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Joined: May 2008
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Anyone using either one of these for teaching or score playing?
Any plusses? Ideas?
Jeannette Lambert MA-NCMTNA-Adjudicator for the National Piano Guild www.jlambertpiano.comAtkinson, NH. USA
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 617
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
Joined: Aug 2006
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Anyone using either one of these for teaching or score playing?
Any plusses? Ideas? I think a program called Music Reader has gone them one better. It's ideal for becoming a "paperless" pianist, as they characterize it. I use Music Reader with a Lenovo ThinkPad and wireless page-turn pedal for completely hands free page turning. It's great for practicing or performing, especially for collaborative work. There are some links at the very bottom of my blog. (I don't work for them.) I haven't used it in teaching, though it might be fun to do so, You can write on the pages, using pictures, colors and then erase them as needed. You can have different markings for different students or collaborators who are playing the same piece.
Last edited by NeilOS; 06/14/11 05:54 PM.
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 96
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I use my iPad almost exclusively for my sheet music, as I am on the go a lot, and I love being able to easily carry all of my repertoire around with me. I used Music Reader in the past when I had a crummy Tablet PC, and it did the job, but if you are going with an iPad as a sheet music reader, I recommend ForScore. It works with the excellent Bluetooth page flipper called AirTurn, made by the people who designed Music Reader. I use the free service, Dropbox to store all of my scores. My Dropbox can be accessed using the free Dropbox app on the iPad, and from there I can open scores directly in ForScore. It's a tad cumbersome, but you only need do it once for each score, and then you always have it with you. FWIW, the first generation iPad is available in refurbished models (with full warranty) on the online Apple store for only $350!! A heck of a deal if you don't need any of the extra features of the iPad 2. I picked up two of them, one for my church gig, and one for personal use. The screen on the iPad is just a bit small, but works great for lead sheets. It works well enough for full scores too if you start with a clear scan and trim off excess blank margins so the music fills the full screen. AirturnforScore - MGS Development
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 617
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 617 |
I use my iPad almost exclusively for my sheet music, as I am on the go a lot, and I love being able to easily carry all of my repertoire around with me. I used Music Reader in the past when I had a crummy Tablet PC, and it did the job, but if you are going with an iPad as a sheet music reader, I recommend ForScore. It works with the excellent Bluetooth page flipper called AirTurn, made by the people who designed Music Reader. I use the free service, Dropbox to store all of my scores. My Dropbox can be accessed using the free Dropbox app on the iPad, and from there I can open scores directly in ForScore. It's a tad cumbersome, but you only need do it once for each score, and then you always have it with you. FWIW, the first generation iPad is available in refurbished models (with full warranty) on the online Apple store for only $350!! A heck of a deal if you don't need any of the extra features of the iPad 2. I picked up two of them, one for my church gig, and one for personal use. The screen on the iPad is just a bit small, but works great for lead sheets. It works well enough for full scores too if you start with a clear scan and trim off excess blank margins so the music fills the full screen. AirturnforScore - MGS Development I find the iPad too small for reading at the keyboard. That's how bad my eyes are...
Last edited by NeilOS; 06/14/11 08:30 PM.
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Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 365
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I've thought about this - but iPads are just too small.
I've considered the following:
AirTurn + 2 pedals: $100
22" LCD screen: $150
Crappy old small form factor desktop PC: free (already own and dont use)
USB Tablet and Pen: free (already own and dont use)
PDFXChangeViewer: free (freeware tool for viewing and ANOTATING PDFs)
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TOTAL COST $250
..and for that I get a screen big enough to view 2 A4 pages at a time, pedal based page turning and an entire library of music stored neatly on disk without books and loose sheets of paper floating around making the place untidy....
However it also means extra cabling around the piano, an inability to move music from our piano to teachers piano (meaning any markups done by teacher in lessons have to be re-created digitally when we get home) - and means my repertoire becomes seriously reduced in the event of a power blackout! (..and lets face it thats one of the joys of the piano - you CAN keep yourself entertained in low light conditions when all others toys are 'out of commission'!)
So I havent done it yet... Can anyone see any *serious* drawbacks? Is there a better way that doesnt cost a fortune?
Parent....
Orchestral Viola player (stictly amateur)....
Hack Pianist.... (faded skills from glory days 20 yrs ago)
Vague Guitar & Bass player.... (former minor income stream 15 yrs ago)
Former conductor... (been a long time since I was set loose with a magic wand!)
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 617
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 617 |
I've thought about this - but iPads are just too small.
I've considered the following:
AirTurn + 2 pedals: $100
22" LCD screen: $150
Crappy old small form factor desktop PC: free (already own and dont use)
USB Tablet and Pen: free (already own and dont use)
PDFXChangeViewer: free (freeware tool for viewing and ANOTATING PDFs)
==========================
TOTAL COST $250
..and for that I get a screen big enough to view 2 A4 pages at a time, pedal based page turning and an entire library of music stored neatly on disk without books and loose sheets of paper floating around making the place untidy....
However it also means extra cabling around the piano, an inability to move music from our piano to teachers piano (meaning any markups done by teacher in lessons have to be re-created digitally when we get home) - and means my repertoire becomes seriously reduced in the event of a power blackout! (..and lets face it thats one of the joys of the piano - you CAN keep yourself entertained in low light conditions when all others toys are 'out of commission'!)
So I havent done it yet... Can anyone see any *serious* drawbacks? Is there a better way that doesnt cost a fortune?
I use the AirTurn wireless pedals. To be self-sufficient, you need a battery-powered tablet (convertible?) PC. I love my Lenovo ($$$), but there are cheaper ones. Have you seen this: Hugh Sung PC Demo
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Gary001
Unregistered
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Gary001
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It works with the excellent Bluetooth page flipper called AirTurn, made by the people who designed Music Reader.
Air Turn is by AirTurn Inc. which Hugh Sung ( who often posts here  ) is a co-founder of, it's afaik unrelated to Leone the makers of MusicReader other than they resell the AirTurn. I currently use an older version of MusicReader on the iPad and have for a while now. I tried out the basic version of the MusicReader PDF update but wasn't impressed enough with the changes to warrant a paid upgrade. Not only that, but the new version crashed several times whilst I was trying it out and page turns were very slow. I wasn't aware of ForScore despite an app store search, thanks for the heads up Had a quick read through their manual and features list and I'm tempted to buy it and give it a go. Although it'll likely mean re-flashing my pedal to use whatever key presses ForScore expects (I'm guessing it's using cursor up/down?) I've thought about this - but iPads are just too small. If you crop your scores to remove all the extra whitespace and only view a page at a time, the score only needs to be reduced a small amount to display on the iPad screen. Although whether that's tolerable is going to be an individual thing.
Last edited by Gary001; 06/16/11 01:41 PM.
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