The pros and cons of different ways of learning and practicing intonation on the ocarina

There are many different ways of learning and practising intonation on the ocarina. Playing in tune depends on having something to indicate when you are, or are not in tune. Commonly, people use graphical chromatic tuners, but there are many other options as well, all of which have different pros and cons.

Graphical chromatic tuners

These are devices or software that display the name of a note, and how sharp or flat it is. Perhaps they are the most widely known way of practising intonation on the ocarina, but they do have notable downsides:

Pros

• Readily available
• Create a visual intuition for pitch and the concept of intonation.
• Allows learner to easily notice problem areas and practice them in isolation, playing a few notes and checking their tuning.

Cons

• Puts too much emphasis on looking at the tuner, instead of listening to how notes sound in relation to each other.
• Does not train listening skills.
• High latency makes them unusable for checking the tuning of actual playing.

Drone pitches

A drone is a note of a given pitch, which is played continually, which you can play over. Drones give you an audible and stable reference. When using a drone with the ocarina, it is important to use one with a pure timbre as it makes intonation errors much easier to hear, especially on notes in unison with the drone.

Pros

• Conceptually simple.
• Widely available.
• Can be set to produce a note at any pitch.

Cons

• Only the unison of the drone is easy to hear the intonation of.
• For other notes, the learner must learn how the interval should sound. This is easier for some cases like thirds and fifths.
• As mentioned before, the timbre of the drone affects how easy it is to hear intonation.

MIDI Synthesisers

MIDI synthesizer programs can be used to create arbitrary sequences of notes, which can be played over for practice.

Pros

• Create arbitrary reference sequences at any tempo
• Can easily vary timbre and tempo
• Known to be in range

Cons

• Person needs to learn to use a complex software.
• Note sequences are fixed, and must be edited manually which breaks 'flow' in practice.

Ocatune

Ocatune is an application that I wrote to help people learn intonation on the ocarina. It provides a dynamic drone, listening to what the player is doing, and then playing the closest in tune note. Intonation is thus easy to hear, as the player is always playing in unison.

Pros

• Plays in tune reference pitches in real time
• Easily allows the player to break down and practice short sections of music with any timing and tempo
• The player is always playing in unison, which is the easiest situation.

Cons

• Limits playing speed. The application has latency as it is 'chasing' what the player is doing. Playing too fast sounds awful as you end up playing over the pitch of the previous note. However this can be a good thing, as it forces slow and deliberate practice.
• Conceptually unusual, and requires the player to wear headphones so that the application does not respond to its own output.
• Not easily available

Commercial and amateur recordings

It is possible to play over a commercial or amateur music recordings and listen to one's intonation in relation to this, just like playing over a MIDI synth.

Pros

• Widely available
• Provides a melodic pitch reference.
• No latency.

Cons

• Real music includes a lot of ornamentation. For the practice of intonation this is unneeded complexity, and may be confusing to deal with.
• May go out of range.
• Changing the tempo, pitch, and looping short sections to practice in isolation requires specialist software that people may not know exists.