fingering logic (and a couple of questions)

Hello,

first of all, congratulations to everyone at smule for delivering this brilliant application ! :D

I am trying to learn how to play it but I am a bit confused with the fingering of the notes. As mentioned in this topic (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=104), I cannot see any global logic in the fingerings for the notes.

I am a guitar player and I can also play a (very very) little bit of piano because I know basic musical theory. The 'beauty' of these instruments is that even if you don't know how to play them, you can still play some basic melodies just by trial and error because starting from one note, it is simple to deduce in which direction to move to get the next note you want (left=lower, right=higher on piano and guitar, thinner string=higher pitch on guitar ...).

This kind of underlying logic is a real benefit for an instrument because it is easier to learn the instrument by yourself when you understand how it 'works'.

And adding an option to switch between this 'new fingering mode' and the 'legacy mode' would not be very harmful : right now, people have to learn fingerings by heart (and this is probably OK for people just wanting to learn a couple of tunes, not knowing much about music theory) - people could still do the same after the change :) But for people interested in going further than that, it would give the instrument a real consistency. (As a drawback, you would have to include a similare mode-switch in the score viewer on the website)

For how the fingerings 'should' work, the suggestions that were made and involve binary seem a good solution to me ... So from low to High this would be :

---------

|(j) (l) |

|(i) (k)|

---------

ijkl

------

1111 = actual 6 <--- Lowest pitch

1110 = actual 7

1101 = actual 8

1100 = actual 9

1011 = actual 10

1010 = actual 11

1001 = actual 12

1000 = actual 13

0111 = actual 5

0110 = actual 3

0101 = actual 4

0100 = actual 2

0011 = actual 1

0010 = actual 14

0001 = actual 15

0000 = actual 16 <--- highest pitch

http://ocarina.smule.com/score.php?mode ... ,%20Binary

This brings me to another question, I had a look at the scales you published I was wandering why you included F#, G# and B# in the scale since C Ionian is just CDEFGAB (but I can be wrong, I am far from being an expert).

Last suggestion, maybe you could add a chromatic scale in the list of available scales, that would start at the selected root note. That would enable people not to bother with selecting a key when composing a melody ?

I hope these ideas will help you develop an even better version of this really really cool app (or should I say instrument !! ;)

-marc

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your great suggestions!

The fingerings for Ocarina were devised based primarily on what we found by playing traditional instruments and by reading introductory guides and instructions on ocarina performance. Since we wanted to present Ocarina in a way that allowed users to easily move between tuning systems (roots and modes) as well as present a wide range of pitches for use in any one mode, we opted for the current system, which includes all notes from a standard mode, plus 5 steps below and additional half-step pitches within the middle of the mode.

The fingering charts on the Score Generator page display each pitch in the mode (for each of the standard modes: ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, locrian) moving from lowest pitch to highest pitch, though it should be noted that the Zeldarian mode is a somewhat non-standardized "mode" designed for the ever-so-important task of playing a specific piece. The fingerings for the pitches of the Zeldarian mode, in ascending order, are:

1 5 6 7 4 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 2 3

I will agree that this is perhaps a strange difference in fingerings than the standard modes and has the potential to cause a bit of confusion. I'm not sure if the solution is to change the mode fingerings now, but I'll bring up the matter with the rest of the Smulers.

Thanks for your suggestions and your interest in Ocarina and keep of playing!

best,

Rob

I will say that the different modes took me a little while to get used to but it has become really handy in easily switching keys (for instance if you wanted to go from major to minor instead of memorizing a whole new scale you only had to switch from Ionian to Aeolian). Also, the Zeldarian is indeed very useful for playing the Zelda theme, as it includes necessary notes and omits those that are not needed.

However I am going to second the request for a chromatic scale as sometimes I find I need a note that isn't available on the scale I'm using, and if I switch a different note will disappear. I realize you wouldn't be able to go from low G to high C as there's only sixteen possible combinations, but an octave and three more half-steps would be sufficient.

-AC