Digital score with Bluetooth pedal

twocats · 2024-05-27T15:50:01+00:00

I switched from paper scores almost exactly a year ago while preparing a major chamber music piece for a workshop and it has changed my life. I don't think...

Pallas

I have the latest, largest iPad pro with pencil and ForScore. I take the time to scan in my paper scores rather than rebuy them in PDF, but I buy a lot of sheet music online in PDF, which is great. I have not learned any piece that's longer than two pages so I don't have a page turning pedal yet, but I will get one when I need one. I love being able to make layers and layers of notes that can be easily changed without eraser crumbs everywhere, and I love being able to turn layers on and off. I enjoy making practice playlists using bookmarks so I don't have to navigate very much during practice. I have a modest number of paper books, and when I can finally play original classical works, I'll buy the Henle PDFs. I'm glad to hear that they're cheaper than the paper. I honestly wish I could find every scrap of music I have in digital format and not have any paper in the studio at all, but alas, if I want that, I'll have some scanning work to do. I bought two 2T backup drives and run my whole house and business as paperless as possible.

twocats

Pallas when I can finally play original classical works, I'll buy the Henle PDFs. I'm glad to hear that they're cheaper than the paper

I find the digital scores to be around 30% of the original price, if I buy credits at a discount. And you don't have to buy the whole book, you can buy individual pieces! Since my latest chamber piece is 70+ pages (this sounds much longer than it is, because the piano part also shows all the string parts), there was no way I was going to scan it (and I wanted the cleanest score possible) and I paid for it twice, but going forward I'll save money!

Pallas

twocats I would not want to scan 70 pages, and would buy it twice too!

Jane

Another nice thing about forScore is that if I'm studying something with microscopic filigree notes (you know who you are, Mr. Chopin!) I can turn the tablet on its side so it stretches so that half a page fills the whole screen. And can then zoom portions of that if needed.

Sgisela

I will mention that Forscore and Newzik (which is what I use) both have a ‘half page’ turn feature, where you can advance and see the top half of the next page while seeing the bottom half of the first page. I find this is useful for practicing around page turns (that way I don’t have to press the pedal right at the page turn to see the next page). However, it’s clunky for performance, as it means you’re using the pedal twice as much. Anyways, it took me a while to realize this feature is available, and I definitely make use of it.

twocats

Sgisela I will mention that Forscore and Newzik (which is what I use) both have a ‘half page’ turn feature

I'm going to look into this today and see if I like it! It may solve some issues like trying to turn pages while doing una corda and I can just turn it during a break.

twocats

Sgisela ‘half page’ turn feature

I tried this today and it was helpful to practice a page transition! I would never use it to play through a whole piece though.

danno858

I started using ForScore as well just a couple months ago and use it with my iPad Pro - I was able to train it to turn pages using facial expressions - or really it trained me but it works well. I just don’t like having to pay $10 a year to have the ability but I guess all things considered it’s worth it

twocats

danno858 I just don’t like having to pay $10 a year to have the ability but I guess all things considered it’s worth it

I haven't looked into this but is it a subscription app to use facial expressions?

danno858

twocats yes it is. $9.99 a year. But you can try for one month at a time for I think $2.99. I tried it for month and was hooked. So I bought a one year subscription

twocats

danno858 what's it called? I may look into this at some point, but not at the moment, weeks before my workshop.

danno858

twocats ForScore

twocats

danno858 oh I see, I do use forScore but I had to look pretty hard to find the subscription upgrade for Pro which has gesture support. I'll look into it for the future, can certainly think of worse things to spend $10/year on!

danno858

twocats I kept having bad luck with a Bluetooth pedal. So I decided to try forScore because I read somewhere it worked well with face gestures.

What’s nice too is I can save sheet music I buy with the Henle app in pdf format and then upload into forScore.

Jane

Confession time...
I use forScore to add fingerings very neatly to my scores.
Then export as PDF.
And then PRINT them and put the pages on my music stand to play. 🙄

danno858

Jane I still use paper as well. But I like the auto page turn function so much

twocats

Jane I use forScore to add fingerings very neatly to my scores.
Then export as PDF.
And then PRINT them and put the pages on my music stand to play. 🙄

Hahaha! My fingerings are scribbled not so neatly in. But if I think it doesn't look good enough, at least it's easy to cleanly delete and rewrite! 🙂

Jane

twocats
I use the numbers from the annotation stamps palette. It's tedious but looks nice once it's done.

@Dan - most of the pieces I print out are 4 pages or less so I can kinda put them all side-by-side on the music rest. No page turns is easier than easy page turns!
Although I also printed out a 10-page piece I was working on last year.

Here's an example page:

Pallas

Jane I use the numbers from the annotation stamps palette. It's tedious but looks nice once it's done.

Oh. My. Goodness. Thank you for mentioning this. I've just been scribbling, and I'm going to try this right away. Thank you.

Jane

Pallas
A few things I need to scribble free-hand, like the red line in measure 71 reminding me to take the D with the right hand. Although I used the stamps to add the "m.d." next to the note.

As a hint - if you're lining up numbers vertically for a chord, the ruler tool in forScore can help the alignment.

rogerch

Thanks for this thread! I've been buying big anthologies of sheet music such as https://www.halleonard.com/product/50601558/the-giant-book-of-intermediate-classical-piano-music for sight-reading practice, and the page turns are a real bummer. Prior to buying my most recent anthology I spent some time researching digital sheet music but it got complicated so I gave up and just ordered the printed book. This thread has inspired me to take the time for research so I can transition to digital before I need to order more sight reading material.

I'm locked into the Apple ecosystem so I will either use my old iPad Pro or more likely get a new one. forScore looks pretty good as it uses iCloud for storage, but twocats's note about having to crop every page when importing is giving me pause. These books I'm using for sight reading have hundreds of pages! I don't want to resize them all! Does newzik also require cropping? What about other apps? Is this issue somehow specific to Henle sheet music?

Thanks!!

twocats

rogerch the Henle exports have an empty space border (I guess actual paper pages also do) as well as a line of text at the bottom with the Henle source info. I could definitely still read it without cropping but I want to minimize the dead space if possible. You could always do a gentle crop on one page and then "copy to all". In my case I really want the crop as tight as possible so I have to do it manually.

I think the 12.9" iPad is a decent size but if they come out with a bigger one, I'd definitely be tempted to upgrade... depending on the price tag 🙂