This large clay ocarina was a gift from my friend Jerry who purchased it from his friend Barry who used to craft them and then sell them at Camden Market in London. This recording is from 2003 and was used on an experimental improvisational piece I worked on with Dr. David Means during my Music Technology studies at Metropolitan State University. I originally ran the sound through all sorts of processing including delay and reverb, but here I’ll include it in its original state. You can still hear some room ambiance, and a curious high frequency overtone created by the hardened clay resonating.
Large Clay Ocarina
The sample I included in the 
Once again, today I set out to experiment for a few minutes and make a new sound using some processing I had yet to use. But like it is prone to happen, as I tweaked and played around a musical piece started to emerge. I sequenced a series of vocal samples then applied a real-time randomizer to the sequence. Second in the chain was a vocoder plugin programmed to produce a Csus chord, followed by a stereo delay. Underneath it I layered a low melody and automated the waveform setting for one of the oscillators to get a digitized static effect. I titled it Cuba, Illinois after a town of about fifteen hundred people in Illinois called Cuba. I’ve never been there, but I like the juxtaposition of the town and state names.