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...

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 🙂

rogerch

twocats Thanks twocats, that is helpful! I should quit doing internet research and asking questions and try out some of the apps on my current iPad to see for myself. 🙂

twocats

rogerch happy to help! I think most apps have a free trial 🙂

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.

MRC

It's worth mentioning that there is a huge library of scores on IMSLP, including critical editions such as the Bärenreiter Neue Mozart Ausgabe. There's also a growing number of scans of first editions and composers' manuscripts.

I've cropped thousands of pages with ForScore: it's no big deal. I've set up a gesture (press and hold with three fingers) which brings me directly to the crop screen. ForScore immediately and automatically crops away any empty margins. It's usually fine like this, but if I want, I can adjust it manually. Staying in the crop function, I go through the score and crop each page in turn, then save the whole piece. It's a matter of seconds for each page.

BartK

I was considering going digital but I already invested a lot into paper sheet music. If I have Henle books do I have to buy the scores again digitally?

I have a very old tablet but I doubt it will be good enough for reading sheet music. For personal reasons I have a deep dislike of Apple products (no offense to the fanboys 🤣) and I'd like to know if anyone has some different tablet suggestions for that purpose.

bSharp

BartK I'm not a fan of Apple either, but I do have an Ipad Pro. The only thing I use it for is ForScore. If Android supported it, I would have probably got a Samsung tablet. I recall reading thought that the Samsung has an aspect ratio that wasn't ideal vs the Ipad. That what was a while back and could certainly be different now. Even so, if I got Android instead of Ipad, the tablet would only be used to read music.

Note, you can run pianoteq on an Ipad and I've played with that from time to time, but not consistently to say it's a use case for my Ipad.

ErfurtBob

BartK I am using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 + with Mobilesheets, and very satisfied with it. Especially since playing in a Big Band with lots of music and some of the songs having 8-10 sheets of music. (This was the reason I started using a tablet). I use a Moukey bluetooth pedal with some delay set up, so I don't accidentally turn 2 pages in a row.

twocats

BartK If I have Henle books do I have to buy the scores again digitally?

Unfortunately yes, unless you scan them in.

BartK For personal reasons I have a deep dislike of Apple products (no offense to the fanboys 🤣) and I'd like to know if anyone has some different tablet suggestions for that purpose.

The Mobilesheets app is good, and that's what I used on the e-reader. I actually prefer some of its features to forScore but I already had the latter paid for on my iPad a long time back. Perhaps a Samsung tablet? I heard they make good ones and I'm very happy with their phones.

Sgisela

BartK If I have Henle books do I have to buy the scores again digitally?

What I do with my books is I use a scanning app on my phone or tablet to take a picture of the sheet music and then convert it into a pdf. Forscore and Newzik both have a scanner built in as well… not sure about MobileSheets. But I find the dedicated scanner apps give me better results with not much more work. Anyways, I don’t scan the whole book, just any pieces I’m going to work on. But over time, the library builds up!

FrankCox

I use a Samsung tablet and Mobilesheets.

Wouldn't be without it.

I can find stuff instantly rather than fanning through a pile of paper, "I know it's in here somewhere" flip flip flip...

My wife appreciates the lack of piles of paper on and around my piano.

When I did my little Christmas concert at the dementia home I just carried my tablet along with me and had "everything".

What's not to like?

FrankCox

It occurs to me that i took a picture of my tablet on my piano the other day for someone else who asked what it looks ike.

Here's the photo.

Gosh, it actually worked. 😃

PatG

I had an old smaller iPad with ForScore on it. I had printer scanned all my lesson music onto it, but it was too small for me to read. A couple of weeks ago I bought a refurbished 2018 iPad Pro 12.9, a Donner wireless page turner foot pedal and a 2nd generation generic pencil. I'm loving this setup. I got everything from my old iPad moved to the new one without a problem. I have taken it to lessons the last two weeks. Because sometimes I forgot things my teacher has said, I asked her if it was all right to tape our lessons. So now I use Voice Memos for that. You do need to remember to turn that off when you are done with your lesson (ha, ha). Currently I am taking my physical music just in case. The evening of my lesson I do take notes from the Voice Memo recording. I really like being able to do this.
I'm still getting used to using the foot pedal. For most pieces I leave it on turning the whole page, but one piece with 6 pages I use the half page turning. As I was having trouble remembering just when to hit the pedal I put a marking in the margin just when I need to pedal. You also have to remember to hit the page turner pedal and not the piano pedal (Ha, Ha). I did that once or twice when I first started using it.
I also put the name of the book that the piece of music came from into ForScore under Reference. I have the Composer, Genre and under Label I have the date I finished the piece with my teacher plus the Key of the piece. I also have all scanned music saved to the cloud as well as the full backup of ForScore.
There's this one piece "Love Theme" by Catherine Rollin that has D.S. al Coda and then to Coda. So in ForScore I copied the pages and then deleted the parts I didn't need. So now I use the full page turning without having to go back and just see what I need to play. Pretty Cool!

ShiroKuro

I also switched to digital scores many years ago. Now I use an iPad Pro and a bluetooth foot pedal. The rare times I play something from a paper score, I find myself tapping the pedal and wondering why the page doesn't turn! 😃

I still often buy paper scores and make PDFs of the pieces I want, although depending on the piece, I sometimes just by the digital version.

If money and tech were no object (tho they both are) I would love to have a bi-fold digital score reader so I could see two pages at once.

twocats

ShiroKuro If money and tech were no object (tho they both are) I would love to have a bi-fold digital score reader so I could see two pages at once.

I actually looked into this, but it costs too much and also then you have to charge two devices and it just seems like a lot of hassle.

There are rumors of a 16" iPad in a couple of years though! Depending on the height in landscape mode it could be a possible option!

MRC

ShiroKuro If money and tech were no object (tho they both are) I would love to have a bi-fold digital score reader so I could see two pages at once.

twocats I actually looked into this, but it costs too much and also then you have to charge two devices and it just seems like a lot of hassle

In 2020, when we cancelled our summer holiday because of Covid, I used some of the money we saved to buy a second iPad. Since then I've played many concerts using both iPads with ForScore. It's no hassle and the dual page feature in ForScore is very robust: I've never had a problem in a concert.

Here's what it looks like:

ShiroKuro

twocats but it costs too much

Yep. 🙁

twocats There are rumors of a 16" iPad in a couple of years though! Depending on the height in landscape mode it could be a possible option!

Oooh, that could be promising!

Pallas

twocats I have the largest iPad currently on the market, and no lie it was terribly expensive, but I just have to rotate the tablet and I get a 2-page spread that's completely readable to a nearsighted person on an upright. Maybe if my music desk were farther away, as on a grand, it would not be readable. When my music reaches three pages, I'll have to decide between a pedal, a subscription so I can use the gesture turning, or print and pin across a couple of manila folders.

FrankCox

Mobilesheets has face gestures (though I've never used them) and works on Ipads.

Pallas

FrankCox Very Good to know! May my skills improve quickly enough that I need to soon decide which thingy to use! 😃

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