Physics of the Ocarina

[Ken Caviness <caviness@SOUTHERN.EDU>]

A friend of mine sent me the following excerpt:

>  How does a globular flute work?  You, perhaps, have seen an ocarina.  It
> has, so far as I can tell, a single, central cavity with holes arranged around
> and yet, somehow, those holes act to produce different notes.

I had never heard of the ocarina, but a websearch showed a variety of
shapes and styles:

  http://www.ocarina.it/

http://www.starseedcreations.com/Linked%20Pages/circle_flute_ocarina.html
  http://www.scn.org/~bg599/
  http://germanmarketplace.com/hind.htm

The following picture confirms that the interior is one large cavity:

  http://germanmarketplace.com/workshop.htm#inside

Question:  Has anyone studied the physics of this instrument?

Thanks,
Ken

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