You loosely have two major types of Ocs that are popular: English Vessel Flutes (aka "pendants") and "little geese" (aka "Japanese-fingering" or "traverse")... Pendants typically have about the same range as a Trombone. Traverse will generally have the same range as a Clarinet. Some sopranos have an extra 1-5 notes at the top allowing most recorder music to be played. You also get multi-chambered Ocs but these are "advanced" instruments.

The best way to learn is to move straight over tabs and onto to score, while playing scales and arpeggios to learn the fingerings. This will give you access to a lot more music options! (There is a TON of sheet for Trombone and Clarinet!)

The next thing to recommend is learning to transpose keys. This isn't as hard or daunting as it sounds at first! You kinda just pretend your instrument is tuned differently, this widens your options a lot.

Then the final recommendation following this would be getting yourself a chromatic tuner. One of the most challenging parts of playing the Ocarina is playing it in tune!

Some people kind of don't care, and just are out there living their best lives squeaking for the joy of it, power to them: But if you ever want to play with other people you want to learn to discipline your breath pressure to control your tone/intune.

Hi, I have made quite a few "Ocarinas", but not designed for musicians, but rather curio collectors. I started to look into making well tuned ones, but for the place and time i was in, it did not seem worthwhile. I am getting ready to get going with clay again, and I might give tuned ocarinas a try again. Would love to see your site if you have one. Here is a picture of some of the ones I made: http://zafka.com/w5.html This next page shows some stages in making them, nothing to do with the actual sound making. http://zafka.com/fish_photos.html

You can also massively improve many inexpensive ukuleles by restringing them.

I've found the ukulele a lot more rewarding than the guitar and have found I've learnt more about the guitar from it than from the guitar (if that makes sense.) It is a better introduction.The fact it has four strings makes it a lot easier to form chords on. At least for me.

I think I was put off by certain players for a while such as Tiny Tim and some of the hipster types. But it really has won me over in its way.

Eddie Vedder has done some excellent ukulele songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W0B-1iF6S4

Then of course there is Taimane Gardner who is ridiculously good.

Even though this is tongue in cheek, an ice cream barge with the requisite refrigeration and dedication of ship space 1000s of miles out in the south pacific is on a whole different scale of investment than this and they also had beer on the ships already. Though it probably wasn't as good as the british beer.

That still happens in America. Hike to a remote place, and get your friend to drop a keg in a mountain lake from his plane.

"Alpine Lake Keg Drop".

> When we get over the beachhead drop out of formation and land on the strip. We’re told the Nazis are fouling the drinking water, so it will be appreciated. There’s no trouble finding the strip, the battleship Rodney is firing salvoes on Caen and it’s immediately below.

Oh god. Yeah just follow the path of the 9 x 16" gun salvos from Rodney blowing big-ass holes in the ground, you can't miss it. LOL. Now those are some directions!

> It wasn’t slavery as they were paid

Being paid some amount of money doesn't magically make it not slavery. Obvious counterpoint: what if a plantation owner "paid" each slave a single modern-day penny a year, would that make it okay?

> and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities

Being let go when you're no longer needed doesn't stop it being slavery either. Would you no longer be a slave if the plantation owner released you after the harvest season? You'd just be re-captured for the next harvest, of course - either by the same owner or a different one.

> Conscription is as old as society itself.

So is slavery. That doesn't make it okay.

Definitions of forced labour, like the ILO Forced Labour Convention of 1930 for example, have to explicitly include "by the way, it's totally okay if it is done as part of mandatory military service" clauses for a reason.

There are obviously differences between traditional slavery and conscription, but conscription is still way closer to forced labour than it is to consensual service. Just look at what happens when you try to leave, for one!

You're both right. We don't want to water down the term "slavery" by using it for draftees, but it is a form of temporary slavery. Slave's have always been "paid" in the form of room and board (however meager), but it's still slavery.

I mean, to be fair, so is slavery.

I think it's important to acknowledge that conscription is a violation of human rights, and absolutely a violation of human autonomy and dignity.

The reason it exists is because historically, the primary source of military power has been the number of armed humans you can put on the battlefield. That's much less true now, but even in WWII the technology wasn't yet up to that point.

And while the US did not end up being materially at risk in WWII (aside from some very small exceptions like Pearl Harbor), that was not a guarantee going in. The Nazis were hellbent on wiping out all opposition to them, and the fear that, if Europe was lost, they would cross the ocean to attack us was not at all crazy. Furthermore, our allies absolutely were under existential threat—and in such a situation, it's frankly irresponsible of a nation not to use conscription if that's actually likely to make a difference.

Either saying "conscription is slavery, therefore it is never justifiable" or "conscription is nothing like slavery, soldiers get treated well" ignores enough of the truth that they're misleading at best. Sometimes you really do have to deal with nuance.

Yeah, they were paid!! Plastic ocarinas!

> In war, people who tolerate military conscription and discipline will conquer those who're slaves to pigheaded "you're not the boss of ME!" individualism.

Sure, right up until it leads to fragging. During the Vietnam War about a thousand superiors were killed by their subjects. You can't give someone weapons, try to force them into a suicidal mission, and not expect them to use it to stop the mission. Give someone only a hammer and everything looks like a nail...

That doesn't make it not forced though.

Most of this sub thread people who are unwilling to say "yeah it's forced labor and that's fine considering the details" doing mental gymnastics to make it not forced.

There certainly are arguments against a draft at the individual level - Example being if the people being drafted do not believe in their own governments ability to lead.

A draft is by definition forced labor either way - because if enough people volunteered there would be no need for a draft in the first place.

But usually it doesn't matter either way. Either the people believe in their own government/territory and see it as worth defending, or alternatively they don't believe in it, but their government is authoritarian and will force you at risk of punishment or death into being drafted.

In both cases a draft is still forced labor for those who did not volunteer to participate.

If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.

States have a legitimate right to taxation. Taxes can be used to pay volunteers. While there are still people owning wealth above the poverty level, there is no excuse to force people into military slavery. And even if literally everybody has been taxed into poverty, there are more ethical alternatives than slavery, e.g. tying the right to vote to military service like in Starship Troopers. Freedom from slavery is extremely high on the scale of ethical importance, even more important than democracy.

There is shit ton of opposition, people are literally defending themselves with guns from kidnappers !