Designing Smule's Ocarina : The iPhone's Magic Flute

Ge Wang

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

• Year: 2009
• Location: Pittsburgh, PA, United States
• Pages: 303–307
• Keywords: chuck,design,in,in real-time,interface,iphone,mobile music,multitouch,nime09,ocarina,pulsing waves,social,sonically and onscreen and,sound synthesis takes place,the breath is visualized
• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1177697 (Link to paper)
• PDF link

Abstract:

The Smule Ocarina is a wind instrument designed for the iPhone, fully leveraging its wide array of technologies: microphone input (for breath input), multitouch (for fingering), accelerometer, real-time sound synthesis, highperformance graphics, GPS/location, and persistent data connection. In this mobile musical artifact, the interactions of the ancient flute-like instrument are both preserved and transformed via breath-control and multitouch finger-holes, while the onboard global positioning and persistent data connection provide the opportunity to create a new social experience, allowing the users of Ocarina to listen to one another. In this way, Ocarina is also a type of social instrument that enables a different, perhaps even magical, sense of global connectivity.

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{Wang2009,
 abstract = {The Smule Ocarina is a wind instrument designed for the iPhone, fully leveraging its wide array of technologies: microphone input (for breath input), multitouch (for fingering), accelerometer, real-time sound synthesis, highperformance graphics, GPS/location, and persistent data connection. In this mobile musical artifact, the interactions of the ancient flute-like instrument are both preserved and transformed via breath-control and multitouch finger-holes, while the onboard global positioning and persistent data connection provide the opportunity to create a new social experience, allowing the users of Ocarina to listen to one another. In this way, Ocarina is also a type of social instrument that enables a different, perhaps even magical, sense of global connectivity. },
 address = {Pittsburgh, PA, United States},
 author = {Wang, Ge},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1177697},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 keywords = {chuck,design,in,in real-time,interface,iphone,mobile music,multitouch,nime09,ocarina,pulsing waves,social,sonically and onscreen and,sound synthesis takes place,the breath is visualized},
 pages = {303--307},
 title = {Designing Smule's Ocarina : The iPhone's Magic Flute},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2009/nime2009_303.pdf},
 year = {2009}
}