Your method for viewing notes during live performance?

[Greg Jamate]

I play in multiple bands and cannot memorize the 100's of songs that get called. So, I often play with a music stand showing my song notes.

I have been old school; I write song notes by hand on one or two pages of letter size paper. I have 100's of songs written this way. I store them in a binder for each band I play in, organized alphabetically or by song order in set lists.

I am interested in changing this all over to a tablet. If I were to ever lose a binder I am screwed. So, I am planning to scan each document into a digital .pdf file, load them into a tablet, organize them, and view them during live performances.

Which device or tablet do you use for this? Pros and Cons? If you had to do it all over would you do it differently, how?

Samsung makes a 14 inch display model (Ultra S9 tablet), that displays at 102% size of a standard letter. This seems ideal.

 

[AidanHampson]

I use an iPad, the ForScore app and a Bluetooth foot pedal/page-turner. The iPad is attached to my mic stand with a Hercules iPad holder. It's all quite discreet, ForScore has a half-page turn option, and the foot pedal is a game changer...

 

[bwildt]

If you go with an Android pad, Mobilesheets Pro is a nice sheet music app and doesn't cost much. It also has versions for iPad and Windows. Forscore is more popular, but iPad only.

I play in a big band and the sheet music folder is almost 3 inches thick. It took me a couple of days to get it all scanned into .pdf's, but the results are great. It saves wear and tear on the original paper sheets. I don't need a stand light. I don't have to clip down the music when it's windy outside. I don't need extension wings on my music stand to spread out multi-page scores. Putting the music in setlist order is a point and click breeze.

I also have a Bluetooth pedal which allows me hand-free page turns. I can even set it to turn 1/2 page at a time so that I can see what is coming up on the next page.

All that said, I do have the paper folder with me, just in case (belt and suspenders). I'm a retired IT administrator and I know that tech can mess up or break just when you need it.

 

[Greg Jamate]

I use an iPad, the ForScore app and a Bluetooth foot pedal/page-turner. The iPad is attached to my mic stand with a Hercules iPad holder. It's all quite discreet, ForScore has a half-page turn option, and the foot pedal is a game changer...

Thanks Aidan, the iPad and the Samsung were very similar in functionality. Because the Samsung S8 has a slightly larger display than the iPad pro, I chose the Samsung.

 

[Greg Jamate]

If you go with an Android pad, Mobilesheets Pro is a nice sheet music app and doesn't cost much. It also has versions for iPad and Windows. Forscore is more popular, but iPad only.

I play in a big band and the sheet music folder is almost 3 inches thick. It took me a couple of days to get it all scanned into .pdf's, but the results are great. It saves wear and tear on the original paper sheets. I don't need a stand light. I don't have to clip down the music when it's windy outside. I don't need extension wings on my music stand to spread out multi-page scores. Putting the music in setlist order is a point and click breeze.

I also have a Bluetooth pedal which allows me hand-free page turns. I can even set it to turn 1/2 page at a time so that I can see what is coming up on the next page.

All that said, I do have the paper folder with me, just in case (belt and suspenders). I'm a retired IT administrator and I know that tech can mess up or break just when you need it.

Thanks bwildt, I decided to go with the Mobilesheets app on a refurbished Samsung S8. I saved about $500 by going with an older, refurbished S8 model. I am in the process now of scanning hundreds of hand written notes into .pdf files. So far the process is working just fine.

One advantage of the Mobilesheets app, because it's offered both on Windows and Android, I can manage all the .pdf files using my Windows desktop computer, and then transfer it all to the tablet I intend to use the tablet for display only.

 

[bwildt]

If your Windows machine is a laptop that folds into a tablet and has a touchscreen, Mobilesheets will operate on it just like on a pad. It's a little heavier and clumsy, but can also work as a spare device.

 

[bwildt]

Mobilesheets also makes it easy to sync your data and settings between devices. You can back up everything into one backup container file and then restore it to another device.

 

[Greg Jamate]

That's good to know. The abilities to sync devices and back up data are so important.

 

[biobass]

I use an iPad Pro 12.9” and either ForScore for musical theater, or UnRealBook for jazz/pop/rock/country, etc. I used to use an AirTurn duo for page turning, but after having two of them break (and an incredibly finicky turning off algorithm), have switched to using an iRig Blue Turn. I attach the iPad to my mic stand with an iKlip3 holder.

I highly recommended getting the larger iPad. It is almost true size for standard sheet music - much easier on my old eyes.

I have a 256 GB generation 2 iPad Pro. Currently, I have about 300 charts in standard notation as PDFs for my rock/pop/corporate band material, about 50 complete musical theater bass scores for shows that I have played relatively recently. Also, I have Real Books 1, 2 & 3, Rock Real Book 1 as Kindle pdfs. A very handy app is iRealPro, which has the chords to much of the Real Book jazz standards as wells as many Beatles, Rock, Blues tunes, and you can create your own chord charts, all with the added bonus of being able to transpose on the fly. I have lots of other music that I use for practice, such as the Bach Cello Suites, pdf books from Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Stanley Clarke, 5-6 Discover Double Bass courses, and much more.

I also have my personal library of hundreds of Kindle and iBooks, as wells as various PDFs such as scientific papers and personal papers, Music downloads, and personal photos. I still have almost 200 GB left unused.

Hope that this helps.
Dennis

 

[Greg Jamate]

I use an iPad Pro 12.9” and either ForScore for musical theater, or UnRealBook for jazz/pop/rock/country, etc. I used to use an AirTurn duo for page turning, but after having two of them break (and an incredibly finicky turning off algorithm), have switched to using an iRig Blue Turn. I attach the iPad to my mic stand with an iKlip3 holder.

I highly recommended getting the larger iPad. It is almost true size for standard sheet music - much easier on my old eyes.

I have a 256 GB generation 2 iPad Pro. Currently, I have about 300 charts in standard notation as PDFs for my rock/pop/corporate band material, about 50 complete musical theater bass scores for shows that I have played relatively recently. Also, I have Real Books 1, 2 & 3, Rock Real Book 1 as Kindle pdfs. A very handy app is iRealPro, which has the chords to much of the Real Book jazz standards as wells as many Beatles, Rock, Blues tunes, and you can create your own chord charts, all with the added bonus of being able to transpose on the fly. I have lots of other music that I use for practice, such as the Bach Cello Suites, pdf books from Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Stanley Clarke, 5-6 Discover Double Bass courses, and much more.

I also have my personal library of hundreds of Kindle and iBooks, as wells as various PDFs such as scientific papers and personal papers, Music downloads, and personal photos. I still have almost 200 GB left unused.

Hope that this helps.
Dennis

thanks Dennis, I seriously considered the largest iPad, but the high cost was an issue. I went with the 14.6 inch Samsung. I am really looking forward to archiving my old hand written notes.