Arcadópolis
The Nightingale
The Nightingale: a free game to improvise melodies
The Nightingale is a free game for improvising melodies without knowing music. Nine keys play a scale, so there are no wrong notes: you sing over a backing track and every phrase is painted with a cobalt brush on a porcelain vase that turns with the beat, while a nightingale sings it from its branch.
It runs in your browser with nothing to download, with your computer’s keyboard or by sliding your finger on a note strip on your phone. It comes with six tracks, fourteen scales in all twelve keys and five voices. What you record is kept as a take and goes to your music software as a MIDI file.
It’s one of the 51 games in the Arcadópolis Games folder.
Free, no ads, nothing to install.
Install The Nightingale on its own on your home screen
What it has
- Nine notes on the keys A to L (Shift trills; Z and X change the octave) or on a touch strip where your finger slides between notes.
- Six synthesized backing tracks, from a waltz to a lantern market, with tempo from 50 to 150; their chords follow the scale.
- Fourteen scales: five Chinese pentatonic modes (gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu) and nine modes and scales, in all twelve keys.
- Five voices: nightingale, bamboo flute, erhu, glass and music box. Each one also changes the bird: feathers, jade, lacquer, glass or brass.
- Up to 12 takes of up to 5 minutes: they play back with their track and export as MIDI, with the track on separate tracks if you like.
- “Measure charm”, optional: every phrase is judged and good ones make the branch bloom.
How to play
- Open the Games folder and tap The Nightingale.
- Tap “Sing”: the track starts and the vase turns with the beat.
- Sing with the keys A to L or by sliding your finger along the strip at the right; every phrase is painted on the porcelain.
- When you like it, tap “Record”, wait for a one-bar count-in and sing. Your take goes to “Takes”, ready to play back or export as MIDI.
The tracks and the scales
Night garden (string arpeggios, a pad and a soft pulse, at 84), Lacquer waltz (bass and music box in three, at 104), Rain on the lake (slow, with rain and a drone, at 66), Lantern market (drums, wood block and a walking bass, at 112), Pulse only and Silence, where the bar still counts for recording. The pentatonic scales sound good in any combination; modes like Dorian or Phrygian give darker colors, and there are also harmonic minor, blues and hirajōshi.
The charm meter
It starts off and you turn it on in Settings. Each phrase ends when you leave a beat of silence and is judged with simple rules: repeating the last one is “echo”, changing it a little is “variation”, ending on the key note or the fifth on a strong beat is “cadence”, going up and coming down is an “arc”, and singing more than two bars without a breath leaves you “out of breath”. The words show up next to the bird, good phrases release petals and charm fills the branch with flowers.
Common questions
Do I need a microphone or to know how to sing?
No. The Nightingale doesn’t use the microphone: “singing” means playing the nine notes with your keyboard or finger. Since they’re all inside the chosen scale, any combination sounds good.
How do I get my melody into my music software?
Record a take and, in “Takes”, tap “Export MIDI”. A .mid file downloads with your melody (trills are written as fast notes) and, if “Include the track in the MIDI” is on in Settings, the strings, bass, pad and percussion on separate tracks too.
My recording lands a little late. What can I do?
If you use wireless headphones, go to Settings and raise the “Audio delay” (from 0 to 300 thousandths of a second), or tap “Measure with 8 taps” and follow the beat with the space bar: the game works out the delay for you.
Also in Arcadópolis
Piano FootballYou’re the goalkeeper: save every shot by playing its note on time on a 32-key piano, with a MIDI keyboard, your computer or the screen.
Sing the MelodySing or hum 10 public-domain melodies and see how in tune you were, note by note. Your voice is never recorded.
Eight NotesThe daily music challenge: everyone gets the same eight notes to compose a 16-step melody and share it.
Arcadópolis has 66 more apps on the same desktop: games, music, a 3D museum and a 3D library.