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music director:
"We're going to skip around on today' pops rehearsal, due to to the singers, who plays on what, (and/or whatever)."


bloke: (unspoken)
"That's fine, but - with my dry blue collar fingers, and while holding this $15000 - $25000 thing in my lap, please expect to wait for me to rifle through these in-order tunes to find the random ones (not given a rehearsal order in advance) that you choose to rehearse."


librarian:
"We encourage the use of tablets."


bloke: (unspoken)
"OK...so where's the tablet?...(I've already supplied the $15000 - $20000 musical instrument.)"

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 12:06 pm "OK...so where's the tablet?...(I've already supplied the $15000 - $20000 musical instrument.)"

As the violins smirk at you...

Mark wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 1:19 pm

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 12:06 pm "OK...so where's the tablet?...(I've already supplied the $15000 - $20000 musical instrument.)"

As the violins smirk at you...

I might not play in highfalutin enough orchestras for their fiddles to cost much more than my most expensive tuba...
...or - if they do - none of those players make enough dough fiddlin' to actually OWN the fiddles they use.

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 12:06 pm music director:
"We're going to skip around on today' pops rehearsal, due to to the singers, who plays on what, (and/or whatever)."

Arrrg. I just had this happen and it went like this:

music director:
We are now going to rehearse the piece...GO!

half the orchestra
Wait, wait!

We encourage the use of tablets. Preferably sedatives.

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 12:06 pm
librarian:
"We encourage the use of tablets."

Tablet is really convenient for holding a huge music library. Except my middle aged eyes can't read my tablet at music stand distance. Even if I could read it, a tablet is nowhere near as convenient as a binder with my charts in rehearsal/gig order.

.

As soon as my group supplies me with a tablet, I'll be happy to use one.

If there's an 11x14 screen tablet, and the page COMPLETELY resembles the engraved sheet music that was scanned (rather than being "light in my face"), and the battery lasts 40 hours per charge. I might by one - if under $100.

Don't forget the foot switch to turn pages.

.

Precisely, and now you completely understand my level of interest in owning a tablet.

.

You're all welcome to continue to use your paper music, it works just fine. So do rotary phones, cassette tapes, and dial-up internet. I will argue, however, that tablets offer enough advantages that I will always find useful and worth the "hassle" of keeping around.

As I age (57 next month) I find that playing in lower lighting is now a challenge where it wasn't before. My iPad solves that. My iPad screen measures 8" by 10.5" and considering I can crop to the edge I have plenty of real estate with which to work. Despite being 7 or 8 years old, the battery will give me 3-4 hours easily if I run just under full brightness and longer if I dim down to a lower level. I can mark, erase, re-mark music with my finger or an Apple pencil. I have everything I've performed on there in the past 7 years, with my markings. I can turn pages with a foot pedal OR via a button on my horn. I have to charge the foot pedal maybe 2-3x a year. I can also just touch the screen to turn pages. Outdoor concert? Buffalo herd through the tuba section? Waterproof, shockproof case.

I carry a ProTec triple trumpet bag with all my "stuff" - music stand, tuba stand, iPad, mouthpiece(s), tuner, pedal, pencil, analog folder, water, towel, valve oil, etc... and I only use that bag because of the excessive padding - I could easily use a duffel bag. My "kit" allows me deal with whatever comes up and is easily carried in my hand (I was built to run through walls) and slides under my chair at rehearsal.

I can tether my iPad to my phone and grab the bass part for that Elgar cello concerto at a break in rehearsal from IMSLP because it might be useful to see what the hell the arranger was thinking when he transcribed it for bass clarinet and wind ensemble because holy crap this part makes no sense.

The flexibility and convenience afforded me far exceeds the value of the simplicity of an analog folder on a wire stand, which work just fine.

I showed Mrs. bloke that under-$200 large tablet, and she said, "You don't need that. While you would be learning how to use it, you would be cussin' a streak, and not gettin' your work done."

I've read off of tablets when the librarian screwed up, didn't have my part (typically, at a pops concert when there are so many charts) and also didn't have a printer at the hall - like they were supposed to. The backlit screen bothers my eyes, and - if I turn it down one level - I can't see it, like I can of piece of paper.

Again, it's maybe one technology too far. Maybe one of those "just because we can" things, you know: like an electric car... but - now that they've switched to those wireless stand lights - the same hazard is in place, which is "dealing with batteries".

8-1/2 X 11 copies are a huge downgrade from 9x12 printed, and tablets are yet another downgrade.

I guess I've become an old fogey. Can't connect a tablet to my smart phone because I don't have a smart phone and don't want one.

But -- I can still see in the dark at 74; people around me using stand lights and I'm fine. I guess it's nice to have at least one thing that is still working well.

I doubt that any person in this thread takes issue with other people´s choice of gear.
Everybody has their personal reason for that choice.

Problems arise if those preferences do not line up with an increasing populace´s "modus operandi".
It is quite customary, NOWADAYS, to receive eMail with pdf files of parts for upcoming music projects.
(or, rather, to receive links to some kind of cloud storage entity).

What one chooses to do with those files (open on / download to tablet or print out to paper) is totally up to the individual.
But I can totally understand a groan from a librarian (again: NOWADAYS, not 25 years ago) if You insist they print out those paper copies, bag them and take them to a post office b/c you (understandably) chose not to hook up to modern technology in the form of an eMail account.

I am hereby outing myself as a stubborn user of paper sheet music. BUT:
Were I to shop for a new laptop/computer/thingie for general home use, I might consider a system change and acquire a tablet which might allow me to adapt to evolving situations.

I prefer reading paper but had to compromise. I bought a refurbished Chrome book on eBay for $50 to try electronics. My church group has several hundred pieces, and the director is likely to call any of them at a rehearsal. The Chromebook makes those pieces easy to find. When she finally decides what we'll play, I print them out and read from paper.

Tubeast made the best statement, and I think I sort of made it earlier.

For me - for multiple reasons - sheet music is the best, particularly if it's printed, and not a scanned copy (which typically is illegal). If it gets torn, I can fix it. I can even fix it without tape, if I'm reasonably careful with some Titebond glue. If my sheet music falls in a puddle of condensed water under my tuba, it will dry out. If a tablet gets knocked off of the stand, not only could it hit my tuba on the way down, but it might well end up broken.

For these reasons, I just don't want to spend what (certainly) a name brand tablet costs today, and certainly not what an extra extra large tablet (offering large enough font for someone as myself) - that is name brand - costs today. I already have sheet music, and no one is going to steal the sheet music out of the passenger seat of my car.

I also have a paid-for car that's been really reliable, only cost me a few thousand dollars used in the first place, and gets about 40 miles per gallon most the time, because I live in the country and mostly drive longer distances. I don't think I need to spend $75,000 on an all-electric battery car (as tablets are battery tablets) that might possibly cost just a little bit less to fuel up with electricity than I'm paying for currently $3 a gallon gasoline...yet the $75,000 to buy the battery car, and/or the several hundred dollars to buy the electric tablet. (and - unlike what talking heads are told to tell us - there are hundreds and hundreds of years worth of petroleum remaining under the ground that are known, and - the more that's sought - the MUCH more that's found.) I don't do very much driving, except to gigs, because I'm perfectly happy here, so my overall fuel cost isn't very high anyway, and the future isn't looking very bright for all electric cars (as is not the present collective experience with them - neither what mining their battery material does to the environment, what it's doing in regards to human rights, and to how these batteries behave when they are just a little bit stressed).

I understand that gadgetry and fun and such - as is being in vogue... and conforming to en vogue ways (as well as conforming to en vogue socio-political pro-tyranny group-think mores, etc.) always tends to be reassuring, but I'm not even a person who particularly has a lot of gadgets that I use to repair musical instruments. Mostly, I use common simple tools and my hands. I believe I'm pretty fast... as is my 40 MPG paid for car.