A great idea

[OldsRecording]

I recently had the opportunity to look at a Kindle (the electronic book-thingy from Amazon), and I decided that a larger version of the device could absolutely revolutionize the music publishing buisness. Lo and behold, it already exists.

http://www.freehandsystems.com/products ... n=MusicPad" target="_blank

I was just curious if any of you had had the opportunity to use one, if not, what are your thoughts?

[bort]

Looks cool, but my $899 is going elsewhere.

[Donn]

I had a similar thought a couple days ago, but smaller rather than larger, to serve in place of the stinking flip folder on a lyre thing. Of course the main thing is to get the weight down, 4 lbs is not going to work, and it would be handy if music were actually available in a common digital data format that adapts to page size and format.

But we have a gig coming up with a trumpet player who's having to learn practically our whole book in five weeks, it's going to be largely at night and windy (like 40mph would not be unusual.) A self illuminated, no paper device like this would be nice, maybe even worth the trouble to do some data entry and reformatting to get suitable PDFs or whatever it would take, just for that one guy on that one date. (But I don't know about spending any money, we're pretty tight!)

[Tuba Guy]

I sometimes do something similar to this with my laptop. just pull up the Cherry excerpts, and go. It is a little hard to have on a music stand, though (and doesn't look too professional)
If you're having trouble getting stuff into PDF, use cutepdf. It's a writer, is free, and works great.

[tbn.al]

A couple of years ago a NY show came through and one of my buddies subbed on bone. He said the whole orchestra had these things on stands. The music turned automatically, no stand light to mess with and the DCs were automatic. I think that would be the neatest thing. Has anyone had experience with them?

[Matt G]

Harry Conick Jr's Band has had those for years. Several years. IIRC, it allows him to make changes to the arrangements on the fly, and import them immediately into the book. I know they are expensive, but to some guys like that, they are probably worth it.

[Steve Marcus]

Christopher O'Riley, the host of the radio show "From the Top," plays piano with his laptop on the music desk. He "turns pages" with a footswitch.

[OldsRecording]

I'm sure it's the kind of thing that right now it's little more than an expensive toy (for most), but like anything, within a few years, the cost will go down, technology will improve and I'm sure within 10 years they will be commonplace.

[eupher61]

they've been around for several years, and technology is improving like everything else. The DC and page turn thing is relatively easy, things like Finale and Noteworthy Composer do it. On a grander scale, like the Connick book, it's basically the same thing, except getting the parts separated to individual monitors. The footswitch version is great, though. Used it once on a weird, too-complicated-for-its-real-worth, show gig. The music stunk, but the books were very cool to play with, double entendre intended.