Interview – Richard Hamlett
Originally published on The Ocarina Repository by Cambell Baxter, circa July 2013. That site is no longer online; this copy is preserved here from the Internet Archive.
Now for the man behind Hamlett Ocarinas – Richard Hamlett! His excellent ocarinas, beautiful finishes and unbeaten customer service have earned him a good name among the ocarina community. After playing two of those excellent ocarinas (with beautiful finishes!) and experiencing his legendary customer service, I was itching to get an interview with him! Not only does Richard make great ocarinas, but he is a great player in his own right, as you will see toward the end of this interview.
So, without further ado!
- Tell us about yourself!
My name is Richard Hamlett. I currently live in the state of South Carolina in the US where I have lived for the past 10 years. Previously, I lived in the state of Virginia, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of where I live now. I grew up in the rural countryside of Virginia. I also lived in the state of New Jersey for a few years while I served in the US Air Force.
I have been married for 24 years and I have one daughter, who is now a musical composition major at the Converse College Petrie School of Music. My regular job is with the Information Systems department of AREVA, Inc, where I am the administrator of the company’s SharePoint system for the US.
Other than ocarinas, my hobbies include reading fiction, fishing, hiking and backpacking, and, of course, music. I like to think of myself as a somewhat spiritual person, my Catholic faith is very important to me, and I consider myself socially and politically conservative in most respects.
- How did you get started playing the Ocarina?
I first discovered ocarinas at a Renaissance Fair in Charlotte, North Carolina about four years ago. There was a stand set up with hundreds of 5-hole pendants that used the English cross fingering system. The sound of the girl at the booth playing various folk tunes could be heard all across the fairway. I am always interested in musical instruments, so I stopped by and tried them out. I was surprised that so much sound and versatility could be found is such a simple instrument. I thought how cool to would be to learn to play one and carry it with me backpacking. I had a mental image of myself playing that simple, but beautifully natural sounding, music in the woods while camping. So I bought one and decided that I would give it a try.
I started looking online a short time later for ocarina music that I could learn, and that’s when I discovered the wonderfully helpful online community of ocarina enthusiasts. I soon learned about transverse style ocarinas, and since I wanted an ocarina with a little greater range and deeper sound, I bought a 12 hole Focalink Alto C only a few weeks after buying that first one at the Renaissance Fair.
- When did you start making ocarinas?
I didn’t really consider making my own ocarinas until I had been playing for about a year or so. I had started to purchase ocarinas from a number of different makers looking for one that I felt really suited my style of playing and had the characteristics that I wanted. It seemed that every ocarina I ordered had some qualities that I liked, but also seemed to have some flaws that made it not quite right for me. Some were too weak in the high notes, or had inconsistent breath requirements, or poor chamber balance. Some had great sound and playability, but really poor ergonomics. I began to toy with the idea of making my own, since it seemed like that would be the only way I would be able to get an ocarina that was perfect for me.
I also understood that it would take a great deal of time and effort to learn to make ocarinas well enough to even match, let alone surpass, what was already available in the market in terms of quality. It also seemed to me that it would be a waste of effort to acquire the skills to make an ocarina that I liked and then not share that with the rest of the ocarina community. So even though I set out to make ocarinas for myself, I also decided that I would offer them for sale if I could ever learn to make them good enough.
- What advice would you give to new makers, or those thinking about making Ocarinas?
I believe that anyone who is thinking of learning to make ocarinas should really consider their reasons for doing so. If the goal is to make money as an ocarina maker, I think they will be disappointed. It’s a very small niche market and the competition from established makers in Asia is just too strong. I have always understood that I would never be able to make a living solely as an ocarina maker. If the goal is to save money by making an ocarina instead of buying one, then that too will be a disappointment. It takes months of effort to learn the craft, and scores of failed attempts. It would be far easier to save the money and just buy a good ocarina.
So the reasons for wanting to make ocarinas have to be artistic and creative, not financial. A good bit of my motivation came from the simple desire to be able to make my own music from an instrument that was crafted by my own hands.
- What are some mistakes that new makers make?
I think a lot of new makers underestimate the amount of time and effort that go into learning to craft a working concert pitch transverse ocarina. It may be fairly simple to make a pendant tuned only to itself, and so many people tend to think that a 12 hole can’t be that much more difficult. In fact, the delicate balance between chamber size, voicing, and tuning required to make the whole range play in concert pitch alto C is much more difficult.
I think some of the most common problems that new makers encounter happen because they don’t take the time to do adequate research on successful methods and proper materials. It’s quite tempting to try and take shortcuts, or become impatient and rush the process. Making ocarinas, as with any musical instrument, requires lots of patience, lots of attention to detail, and a willingness to recognize your mistakes and start all over – again and again if necessary. You have to be painfully honest with yourself when judging your own work.
I think another common temptation with new makers is to believe that they can make some ingenious design change that will somehow create the next evolution of the ocarina and revolutionize the ocarina world. Whether it’s a new way of configuring baffles, or internal chamber shape, or hole configuration, or voicing design, that temptation to modify the basic design is there. I realize now, after going through that phase, that the basic design is not where the next evolution of the ocarina lies, but rather is how that basic design is implemented. For instance, some of the best ocarina innovations come from Giorgio Pacchioni. However, Pacchioni does not change the way the basic ocarina works, he implements that basic design in new and better ways, such as tuning a multi-chamber an octave apart instead of the standard 10th apart, allowing for greater overlap and multiple ways to play the same pitch.
- If you had to start again, is there anything you would do differently, knowing what you know now?
That’s hard to say. If I knew everything then that I know now, I could have saved myself months of trial and error to get the voicing and tuning right. Life, however, doesn’t work that way, and anything achieved through hard work and dedication is appreciated much more.
However, I would love to send myself a message to the past and tell myself to do more research into the proper type of clay to use. I started with a high-fired stoneware that can’t be glazed properly at low-fired temperatures. I wasted a lot of time and effort trying to get that to work right, when all I needed to do was switch to a low fired earthenware that I should have been using from the start.
I will say that I have gained a much greater appreciation for ocarinas in general, and because I now understand the inherent limitations in the ocarina I am much less harsh in my criticism of other ocarinas that are available from various makers. It is quite possible that if I knew then what I know now, I might never have begun making ocarinas at all, but would have realized that some of the very good quality ocarinas that are currently on the market are really fine instruments if one takes the time to get properly familiar with them.
Perhaps I would have spent the last three years making more music instead of making more instruments.
- What do you recommend to new makers on a budget?
Making ocarinas does not have to cost a great deal. Working with clay is very cheap compared to other materials. If I worked with wood, I’d need all sorts of expensive power tools, like lathes and band saws, and routers. Working with clay is very inexpensive by comparison. Good earthenware clay costs about 50 cents a pound where I live, so I can buy a 25 pound block of clay for less than 13 dollars. You can make a whole lot of ocarinas with 25 pounds of clay.
Most of the tools I use are easily available in hardware stores, supermarkets, or craft shops. A cheap set of drill bits, some basic clay sculpting tools, a rolling pin, some plaster; these things are all obtainable on a budget. A good number of the “tools” I use the most are made myself from such ordinary objects as coffee stirrers, disposable chopsticks, nail files, and cosmetic applicator sponges.
Even the use of a kiln does not have to be a great expense. Sure, it costs a bit to buy one, but I had my pieces fired at a local art studio for about 4 dollars each until I had sold enough ocarinas to buy myself a kiln.
- What do you think is the future of the Ocarina world?
I’m very optimistic about the future of ocarinas. I think that there is a trend within many developed cultures right now to eschew the synthesized, over processed, dynamically compressed, bubble gum pop music that’s been pushed on us for the last thirty or forty years and begin to embrace a more natural folk style music. While the ever ubiquitous electric guitar will probably always take up one corner of any teenage boys bedroom, the recent trends toward more ethnic folk instruments is definitely there. Just look at the explosive popularity of the ukulele in recent years, and in Asia the shamasen and erhu are making comebacks in their respective cultures as well.
I think ocarinas will definitely continue to rise in popularity, partly due to the increasing influence of popular Asian trends, such as anime and k-pop, in the west. Along with those influences will come other aspects of Asian culture, and I think ocarinas will be a part of that. In addition to the anime and folk music niche that ocarinas currently occupy, I think it won’t be too long before we begin to see the ocarina used in both popular indie music and in American jazz. I say jazz because that style of music is one of the only popular genres that is willing to embrace something new and faintly ethnic in origin like the ocarina, not to mention that the chromatic and melodic ability of the ocarina lends itself well to the improvisational nature of Jazz music.
One thing that is almost certain; as ocarinas become more popular, musicians will expect them to be able to do more and more. The limited range that works fairly well in folk music won’t be enough for Jazz and Rock improvisation, nor will it be enough for an orchestral setting. That’s why I think the innovations in range and pitch duplication that Pacchioni has begun to pioneer will be so important to the future of ocarinas. I would like to see more makers begin to develop multi-chamber ocarinas along those lines, such as Giorgio Cataldi has already begun to do. I think the next step will be to see some of Pacchioni’s tuning innovations developed for Asian style ocarinas.
- What have been your most rewarding experiences with the ocarina?
My most rewarding moments have definitely been seeing ocarinas that I have made being accepted and embraced by the ocarina community. The first time I saw my ocarina listed as a favourite in someone’s forum signature, the first time I saw a whole threaded discussion among people who have bought, and liked, my ocarinas. And, of course, the time recently when Cris Gale, who owns hundreds of ocarinas to choose from, published a YouTube video using one of my ocarinas.
Miagete on Hamlett AC Ocarina (YouTube)
One of the greatest rewards that have come from playing the ocarina, though, has been the musical knowledge that I have been motivated to learn. Before picking up the ocarina, I played guitar since I was a teenager. However, I’ve always been a bit lazy about it. I never learned to read music well enough to sight read and I just played the very simple stuff on the guitar that I could do by ear. Once I began playing the ocarina though, I hungered to learn more about music so I could develop my playing skills better. I learned more about music theory, harmony, chord theory, music history, classical forms, and composition in the last four years than in my whole lifetime previously. That new knowledge has brought with it a greater appreciation for all styles and genres of music. Exposure to over 300 years of music from Bach to Bartok has been the greatest by-product of this fascination with a little ceramic flute.
One of my best hopes as an ocarina maker is that I might also provide that spark to light the fire of musical hunger in some of the many younger people who make up the bulk of my customer base. It’s one of the reasons I’m so willing to work with my customers to provide the best ocarina I can provide, and why I’m determined to keep the prices as reasonable as possible. I’m am much more interested in making music possible for someone who may have never imagined that they would be able to play an instrument than I am in making a huge profit.
- Who is your favourite Ocarina maker?
Why, myself, of course. Seriously though, that’s a tough question. I’ve already expressed a great admiration for Giorgio Pacchioni as a great innovator in ocarina designs, and his contribution will be long remembered. I am not, however, a big fan of the Italian-style ocarina in either playability or timbre. My personal preference is the Asian style sound and tuning.
I own a surprisingly small ocarina collection, so there are many ocarina makers whose work I can’t comment on. Of the ocarinas that own, my Maparam is my favourite double, with my Focalink Forte double running a close second. My first 12-hole was a Focalink Alto C, an ocarina that I still think of as my standard to which all other single chamber Alto C’s must be compared, including my own. I can honestly say that I have never been disappointed by a purchase from Focalink.
- What is your favourite Ocarina performance?
I usually end up not liking most of my performances after a little while. I am very critical of myself and I tend to dwell on every little flaw in intonation or timing. There are only a couple of my recordings that I really feel hold up well.
Perhaps my favourite recording is my most recent one, a cover of “What a Wonderful World” using one of my own Alto C 11-hole ocarinas. In this one I was trying to demonstrate how versatile the ocarina can be once you begin taking advantage of its pitch bending abilities.
What A Wonderful World - Ocarina (YouTube)
Until I recorded that last one, my favourite recording was one I did a couple of years ago. It’s a cover of an old jazz standard called “Autumn Leaves” that was recorded once by Miles Davis. I acted a little goofy in the video, wearing a fedora and sunglasses, but the performance was one of my best. I recorded “Autumn Leaves” using the Focalink Forte double AC. I’m particularly pleased with the improv section which begins at 1:25 and runs through 2:32, most especially a flutter tongue glissando that switched chambers in the middle. (That appears at minute 2:04) I nearly spent more time practising that glissando than I did the whole rest of the song. Unfortunately, that video has seen the least amount of views and comments, so I guess no one else appreciates it like I do.
- Any additional comments/questions/material/shameless plug
My goal is to make ocarinas that make people want to play music.
I invite everyone to check out my web site at www.hamlettocarinas.com and browse around. I have posted several of my performance videos, and whenever possible I include the sheet music, a backtrack, and a downloadable MP3 of the recording. The web site also includes an information section with several articles about ocarinas and ocarina related resources.
I also invite everyone to browse the ocarina listings and see what tunings and finishes I can offer, and if you don’t see what you are looking for, then please feel free to send me a message and ask. While my kiln fired glazes are limited, I have no problem taking orders for custom colours and patterns using the acrylic and shellac finish that so many people seem to like. I do NOT charge any extra for custom colours using that method.
Thanks so much for the interview, Richard! I’m sure we all gained something from your knowledge and experience being shared.
What do you think is the nicest finish on an ocarina? I have to say my Alto D Hamlett Red and Gold takes the cake! It also happens to be one of my favourite ocarinas out of my whole collection, so thanks again to Hamlett! 🙂
Let me know what you thought of this interview and if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment! Remember to sign up for the free newsletter too!
Happy playing!
Cambell
If you wrote this, or were interviewed in it, and would like it changed or removed, please write to theocarinamuseum@gmail.com.