tablets for gigs

[Three Valves]

I don't want anyone to think that I'm anti-high-tech, or anything like that...

Here's my...

Show us your Victrola and 72rpm records!

[bloke]

I don't want anyone to think that I'm anti-high-tech, or anything like that...

Here's my...

Show us your Victrola and 72rpm records!

fine...
...but you obviously aren't up to speed on this new-era technology, as the proper rpms are 78.

[Three Valves]

I can smell the vintage through the interwebs.

[bloke]

I can smell the vintage through the interwebs.

You've got spring tension!

AUW.jpg (40.12 KiB) Viewed 1400 times

[peterbas]

.

[KerryAbear]

I want to get a Boox Max Pro Lumi or a PadMu built on that platform. But the cost is around ≈$1000. I’d rather save my money right now to buy an E♭ tuba.

[JRaymo]

I've got friends who use these, and I completely understand the technology. I see what they can do, I understand that they can be written on (as if pencil markings), and that pages can be forwarded and reversed with a foot pedal - and all that stuff.

Of course, a large percentage of the reason that people reject new technology is because they don't want to mess with it and another reason is because they're old and set in their ways, but I thought (seriously) about the tablet thing, and I just don't see a ton of advantage.

- First, I'd have to buy a tablet, and for it to be of any use for this application, it would need to be a pretty big tablet - which would cost even more money. (I see some young people using only moderately-large tablets for this application, and the entire font is smaller than on even 8.5 X 11 sheet music. That's probably fine for anyone who can really see well. Even if there are 12x14 tablets that exist, surely they are pretty darn expensive.)

- Next, I would have to buy one of those special folding music stands that supports a tablet. Something tells me they cost more than twenty bucks.

- After that, I would have to buy one of those foot pedal gadgets, and I bet those cost something as well.

- Once I invested the hours to get past the learning curve, I would need to be scanning music into the thing, and putting the scanned pages of all of the various pieces into different folders, labeling them, and such.

- When on gigs, I'd have to be really careful to overcome my natural clumsiness so as to not knock it over and break it, and I don't see how it would be very wise to take it to outdoor gigs where wind could blow the thing over and break it.

- As things are, I already have all of my music, I have some clips if there's wind. If the wind blows it over, it doesn't break. I have scotch tape, and I have scissors - so as to cut pages horizontally in order to do half page turns to eliminate page turns that are too quick.

New technologies are neat, but it just seems to me that the purpose of a new technology is to make things simpler and less expensive. With this technology, I see money, machinery which is somewhat fragile, additionally toting around a music stand which is considerably larger than my currently owned collapsible stand (plus a foot pedal), and time involved in scanning in materials which already exist in another completely usable media.
I can see that quite a few people really enjoy using this new technology, but I think I'm going to just let them enjoy it and continue to do what I've done for sixty years. I just don't see paper music disappearing in my lifetime. I'm also old enough to remember when it was claimed that the primary purpose of computers is to eliminate paper, but what I've seen and what I'm told is that more paper documents are generated then ever before.

bloke "I'M OK; YOU'RE OK" [emoji1]

I’d like one for home use but not worth the money to me. I agree keeping it simple with paper. I just this year had to get prescription glasses with bifocals. I’m still trying to figure out how to get the angle right for reading music on the stand. Looks like I might have to use a dedicated reader. I had to hold the music way too high to read it at the tuba Christmas.


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[matt g]

The title of this thread is misleading!

[bloke]

Not only is the title to this thread misleading, but the term "slow movements" - rather than "those which tend to put it to sleep", also means "those with which we struggle".

[Furguson11]

I've done enough PowerPoint Presentations where the tech went belly up so that I always brought a paper copy. I suspect that I'd have paper music sitting under my chair if I used a tablet because of paranoia.

So why would I bring a tablet again? : )

[JESimmons]

I bought a refurbished Chromebook on eBay for $50 to test the idea. It works. It’s a little small but readable. I think I still prefer paper, but the Chromebook really helps with the church stuff where we have hundreds of pieces, some loose, some in books. The Chromebook puts them in alphabetical order.

[Nworbekim]

I bought a refurbished Chromebook on eBay for $50 to test the idea. It works. It’s a little small but readable. I think I still prefer paper, but the Chromebook really helps with the church stuff where we have hundreds of pieces, some loose, some in books. The Chromebook puts them in alphabetical order.

what software are you using with the chromebook?

[Richard III]

I bought a refurbished Chromebook on eBay for $50 to test the idea. It works. It’s a little small but readable. I think I still prefer paper, but the Chromebook really helps with the church stuff where we have hundreds of pieces, some loose, some in books. The Chromebook puts them in alphabetical order.

I'm also interested in this. It would seem to be the answer as I already have the Chromebook, plus the ability to display two pages at once solves many issues. I have an iPad with a wireless page turner. But the page turner practice is awkward when flipping back and forth between pages. I either miss the turn or go too far. Or the thing loses connection during a set.

[iiipopes]

A person who plays tuba who sits beside me in community band uses a tablet. Indoors - whatever. Outdoors - the glare was so bad that he couldn't use it. Instead of reverting to hard copy, he moved and sat away from me to find a spot with no glare. It was so close to concert time and was a surprise to the conductor, so nothing could be done. At the next rehearsal, the conductor mentioned that he had to sit next to me and the drum section from then on. (In Sousa fashion, I sit as close to the bass drum as logistically possible in the center back to better see the conductor and knit with the percussion.)

[russiantuba]

Paper copies can be left or forgotten or blow away—yeah, it’s happened, we all have those stories and people say go digital.

What happens when your battery runs out on the tablet, or a software or app issue occurs right at the start of the performance? Batteries on tablets don’t last

I use paper. If traveling, I will scan a copy and email it to myself

[Rick Denney]

You can always find reasons not to do something.

I use a 12.9" Ipad pro, some years old but still viable. I bought it used on ebay for about $400, and have used it for about four years now. I also use it for reading books on flights--I usually go through two or three books while flying and the ipad takes up less space and weight in my briefcase than physical books. I also use it for other things while working in distant lands, like checking personal email when my work computer is otherwise occupied (I never do personal things on my work computer), so it adds value.

I do keep up with battery charging, but that has not proved to be a challenge once I programmed it not to turn on and off automatically when I opened and closed the cover. Normally, I don't like dealing with batteries, but in this case the advantages in terms of convenience outweigh that inconvenience. I keep a charger in my case and an extension cord in the car on general principles, but have never needed it for the ipad at a gig or rehearsal.

When I show up at quintet rehearsals, we often read from an online library, and having the Ipad means not having to print something out beforehand, or being constrained by what I did print out if we decide to read something else.

We have a fairly standard library of gig tunes that is a subset of our large library. I tag giggable music into a large quintet-specific "setlist" in Forscore. When we have a gig, I create another setlist just for that gig, and tag files from the master setlist for the gig setlist. This takes, oh, three minutes, longer if I have to scan something that is printed. But we never have printed music any more. When we buy music, it is delivered as a PDF and distributed by email or on a Google drive.

I can rearrange the setlist in about three seconds.

Once the setlist is set up, I can page through the gig continuously.

Our quintet folders of old added up to abut four inches thick and not insignificant weight. It was the one thing I could not carry if bringing two tubas to a gig or rehearsal. And it was really hard to carry even if bringing one tuba.

For the concert band, all the music is now distributed electronically. I download the music (usually the full score and parts, so this takes a while on my slow internet), import it into Forscore, mark the pages I don't need and delete them, leaving only the tuba part. I spend about an hour, including download time, setting up a concert program. Once that is set up, I can rearrange the setlist for that program in seconds, so that's all it takes to organize music for each rehearsal. No fumbling.

I do have to remember if we've played something before, and if we have, I can search for it in Forscore and add a tag for the current concert cycle.

For our annual July 4 gig, we play in the dark and use stand lights. Correction: Everyone else uses a stand light. My music is self-lighted. I can flip the ipad sideways and see march-size music at about double the printed size. We play the same music every year and often have to rearrange the set on the fly, so it's easy to touch the setlist button and touch the title for the tune being called. In windy outdoor conditions, this is VASTLY, ENORMOUSLY better than trying to thumb through even a contained notebook, and keep the music clipped so that God doesn't turn or scatter the pages for me.

The ipad fits in the music pouch of my gig bags, or under the 184 in its hard case, more easily than a big music folder.

My stand was more than $20. I will use it for many years. Who cares? It didn't cost any more than a folding stand that doesn't require the extra arm I often don't have available during schleppage.

I did have to explore page turners. Many use foot pedals, but these did not work for me. I'm looking at the music, not my feet, and my feet are not coordinated enough to find the right button on the foot pedal without looking. The first time you go backwards instead of forwards because of pressing the wrong button, you forget the foot pedal altogether. I can also reach up and swipe the ipad to change pages, and that's a lot easier than actually turning a page. But I also bought a "Turntouch" bluetooth button pusher, and I either wear it on my left hand index finger like a ring or stick it on the tuba (using stick-on Velcro). The former method is perfect for gigs using multiple instruments. Only some of what we play has inconvenient enough page turns to really benefit from a page turner, but for those it really helps. I used to have to mark page turns in the music to make sure that I didn't rearrange paper at the correct opportunity--the page turner is net easier.

Forscore does have a useful feature to support page turns. It will turn half a page at a time--the first press replaces the top half of the screen with the top half of the NEXT page. The next press of the button puts that next page on the bottom half as well. That takes the heat off timing page turns.

In a crowded rehearsal space, my Ipad on a stand is less likely to catch a passing sleeve or elbow and get knocked over. On a windy day, I can simply put a foot on the stand legs and nail it to the ground--try that with any folding stand that has paper music on it. Windy days are really the BEST argument for ipads.

I've always been able to read it in bright sunlight, but that is the weakest feature. I don't like playing in bright sun with paper music, either. A folded piece of black poster board is easy to make into a shade, but I've never needed to do that.

So, for me, the negatives are:

-music download time on slow Internet, particularly when we are provided scans of full score and parts music, which make massive files.
-battery charging, though this has not been a net negative.
-cost. I paid about what two of Joe's mouthpieces cost these days. Maybe 2-1/2. I save on not feeling the need to try every mouthpiece that is introduced. (quote from Henry Ford--if you need a machine and don't buy it, you'll pay for it anyway.)
-page turns--only one page is visible at a time.
-software can screw up. I have not had this problem with the ipad, but I haven't loaded with all the apps I put on my iphone. Apple products are particularly good at turning on fast and not locking up from flaky apps--the worst that happens is the app shut off and has to be restarted, but that has never happened for me with Forscore. The worst reliability problem for me was a page turner losing its connection, but I reverted to swipes and never missed a beat.

Positives are:

-outstanding clarity on dark stages and pits
-far better stability in wind
-much easier gig music organization
-much less music luggage
-page turns that don't require rearranging paper.

Rick "wasting money on cheapie tablets is expensive, because you'll still end up with an Ipad Pro 12.9" Denney

[bloke]

I continue to maintain that older 11x14 ENGRAVED sheet music (even if yellowed with age) is the easiest to read - particularly for people with not-particularly-great vision or oncoming cataracts.

I've read off tablets in emergency situations (folder missing, etc.)..."Backlighting" is annoying, and a poor substitute for (simply) "lighting".

New editions of standard symphonic works (ex: originally published in Europe by B&H, etc.) which are nothing more than 8.5 x 11 reduced-size xeroxes of originals (with two or three insignificant things changed, so as "copyright-able") are $h!tty, and (frankly) p!ss me off.

ex:
If (on the nice/engraved/old/tattered 11x14, there is a traditional caesura (not indicated by the composer nor in the original edition) - and a past musician has marked it clearly with two big double-lines (in pencil, etc.) that's FAR better than some tiny smaller-than-the-font unnoticeable comma in a sh!tty 8.5x11 newly-copyrighted xerox.

OK...
If the gig is just a bunch of donuts and quarter notes - and music is trite (ex: run-of-the-mill protestant religious gig music - with a whole bunch of bell tree noise, etc...), it doesn't make much difference. Go ahead and hand me a tablet...(but I'm not going to buy one).

[JESimmons]

For the Chromebook, I use Mobile Sheets. For each piece, I can file it as church, community band, or brass choir. I can also file it as trombone, bass trombone, or tuba. Plus for a concert I can set up a name, usually the date, and arrange the pieces for that concert in order. The foot pedal works well if I can hit it with my foot, ha, or touching the page on the left or right edge turns the page.
I also installed the Tonal Energy app which includes a tuner with drones and it will actually work with the lower tuba notes and trombone pedals. You can select the instrument sound for the drone so you don’t have to deal as much with timbre differences.

[Kirley]

You can always find reasons not to do something.

Love it.

[kingrob76]

Even this guy has gotten around to using an iPad for his important stuff.