Harmony Ocarina "Ivy"

Ivy has a lovely tone and is beautifully in tune with itself on most of its common notes (the common b is a little iffy on my Ivy). The breath pressure seems to be well matched between the two chambers. The tone on my Ivy's higher chamber is slightly husky, but I think it blends well with the clearer tone of the lower chamber. I feared the spacing (the two chambers a sixth apart instead of a fifth) would be confusing, but instead it works well, giving you an octave and five notes of total range, and a major scale on the right and the complementary minor on the left. The smaller hole used to go between the 3rd and 4th of the major scale (or the 2nd and 3rd of the minor scale) can be covered or uncovered out of sequence to make a number of handy sharps and flats--a point that both Ivy's fingering chart and the Ivy Songbook neglect to mention, I might add, so if you got those, try it out and pencil that in. If you want those "optional" accidentals on Greensleeves, that's how to get them!
The fingering is unusual but deeply intuitive once you get used to it, the main challenge is finding and fully sealing all the holes you want to seal to get a given pitch. This is especially tricky on the left hand side, and may be impossible for players with thick fingers. The temptation is to squeeze harder, since this would help on a lot of wind instruments, but with Ivy it will 1) make your thumbs hurt in short order and 2) make your fingertips spread out, which will make it even harder to play the left hand side. I recommend instead starting with slow practice, holding lightly, on each side by itself to learn exactly where to place your fingertips, and acquire a habit of holding the instrument lightly. I have been doing a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the evening, starting with plain scales and moving on to playing songs by ear, and feel like I've made significant progress in the past week, but am not yet where I want to be.
The Ivy Songbook has only five songs, which is understandable given the clunky and space-requiring nature of ocarina tabs and especially Ivy tabs, but is something you might want to bear in mind. Jen's Song from The Dark Crystal is not one of them but Ivy tablature for Jen's Song is available free from STL's website's library section (pick "library" at the top of the screen, don't wander off into "accessories/sheet music" by mistake), so that's a sixth song.
I'm very happy I got Ivy and hoping to learn to play it well enough to do it justice!

Looks beautiful and sounds amazing. The holes are spaced for smaller fingers and are hard to feel. Will definitely take some getting used to

Haven't received my ocarina before I was asked to give a review, but I'm giving this five stars because I know the ocarina is going to be stellar. Shipping is a bit slow but I completely understand as a niche business. If you're looking for high quality products,
I definitely recommend shopping with STL. Just be aware that shipping may be a bit slow so make sure to order in advance :)

After a few days of practicing I’m really getting this down, love the sound and quality of the instrument. Will be a continuing customer.

I really feel like this Ocarina is a style over substance. For the record I do have hands more on the larger side so my complaints may be irrelevant to those with medium to smaller hands. However, I would just imagine it would be more difficult to cover the double holes with the thumbs and the pointer fingers with smaller hands.

--GOOD--
- This Ocarina looks fantastic. Honestly the pictures do not do it justice. The texture is very smooth to the touch and the painted ivy looks really well done. I enjoy the color palettes used for this. I enjoy the concept of the shape however that's going to contribute more to the bad that will be stated below.

- The sound is excellent. It is in tune with itself very well and I even like the idea of separating the two chambers by fifths.

- I really like the mouthpiece in this one. It's sized very nicely so it does not feel too much like a chore to breathe in the both Chambers simultaneously. It is also convenient to separate from one chamber to the other if you want to play them individually, and the breath is balanced very nicely.

--BAD--
- The finger layout. I feel that this was a missed opportunity to make something really really great to be able to compare to a Hind's double. The fingering for this is set up in a linear style progressing to open holes upwards towards the window to reach the next higher note. In theory it's a good idea however the layout of the holes are so close together I am not able to to cover all the holes without squeezing my fingers together. Also due to design to get a full octave there are actually seven holes total with two for the pointer finger and two for the thumb. It's requires you to slide your thumb and your pointer finger with precise and quick accuracy. I think that this instrument would have been far better if the fingering for each chamber followed a pendant fingering style. A full octave could have been achieved with just four holes not requiring the player to have move the thumb this causing instability while playing.

- The ocarinas shap practice. As mentioned in theory I love the shape in theory but when it comes to actually holding it it is very uncomfortable. Going back to the whole layout due to the closest of the holes the fingers have to be very close together and also due to the slant of the top portion of the ocarina a pinching grip between your thumb and the fingers must take place that's allowing you to exert a lot of pressure that can actually contribute to long-term arthritis damage.

--Conclusion--
The design is both one of its strengths and flaws and when it comes down to it it's just really not that convenient to play and contributes nothing to the end of the day besides being a good looking desk piece.