Playing from iPad

Wyvern · Post by **Wyvern** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 am

Looking at my wife's iPad I have wondered about scanning music and playing at gigs direct from iPad. Might be particularly useful outdoors replacing papers blowing in the wind, in dark venues with poor lighting and never having missing music?

Has anyone tried using iPad to store and read their music? What are your experiences? What stand do you use to hold iPad secure?

PhilGreen · Post by **PhilGreen** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:45 am

At a rehearsal about 2 months ago new rep had been handed out at the previous one. As 1st, 2nd trom and tuba had been missing the music stayed with the librarian - and was still at his house that morning. Quick as a flash the troms were on petrucci and made a good fist of playing everything - on their iphones!!
Unfortunately, for me to get the notes close enough to see them, they were too close to focus - so I went home!

Tubaman2365 · Post by **Tubaman2365** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:54 am

One of the euphonium players in a band I play in uses his iPad for performances and rehearsals. He has a foot pedal that he uses to switch pages. The app he uses is Perform Pro and it costs $5.99 I think. That app allows you to draw on the music, create set lists, its pretty cool. I am just starting to experiment with it now with some solo music.

He simply uses a regular music stand and places it on top of a piece of 2x4 to put it at the center of the music stand.

One drawback to consider is if the gig is outside in very bright light the iPad screen is difficult to see.

PMeuph · Post by **PMeuph** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:56 am

I play in a Big band where we have about 150 charts in our binders. The lead trumpet player, who was fed up with carrying a large binder around and having to flip trough hundreds of pages, bought the iPad app(same as mentioned above) a music stand, and a bluetooth pedal controller. It works really well. Once you scan your music in there's no more hassle and worry about losing music or having to flip back and forth incessantly.

bisontuba · Post by **bisontuba** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:09 am

Hi-
BTW, TurboScan app is excellent for scanning music.

Mark

Wyvern · Post by **Wyvern** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:49 am

PMeuph wrote:bluetooth pedal controller

What is the pedal controller? That sounds great to turn hands-free

sousaphone68 · Post by **sousaphone68** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:58 am

anbody have a recomendation for Android?

PMeuph · Post by **PMeuph** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:01 am

Neptune wrote:
PMeuph wrote:bluetooth pedal controller
What is the pedal controller? That sounds great to turn hands-free

It is similar to this one, I can't remember the exact company...

http://airturn.com/" target="_blank

Tubaman2365 · Post by **Tubaman2365** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:26 am

djwpe wrote:Kevin, the app Alex uses is "forscore" http://www.forscoreapp.com/

He seems to be quite adept at the annotations and is as quick as the rest of us are with a pencil.

My bad! Yes, Alex usually has his notations done before I have my pencil out!

Uncle Buck · Post by **Uncle Buck** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:05 am

What do you do when your battery dies? Seems to me in a rehearsal or performance situation, I wouldn't want to hassle with worrying about that. Yeah, the iPad has great battery life - but still a risk I wouldn't want to bother with.

PMeuph · Post by **PMeuph** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:40 am

Uncle Buck wrote:What do you do when your battery dies? Seems to me in a rehearsal or performance situation, I wouldn't want to hassle with worrying about that. Yeah, the iPad has great battery life - but still a risk I wouldn't want to bother with.

In the big band I play with, we use lights for our gigs and have power cords running. It wouldn't really be a hassle.

It might be a hassle to plug the iPad in ahead of time, but it could also be charged in the car on the way to the gig or backstage before the gig starts. There are extra fast chargers that can fully charge a battery in way less time than the stock one.

eupher61 · Post by **eupher61** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:45 am

Uncle Buck wrote:What do you do when your battery dies? Seems to me in a rehearsal or performance situation, I wouldn't want to hassle with worrying about that. Yeah, the iPad has great battery life - but still a risk I wouldn't want to bother with.

Charge it ahead of time. Extension cord.

Work it out..

Jonathan, it's done a lot.

Maurice · Post by **Maurice** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:25 am

I've been using an iPad for music for the last year. Works great for me. A couple of notes..

Software: forScore

Creating the PDF: I use VueScan to create the PDF.

Bluetooth Switch BT-105, however, the foot pedals did not work for me. Nothing like a tapping foot coming down on one of the pedals at the wrong time and changing the page. Solution was to wire up a couple of slim push button switches (3mm high). These were glued to a couple of flat plastic buttons that had been sewn to elastic velcro (weight lifter wrist wraps). Attach the wrist wrap to the side of the horn, plug the two buttons into the bt-105 and you have a workable system.

Stand: I don't remember the brand ( TheGigEasy I think) but you can get an attachment that plugs right into the top of one of those Manhassett portable stands. Only adjustment I made was to replace the swivel mount that came with the attachment with the one on the back of the original stand. Better fit.

Also, add a piece of self addhesive velcro to the back of the bt-105.

The iPad is good for about 10hrs on a charge.

tbn.al · Post by **tbn.al** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:17 pm

This might help you assemble your own.

http://electronic-music-stand.com/" target="_blank

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:50 pm

The iPad is too small. Something like an e-ink display with a foot pedal would be great, but it must be as big as a full-size sheet of music, and for me any more that means 9x12, not 8-1/2x11. The e-ink display would still need illumination, but unlike an iPad it's readable when the lights are really bright, such as when playing outdoors. And it uses a fraction of the power. The problem, though, is finding one that is big enough.

Rick "whose squinting no longer works" Denney

bort · Post by **bort** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:35 pm

At a last-minute gig, the guy next to me had an iPad and was using it. Seemed like a good idea, but it had a lot of problems:

1) Glare... outdoors or under lights, it can be a pain to get the angle right and not deal with the glare.
2) Hard to share... I had to read off of his music for one piece. You can pretty much forget sharing stands, because...
3) It's too small. Especially for orchestral music which comes on huge paper to begin with, it's just too big.

I think it might work for casual use, but as a serious application, I think paper is too hard to replace.

Frankly, for something as human powered as an orchestra, I would prefer to NOT see iPads and glowing screens on-stage. I like the lack of (visible) technology and electrically powered things.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:38 am

Rick Denney wrote:The iPad is too small. Something like an e-ink display with a foot pedal would be great, but it must be as big as a full-size sheet of music, and for me any more that means 9x12, not 8-1/2x11. The e-ink display would still need illumination, but unlike an iPad it's readable when the lights are really bright, such as when playing outdoors. And it uses a fraction of the power. The problem, though, is finding one that is big enough.

Rick "whose squinting no longer works" Denney

Although the foot pedals have a quick response, it may still not be fast enough. I think the e-ink display should be 18 x 12 to accomodate two-page display. I would buy one.

Steve Marcus · Post by **Steve Marcus** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:52 am

In lieu of a pedal for page turning, there is software that will automatically advance the page when you play a MIDI keyboard through the appropriate software.

Does SmartMusic (or whatever the software is called) have the capability to "hear" what note you're playing on your brass instrument and automatically advance the music on the screen?

Even if it does, this may be practical only in private or solo performance settings, as the microphone might pick up other instruments in a live ensemble.

Am I making sense?

sloan · Post by **sloan** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:31 pm

Two words: Google Glasses

bbocaner · Post by **bbocaner** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:42 pm

I do pretty much all of my playing from an iPad. I used to have a music pad pro, but I find the iPad to be better in every way. I use forscore, the airturn pedals, and the gigeasy manhasset stand adaptor. The battery lasts at least 8 hours on a charge if I put it in airplane mode, and it's very reliable. I've used it for all day recording sessions without a problem. I never have any trouble with glare and it's big enough considering the screen is very sharp for pretty much any music if you have a nice clean scan and crop carefully. I find annotations to be a little bit tedious, but it works.

It's great to have all my music with me and it's easy to search, put things in set list order, etc..

TubeNet

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