here are some unusual innovations on the ocarina. This page features many ocarinas that brake from the familiar form of the instrument.

These are the Leather Poco pods by artist Garry Greenwood.
Here is the curious description from his (very ancient) website entry on them-¹⁾

“Another invention of Greenwood's are the leather ocarina, named 'Poco pods'. The sculptor was interested to discover the difference between the traditional ceramic ocarina and one made from leather and he also wanted to discover the acoustic principle of the ocarina's characteristic 'whistle'.

These little instruments proved to be one of the most difficult projects Greenwood had undertaken with problems including the size of the finger holes, a lack of consistency in sound – in the prototype there seemed to be no relation between sound and finger – and controlling the tone. The last problem was caused by the large volume of air inside the pod which Greenwood found was greater then that of a bass recorder.

Greenwood's first instrument was basically flat. (All subsequent Poco pods are sphere-shaped) He used a piece of the body of the instrument but then spent two frustrating days trying to find the right distance between this and the mouth-hole. When he eventually found the right place he discovered that only one hole sounded, thus in subsequent instruments the holes were cut out after the piano key was put in place.”

There are no audio recordings of these instruments, but they looks well built and are very visually pleasing. I would guess that the tonal quality of making an ocarina out of leather would be similar to making an ocarina out of a very soft wood such as maple, birch, pine, or even something like basswood. I have one of the Charlie Hind wooden kit ocarinas in maple that has been very well sealed and the sound is very soft and thin. It has a sweet recorder like quality (recorders are also most often made of very soft woods like maple to give the sound a characteristic quality).

Mestre Nado (Aguinaldo da Silva)
Susan Rawcliffe
Garry Greenwood
Roberto Velázquez Cabrera
Sharon Rowell Huacas