.

Karen Dunster did the same, and shipped a chart saying which key each instrument had landed in. Sixth Street did not: they tuned to A-440, checking each ocarina with a computer-controlled air pressure valve and an electronic tuner.

They also published an Introductory Book for The Double Ocarina, 29 pages, $7.00 — the third American ocarina method book the museum has turned up, after Hodgkinson’s Songbook for Four Hole Ocarina and Charles Hind’s instructional brochures.

Nancy Rumbel is the hinge

She is why the workshop exists, and her recordings put these instruments somewhere unusual for an ocarina.

On Tingstad & Rumbel’s Paradise, the credits read: “Nancy Rumbel: Oboe, English horn, double alto and tenor Ocarinas” — the workshop’s own instruments, by name. Track 9 is “Zelda’s Dance”.

In February 2003, at the 45th Grammy Awards, Tingstad and Rumbel won the Grammy in the New Age category for Acoustic Garden, against Kitaro, Will Ackerman and R. Carlos Nakai — eighteen years and thirteen collaborative recordings into their partnership.

Rumbel played English horn and oboe, studied with members of the San Antonio Symphony and then with Ray Still of the Chicago Symphony at Northwestern, and toured nearly five years with the Paul Winter Consort.

The warmest line on the workshop’s site is about her: “I was able to work with Nancy once again on the fine art of tuning and it was great fun listening to her play our ocarinas in concert!”

Chronology

Dates the museum has been able to establish, and where each comes from.

c. 1975–85 Alan Albright makes wooden double ocarinas Albright’s own material
— Nancy Rumbel plays and records with several of them the workshop’s About page; album credits
— A couple in Anchorage hear the Tingstad and Rumbel recordings and go looking for an instrument; Albright has stopped making them the workshop’s About page
— They try wooden and clay doubles “from North and South America, China to Russia”, and none satisfy the workshop’s About page
— One of them buys tools and works out how Albright’s were made, from the objects the workshop’s About page
— They write to Rumbel, then to Albright. Albright sends his blessing and begins tutoring them the workshop’s About page
spring 2001 Albright and Rumbel spend a week at The Woodworker’s Dream workshop in Alaska with the woodworker John Hartvigson the workshop’s About page
after 2001 Hartvigson joins them, and the wooden double ocarinas are made again the workshop’s About page
Feb 2003 Tingstad and Rumbel win the Grammy for Acoustic Garden at the 45th Grammy Awards the workshop’s news page
2002–2024 The Archive captures doubleocarina.com, 255 times the Archive’s capture index

What the museum holds of doubleocarina.com, and on what terms: The North Country Workshop.