Popular Culture

I don’t know if I like this take.
I own two ocarinas specifically because of Zelda. The site I bought them from has a bunch of Zelda themed ones as well as a bunch of others.
The game raised awareness about the instrument, and I certainly wouldn’t have learned to play it (or any instrument for that matter) if it wasn’t for one of my favorite games.
How many people play guitar just because they saw a guy play one in a movie?
Also leaving this here. https://youtu.be/79Y6Q47qjlw
- Oh, this was by no means meant to degrade the idea of picking up something from pop culture. It was meant to capture that weird situation or feeling when seemingly the whole world connects something you like to some particular item from popular culture that you don't know about. That's not supposed to say that those people are wrong in any way, but it does make it kind of hard or annoying to discuss that topic. Should you then dump your hobby to play the recorder instead? I mean, maybe, if you live in a four-panel-world that needs a punchline ;). Playing OOT would of course have been a solution as well, especially since Zelda games are time well spent, but wouldn't have been as funny.
  Also leaving this here. https://youtu.be/79Y6Q47qjlw
  I love it.
- Woah! Just like in Guitar Hero!!
  
  relevant XKCD
- Yeah the extended range sweet potato ocarina is pretty specific, if you go buy an ocarina uninfluenced by Zelda it's way more likely that you'd get a medallion ocarina.
  Hey, is Songbird Ocarina still around? I miss mine.

Who the hell called that a recorder btw? As not-a-native-speaker, the first time I heard that term I was super confused, thinking they were talking about a tape recorder.
- It’s an old ass instrument so it had the name long before tape recorders. As for other kind of recording, Wikipedia says:
  The instrument name recorder derives from the Latin recordārī (to call to mind, remember, recollect), by way of Middle-French recorder(before 1349; to remember, to learn by heart, repeat, relate, recite, play music) and its derivative recordeur (c. 1395; one who retells, a minstrel). The association between the various, seemingly-disparate, meanings of recorder can be attributed to the role of the medieval jongleur in learning poems by heart and later reciting them, sometimes with musical accompaniment.
  
  Damn jongleurs!
  (But thanks for teaching me something today!)
- Millions of American children are (were?) given these in the third grade and yes they all call them that
  
  We all had these in school as well in Europe but we just call them flutes.
  
  Same in the UK.
- As a native English speaker, I had the same thought.
- Yup, That’s a straight flute.

What's wrong with people connecting with your interest by the, likely, only association they have to it?

A recorder, like in Super Mario 3?

Many of us have probably heard it way before Zelda.
- Wow, TIL!
- Also the ubiquitous theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Also the rest of the snow, where the Ocarina represents Angel Eyes (the Bad)

I want a replica of the ocarina from Lunar: A Silver Star Story.
It's such a beautiful instrument.

The modern recorder was popularized by the Nazis, as the German folk instrument of choice (which isn't true, but made for good propaganda).
- goes back to the ocarina

Me.
My sister showed up at one Christmas with an Ocarina app on her phone. It was really cool; I'd never played Zelda nor understood the relationship, so I thought it was a real instrument and spent some time in a Zelda rabbit hole.
Still haven't played the game, and I still wish there was a real instrument that sounds as cool as that app. The real difference between that and a recorder is the reverb; a real ocarina would have to have some difference sound-making mechanism than a whistle; there'd have to be some vibrating component, like in a harmonica.
- I still wish there was a real instrument that sounds as cool as that app
  a real instrument
  Like... An ocarina?
- so I thought it was a real instrument
  ..... It is a real instrument. Like over 5,000 years old.
- This has to be a copypasta
  
  Nope, just ignorance!
- Can't tell if sarcasm/trolling, but just in case:
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocarina
  
  Neither. I honestly found mainly references to Zelda when I went looking, and thought the IRL ones were made based on the game.
  The app must have simulated the game instrument, which had some sort of sustaining reverb. However, that wikipedia article is fantastic! There are multi-chambered ocarinas, which would support chords, which recorders don't; that's cool!
  I honestly didn't know there was a real version first!