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carrying music scores on your "device"


shelly0312

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I guess this is a mote point for all you great "ear" players and memorizers. But has anyone started carrying their music scores on their laptops or Ipads?? I'm thinking instead of 4 folders to go to the cabin (of the 12 I now store at home...) maybe I could suck that all into the "cloud" and access on the new Ipad I just ordered?? Think I can clear out my Audacity folders this way? Anyone have a good music score app that they use? Shelly

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I guess this is a mote point for all you great "ear" players and memorizers. But has anyone started carrying their music scores on their laptops or Ipads?? I'm thinking instead of 4 folders to go to the cabin (of the 12 I now store at home...) maybe I could suck that all into the "cloud" and access on the new Ipad I just ordered?? Think I can clear out my Audacity folders this way? Anyone have a good music score app that they use? Shelly

 

I use TUnebook for the iphone and ipad to store ABC files and render them into standard notation. I have maybe 300 tunes I can access easily on either device, and sometimes use it when when I'm asked to play a tune I don't remember.

 

But lately, on my ipad, I've started relying more on PDFs, and using an app like Goodreader to access them. That way, I can include tunes I've scanned from written notation or ABCs I turn into PDFs using the Tune-O-Matic here on c.net.

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Hi

if your scores (small ones that don't occupy more space than a paperback page) can be turned into pdfs then they can also be stored on a Kindle - you do need reasonable eyesight tho'

you can keep set lists and song words on a Kindle by turning the list into pdf

chris

Edited by chris
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Hi

if your scores (small ones that don't occupy more space than a paperback page) can be turned into pdfs then they can also be stored on a Kindle - you do need reasonable eyesight tho'

you can keep set lists and song words on a Kindle by turning the list into pdf

chris

 

That gives me an idea

I have an ABC crib sheet (just the first few bars of each tune).

I will try emailing to the kindle (or run it through Calibre) and see how it turns out (I was just going to pdf it, but if it's put into kinfle form it can use all the font scaling stuff. I'll let you know how it gets on (after all you can get book reading apps for the other devices)

(I do have pdf's of the dots for some tunes on the kindle but haven't made the effort to get many there yet)

 

Chris

 

Edited to add that I have just sent the word document that is my ABC crib sheet to the kindle and the results are excellent!

Edited by spindizzy
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Hi

if your scores (small ones that don't occupy more space than a paperback page) can be turned into pdfs then they can also be stored on a Kindle - you do need reasonable eyesight tho'

you can keep set lists and song words on a Kindle by turning the list into pdf

chris

 

That gives me an idea

I have an ABC crib sheet (just the first few bars of each tune).

I will try emailing to the kindle (or run it through Calibre) and see how it turns out (I was just going to pdf it, but if it's put into kinfle form it can use all the font scaling stuff. I'll let you know how it gets on (after all you can get book reading apps for the other devices)

(I do have pdf's of the dots for some tunes on the kindle but haven't made the effort to get many there yet)

 

Chris

 

Edited to add that I have just sent the word document that is my ABC crib sheet to the kindle and the results are excellent!

V useful discussion Chris and others, as my arm muscles struggle ever more with cloth bag jammed with paper and scores and plastic folders and song books which I mix up and can't sort on the floor at my feet....

 

Am also told pdfs on the Kindle are pretty unreadable.

R u saying you are putting just the letters of the ABC through or the dots as they appear on first submitting through tuneotron or whatever?

Be interesting to see a photo of the Word doc which you are seeing so well on the Kindle... please?

Can u beam it over?

 

Which takes me to next question to eliminate paper:

There are 10 musicians (with green ale bottles obviously)sitting on wall outside the hyper-speed radio broadband enabled control room of the Lovell telescope.

One says - "I have jusshtt wrote thish great new tune, "Shtartel". It goes something like "Dwink up, dwink up, little shhhtaar...." Anyone want the dots and midi to take home?

(let's put to side the learn by ear issue...).

 

I am told (by my adjacent expert) you can web access from some web-enabled Kindles but navigation is 'awful -like trying to swim The Channel wearing only water wings'. Nor can they download onto a memory stick from their Ipad (it has no usb socket) to pass that stick round the group.

 

That said, if the 10 have some kind of web enabled device then presumably the composer could put the dots and midi immediately up on Cnet and the others would then log in and just download it from Cnet.

 

If photoed earlier with their mobile phone (or do it there and then from the single sheet of paper in their pocket ) they could phone-send it to others directly (but number-cumbersome for 10 present and murder if there were 50 musicians in the room as at EMCW Scout Hall).

 

Or if there are smartphones then use the upload to Cnet approach. The "ear" midi version could be similarly uploaded for those who glaze over at just the dots (such as myself after 10 green bottles....)

 

At Eurosessions at Whitby, where unusual toons turned up regularly on the hoof, sometimes they had been printed out (before Whitby) and were passed around the room. Folk could have a gander at the dots and then they got played a few tunes later, led by the lead player/singer; or or work on toon for playing the next day....or just to take em home.

It was noticeable that when people had the dots (even just to follow the up and down flow as it was played first time by the originator, by the second run through, 80 per cent of the room were playing along and by the third run through there were few who did not have it under control and thoroughly enjoying it. At Anglesey, where generally a piece only got played through twice (and without dots distributed) when it was a little known, new tune it meant just a few people managed to get fully on board before the playing was over, which was a great pity.

 

Perhaps the e-approach would be more efficient for the e-equipped, ensure new toons got more 'use and exposure' and better retention in the 'collective memory' and certainly save a lot of finding, setting up and printing out.

It would also save writing down email addresses on scraps of paper to send them aftet getting home == if you still have the scrap of paper.

Any other e=dissemination possibles?

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Edited by Kautilya
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Am also told pdfs on the Kindle are pretty unreadable.

 

They can be....

A pdf is like a picture, you can scale it on the kindle so that the whole thing fits on the screen ... if the rpint is small that's usually unreadable... or you can zoom in on it, which means you can only read a bit at a time and have to keep moving the magnifying glass around whcih is a bit slow and awkward.

But if you take a simple tune and make a pdf of the score it will fit like this (on the standard 6" kindle screen) The screen is much crisper than shown here - I was defeated by the technology of trying take photos in low light with no flash!)

post-758-0-32633700-1335384634_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

R u saying you are putting just the letters of the ABC through or the dots as they appear on first submitting through tuneotron or whatever?

Be interesting to see a photo of the Word doc which you are seeing so well on the Kindle... please?

Can u beam it over?

A word document can be converted to the native kindle book format just by emailing it to your kindle (free for kindle on wifi) which means that you can use big or little fonts and it repages itself , puts in line breaks in sensible places etc ie redoes the typesetting , and you can page through the document like a book. ... small font

post-758-0-74001200-1335384679_thumb.jpg

 

slightly larger font (on the largest font one crib sheet line takes a whole page)

post-758-0-77017600-1335384696_thumb.jpg

 

 

Which takes me to next question to eliminate paper:

There are 10 musicians (with green ale bottles obviously)sitting on wall outside the hyper-speed radio broadband enabled control room of the Lovell telescope.

 

Sadly your idea falls down on the small fact that the telescope is in a "radio quiet" zone where we ceaselessly try to keep down the radio equivalent of optical astronomers light pollution, by jumping up and down on the mobile phones of visitors if they leave them switched on and smashing wifi enabled iPads with big hammers (OK - we ask people nicely to turn them off, but I can dream) ph34r.gif

 

A nice idea though, to pass round tunes at the click of a button. I notice something like this at sessions where a few people are using Tunepal to name a a tune , so they can note it down for learning later, or get a set of dots (for those that use them).

 

Chris

... and putting this email together was so geeky, that I'd better play tunes all evening to recover!

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At Paul Hardy's 'slow' session - Greenshoots, in the Black Horse in Melbourn (Cambs) - one of the ladies does have all the PDFs on an Ipad with a very nice dedicated stand and it works well. If I had an Ipad I would do the same!

 

David

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A word document can be converted to the native kindle book format just by emailing it to your kindle (free for kindle on wifi) which means that you can use big or little fonts and it repages itself , puts in line breaks in sensible places etc ie redoes the typesetting , and you can page through the document like a book. ... small font

 

post-758-0-74001200-1335384679_thumb.jpg

 

 

Chris

... and putting this email together was so geeky, that I'd better play tunes all evening to recover!

I do not fear Geekesses bearing gifts!

I understood that a few Green bottles discreetly handed around "The Bridge" -- "You have the Con (certina) Ms Spinemdizzy" -- usually overcame this issue!

 

OK:

- alas the ABC letters per se would not help me forward that much.

But what happens if you put the dots into Kindle (the model we have has no wifi it seems), as they appear in non pdf after first submit in tunetron?

(forgotten how make this show up on screen like you - sorry.)

e.g.

 

would that be readable?

And of course most ABC toons in this format are much shorter so easier to fit and blow up (perhaps they can be turned on their side to view.

Kindle can allegedly play back tunes pretending to be audio books (true or fale? ) so would the midi file store and open too ? One could then hear through an earpiece to recall the melody.

 

Getting excited as one would soon get Kindle cost back in savings on time and printing dots out on paper).

 

Two years ago at Anglesey, accordion/melodica player/singer George had loads of lyrics on his phone screen and two people could read em clear enough to duet. I have found that Japanese and Chinese make far more use of this kind of phone facility - partly perhaps because Japanese i-mode was around long before any equivalent in Europe. Chinese use particuarly for translating to and from Eng/Chinese pictograms with pronunciation thrown in.

 

Await your next display to Kindle my fire :)

ta.

PS I wish I had a bigger screen so I could read the tiny fonts I have to use here -- and so avoid typos!

Edited by Kautilya
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e.g.

 

 

Ask and it shall be given. (you must have a kindle 1 or 2 if there's no wifi - guess you can email to a PC/Mac App to get a doc translated - or download "Calibre", then drag onto the kindle via the usb port)

post-758-0-17640400-1335441325_thumb.jpg

 

 

There's a very nice large screen kindle (the kindle DX with a 10" screen ie nearly A4) only available in the US, but apparently musicians are using this to display sheet musicand you can even get a foot pedal operated page turner - all very expensive.

 

Soundwise.... the kindle 3 (but not the latest kindle 4) will play mp3's on a headphone socket (I've never bothered) or read books aloud (ditto), but this is a text to voice program and not briliiant, sounds like a cross between stephen hawking and a satnav. It wouldn't play sheet music, though there's a computer in all these things and a few hacks are available to do other things. Ideally someone needs to write a Tune-a-tron App - but I think an IPad would be a better bet for that.

Chris

 

 

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e.g.

 

 

Ask and it shall be given. (you must have a kindle 1 or 2 if there's no wifi - guess you can email to a PC/Mac App to get a doc translated - or download "Calibre", then drag onto the kindle via the usb port)

post-758-0-17640400-1335441325_thumb.jpg

 

 

There's a very nice large screen kindle (the kindle DX with a 10" screen ie nearly A4) only available in the US, but apparently musicians are using this to display sheet musicand you can even get a foot pedal operated page turner - all very expensive.

 

Soundwise.... the kindle 3 (but not the latest kindle 4) will play mp3's on a headphone socket (I've never bothered) or read books aloud (ditto), but this is a text to voice program and not briliiant, sounds like a cross between stephen hawking and a satnav. It wouldn't play sheet music, though there's a computer in all these things and a few hacks are available to do other things. Ideally someone needs to write a Tune-a-tron App - but I think an IPad would be a better bet for that.

Chris

Brill! How else can I tku but with this....?:

http://youtu.be/paeUZvhs9wo

 

ps - good example of how difficult doing something simple is.

I had to stop making mistakes playing (ho ho), record, put sd card from zoom into laptop, download into windows moveiemaker, title it to trick utube into thinking it was a video, edit out 90 per cent (mistakes!!)save it as a movie file, open it in a video converter to turn into an mp3, spend 10 minutes while cnet refused to accept the mp3 attachment (I thought it c/should....) go out to get bread and milk, start again by trying to rename the file and upload to cnet and fail again. Go back to the wmv moviemaker file, check there was no copyright issue (written in 1939 so that's ok!) go to utube, log in, upload to utube...

So roll on radio transfers!

But of course this was done for lurve not profit!

 

 

and finally.

This is going back 20 years.

Take one fm radio with built-in casette player/recorder.

Put a GBP11.95 (bought on Brick Lane market) radio microphone in conference room and turn on before the meeting starts.

Retire to work rooms in the basement of the palace (Brussels).

Take off suit jacket and tie, pour a glass of wine, light up your ciggy, sample a few sandwiches provided for de workers, sit in comfortable chair, tune in the radio (I think it is 98.4) and you can listen to the conference in complete comfort and make notes to write up the official rapport of the meeting later. And the signal reached through two concrete floors if I remember correctly and about 20 yards distance.

And it seems now you can do it singing in the rain! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MICROPHONE-FM-SHOWER-RADIO-PINK-Chrome-Waterproof-/220960302545?pt=UK_AudioVisualElectronics_PortableAudio_Radios&hash=item337242a5d1

 

You can adapt this strategy where you want to archive three sessions going on (or at a multi-session festival from the "command room") by putting a mic in all three and record em (and monitor with an earpiece in your own session simultaneously).

Now whether three or more radio signals from three or more mics can be handled by one wifi-ed laptop instead of radio and cassette is summat I don't know... :ph34r: :unsure:

I must check out with my guru who built this little operation with a "correlator" which brings all the note signals together and sorts em as they come in from Little Green Squeezers pulsarating across the IGCA (InterGalactic Concertina Association- a new member group of the ICA). After the "GMRT"'s 30 horns have swung into play (some say it is the Galactic Music Radio Transmission service) and fed the correlator the notes are turned into dots on a screen!

 

There are 30 of these little earth fellahs over a distance of 25km (photo half way down first page)

http://www.trekdi.com/index.php?option=com_seminar&Itemid=142&task=3&cid=154

 

And that radio signal correlator:

http://www.gmrt.ncra.tifr.res.in/gmrt_hpage/sub_system/corr/IMH/main/frames.html

 

This is further proof that the first messages from space will be from green squeezers playing Twinkle, twinkle on a concertina. :D

 

For new cnet members there is a range of pictures of concertinas in space scattered across the forum - really! :)

Edited by Kautilya
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There are 30 of these little earth fellahs over a distance of 25km (photo half way down first page)

http://www.trekdi.co...&task=3&cid=154

 

And that radio signal correlator:

http://www.gmrt.ncra...ain/frames.html

 

 

Ah yes GMRT, Yep, that's exactly what the paid job deals with ...

or nearer home WSRT , Effelsberg and Nancay - we're running some joint observations with them over the weekend.

But we digress... and I play tunes to escape from correlators (which are big and bad and very hard work)

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There are 30 of these little earth fellahs over a distance of 25km (photo half way down first page)

http://www.trekdi.co...&task=3&cid=154

 

And that radio signal correlator:

http://www.gmrt.ncra...ain/frames.html

 

 

Ah yes GMRT, Yep, that's exactly what the paid job deals with ...

 

But we digress... and I play tunes to escape from correlators (which are big and bad and very hard work)

Yes digresshing but ve are leestening to YOO - yr Joone 2007 home reehearsal teena toons now beeing peeked up at sub-leesteneeng station DSSC (Dizzy Spin Star Cluster -- as named by u human alienns) in Small Magellanic Cloud!

But now, back to earth reealeetee. B)

Edited by Kautilya
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If you have your tunes in ABC and don't want to go with a text based cheat sheet you can use EasyABC to make a notation based cheat sheet to put in your iPad/Kindle/whatever. A very handy feature that...

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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Tunepal, which is great for Irish tunes - my apologies if I missed a reference. The program was developed by Bryan Duggan, a fine flute player, as his Phd. thesis. The App costs about $4. You can identify tunes by recording the first few bars (it's fairly accurate) or searching by title, save the identified file as either dots or ABCs, play the sound file of the tune, and store the tunes as midi, ABC, and a notated score on an iTouch, iPhone, or Android. It accesses many sources and presents options of different settings. You don't need access to the net once the tunes have been saved in your "My Tunes" file.

I do also have some tunes on Kindle but Tunepal on my iTouch is easier and quicker for me to manage. The dots are small and hard to read but since I use it mainly for reference this isn't an issue. And you can always listen to the midi version. I am very happy with this App.

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The recently reformed UK folk-rock band The Home Service now carry all of their brass arrangements onstage on iPads.

 

I mention this purely to share my favourite onstage announcement from last year, John Tams to the brass section:

 

' Remember lads, if we get to the end and you've got some notes left over ... don't play them!'

 

 

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My only issue is that I am constantly marking up and making notations, correcting erasing rearranging. My iPad is too luditish for this.

rss

 

OK, I'm living large and purchased and downloaded "forScore". (I am working with Ipad 2--pretty big sale with 3 just coming out.) Do not ask me how I did it, but I did download all of the Paul Hardy's Tune book onto my brand new Ipad. OMG !!!!! And I see instructions in this app that you CAN make notations on the pages; it allows you to rearrange pages; rearrange segments. It seems to have a lot interesting features. I'm waiting until I'm at work to print the 25 page insturction book. ssshhhhh! I found I was reading it word by word to do the first download. Then I scrabbled through my programs and e-mails to find ABC explorer. Tallship was so generous about queing me in on this program about a year ago. I futzed some but never properly used it. Now I'll see if I can use it to group all the great tunes from "something for the weekend"--again a lot of great material there from Tallship--and load that on the Pad. Most of my absolute favorites are from "something for the weekend". I am sooo excited. I can save my wrists for playing, not overtax them lugging backpacks full of music around! I am giddy! wwoo wooo rainy weekend work.

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