Ocarina intonation practice tools

This page provides several tools to help you learn to control your breath, hear your intonation, and play your ocarinas in tune.

A chromatic tuner visualises the pitch of the notes you are playing, showing you the note letter and relative intonation (if the pitch is high or low).

To begin, click 'start' and play a note on your instrument. While you are playing, you can watch the needle, and here is what the readings mean:

• When the needle is in the centre, and the note letter displayed matches the one in your fingering chart, you are playing in tune.
• If the letter matches, but the needle is to the left, you are playing flat.
• Likewise, if the needle is to the right, you are playing sharp.

For more tips, see the page Tuner usage instructions.

A pitch graph or intonation visualiser is similar to a chromatic tuner, but it allows you to see how your pitch changes over time with greater clarity. The notes of the chromatic scale are displayed as horizontal lines, and the history of the notes you've played is plotted over the top.

When you play a note on your ocarina in tune, the drawn line will match the corresponding note line. If you are sharp or flat, it will fall between two lines.

• This tool is great to see if there are notes that you typically play out of tune. Just leave it running while you play.
• You can easily see if your vibrato (pitch wavering) has a consistent shape.

For more tips and guidance, see the page Pitch graph usage instructions.

While being able to see your intonation is helpful, is it not equally important to be able to hear it? The most straightforward way to begin developing this skill is to hear your notes simultaneously with a note that you know is in tune.

A drone tool plays a long tone of a single pitch you select, providing an audible pitch reference, without need for an audio version of a melody to play over.

One way to use a drone is to play notes in unison with it. Here's how you can interpret what you hear:

• If the note that you're playing is exactly in tune with the drone, the two sounds merge, sounding like a single sound.
• You'll hear a warbling sound when your pitch is higher or lower than the pitch of the drone. The speed of this warble increases the more out of tune you are.
• By listening to this sound, you can learn to adjust your blowing pressure up or down as needed to correct your pitch.

There are many more things you can do with a drone, and they are explained on the page Tuning drone usage instructions.

This tool uses your microphone to hear the note you are currently playing on the ocarina and plays the closest equal-tempered note for you as a reference pitch.

Note that you must wear headphones for the dynamic drone to work correctly.

Like a fixed drone, it helps to guide your intonation as you play, and its convenience lies in the reference pitch following yours. Please keep in mind that a delay will occur between the start of your play and the reference starting to sound. This is caused by round-trip audio latency, and some devices have less delay than others.

Ocatune is excellent for slow practice of melodies and other exercises. Please find instructions and more information on the page Usage instructions for Ocatune.