Giving an ocarina: a gift guide

Updated 2026-10-28

Give an ocarina that plays in tune, fits the hands that will hold it, and can still go back to the shop on the day it is first played. For a teenager or an adult, that usually means a plastic 12-hole ocarina in C from an established maker, at about $30 to $40. For a child under 10, the maker STL Ocarina recommends a 6-hole instead. Add a method book, and test it yourself before you wrap it: a return window starts when the parcel arrives, not when the paper comes off.

The number in an ocarina's name is its count of holes. A 12-hole is the familiar rounded ocarina you hold in both hands; a 6-hole or 4-hole is a small pendant that can hang on a cord. "In C" is the key, and the charts and tabs on our site are written for C.

Ocarina gifts by who they are for

Who it's forWhat to giveWhy
A child under 10A plastic 6-hole or 4-hole pendantEasier for small fingers, and STL recommends its 6-hole for children aged 9 and under.
A child of 10 or over, a teenager or an adult beginnerA plastic 12-hole in CSTL recommends its 12-hole from age 10. It plays 21 notes, low A to high F, enough for most melodies.
A Zelda fanA 12-hole from an established ocarina maker, in the Zelda style if they want the lookBuyers often find the cheapest look-alikes out of tune; the buying guide covers which replicas play.
Someone who would wear itA pendant on a cordSongbird sells its Teardrop Alto C, a 6-hole pendant, as "Jewelry you can play" ($40.00).
A musician who plays another instrumentA 12-hole, or a double ocarina for more rangeA double adds a second chamber: STL's double in C plays A4 to C7, against A4 to F6 for a single 12-hole alto.
Someone whose taste you can't guessA gift card from an ocarina makerSongbird's gift cards come in five amounts from $10 to $125 and arrive by email.

Prices are what the makers' own shops showed on 28 October 2026, in US dollars, unless another date or currency is marked. Our buying guide compares specific ocarinas and explains what makes one playable.

What ocarina should I get a child?

A small plastic pendant, until the hands grow. STL Ocarina's starter bundles put the line at 10: it recommends "the 6-hole ocarina for children age 9 and under" and "the 12-hole ocarina for children age 10 and up". A 12-hole asks a lot of small hands. Its C needs every finger and both thumbs on a hole at once, while a 6-hole pendant is played with the index and middle fingers and the thumbs.

Ocarina gifts for a Zelda fan

A plastic 12-hole in C, the same as for any beginner, and there are Zelda-style ones: STL sells a plastic 12-hole made for Zelda fans for $30.00. Songbird's 12-hole replica is ceramic, which costs more ($150.00 when our buying guide checked on 27 October 2026) and can crack when dropped; its plastic replica is a 7-hole, which Songbird says is similar to the 6-hole pendant fingering. Our song pages don't cover it. Our buying guide compares the replicas.

Nintendo's remake of Ocarina of Time for Switch 2, dated 5 November 2026, listens for music in the room. Nintendo says you can "Hum a melody Link has learned or even play one on an actual instrument, and the Nintendo Switch 2 microphone will hear your song". So a fan can play the game without an ocarina, or play its songs on a real one. All twelve songs with set notes are free on our Ocarina of Time songs pages, with fingerings for 12-hole and 6-hole ocarinas.

Two things to know before buying. The $49.99 Electric OCARINA OF TIME, made by HORI and sold in Nintendo's store, is not an instrument: Nintendo says it "is an electronic toy and is not a real ocarina" and "is not played by blowing into it". And Nintendo has announced "a playable version for the musically inclined" for later this year; when we checked on 28 October 2026, it had not given a price or a date.

How much should I spend on an ocarina gift?

What else should go in the box?

A way to learn. One UK buyer who gave their daughter a ceramic 12-hole rated it three stars and said a proper songbook was what the gift was missing. STL sells a gift bundle, Ocarina FUNdamentals: a plastic ocarina with its method book on CD (the 12-hole bundle adds a DVD), $39.99 with a 12-hole or $29.99 with a 6-hole. Two other method books for beginners are the Hal Leonard Ocarina Method by Cris Gale and David Erick Ramos's How to Play Ocarina.

Our site is free and needs no account: fingering charts for 12-hole, 6-hole and 4-hole ocarinas, easy songs with tabs, and a tuner that works in a phone's browser. A note in the card with the address saves a new player the search.

When should I buy an ocarina for Christmas?

In time to test it yourself before you wrap it. The return windows count from delivery and differ a lot:

So for an ocarina delivered on 1 December, you have until 11 December to contact STL, and until 31 December to return it to Songbird: test it the week it arrives, not on Christmas morning. Christmas is also when new players start: in 2022, 2024 and 2025, the week of 25 December was the biggest week of the year for US Google searches for "how to play ocarina".

How do I check an ocarina before I wrap it?

You do not need to know how to play, only to blow one steady, soft note at a time:

  1. Play it for a minute before you measure anything. A parcel off a cold December doorstep reads flat: Pure Ocarinas puts the change at about 1 cent per degree Celsius.
  2. Look at the finger holes. Ocarina maker Pure Ocarinas calls finger holes that are all the same size "The clearest tell that an ocarina is not tuned correctly".
  3. Open our free tuner on your phone, pick the kind of ocarina, and press Start the tuner. It asks for the microphone only when you press a button, and nothing it hears is recorded or uploaded.
  4. Press Test my ocarina and play each note it asks for. The test ends in a report on every note of the scale, which you can save as a link and pass on with the gift.
  5. If one note stands out, our guide Is my ocarina out of tune, or is it me? explains how to tell a fault from a shaky breath before you decide to send it back.

Do these shop links earn you money?

No. Every shop link in this guide is a plain link, and we earn nothing if you buy. If that changes, the link will carry a "paid link" label and our affiliate disclosure will name the programme.

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