I was at a concert Sunday. It was a piano trio. The violinist and cellist came out carrying regular sheet music that they put on regular music stands. The pianist (Wu Han) came out carrying what looked like a tablet PC and another object that she put on the floor next to the pedals. No sheet music and no page turner. I guess the next step is to replace the music stands by tablet PCs.
Will sheet music go the way of the printed book?
Seeing as the printed book is still very much here…
Some might find it worth the hassle. Some won’t.
I’m pretty sure this is already happening. Electronic sheet music has many advantages over print. Page turning can be controlled by the conductor or by foot pedal. Keys can be changed with a keystroke.
Yeah. I haven’t really played from sheet music in awhile, nor do I have a tablet/iPad, but one of the reasons I’ve considered getting an iPad is to keep sheet music and chord changes on it. It seems sooooo much more convenient than sheet music, especially when you get a giant collection of songs that requires you to heavily crease the spine to keep it open on your piano stand. And turning pages should be so much easier with a touchscreen or (better yet) pedal, so finding a good spot to turn the page should be easier and you don’t have to worry about the page not sticking to your finger when you turn (or even flying off the stand if you have sheet music where the interior pages are loose.)
And I didn’t even think about the auto-key change possibilities. For someone who is not a great on-the-fly transposer like me (that is, I’m not a great on-the-fly transposer), that’d be awesome.
It would be nice for kids in school band not to have to keep track of that goddamn pencil!
My middle school director (RIP) used to say “If you don’t have a pencil, look on the floor - I’m sure some rich kid has dropped one there.”
Band I worked with on Saturday that had replaced all of their sheet music with an I-Pad app. The band leader told me that it saves time and money. He can download, make changes and email the charts to the band, no more going to the music shop, making changes, cut, paste and print. They all had holders for the pads on their mic stands, no more sheet music stands either.
Capt
In the circles I work in, the iRealB app is king. Seems like more and more players are using a tablet or phone to read from.
It’s saved my bacon a fair few times when some singer whips a song out of nowhere and wants in some odd key.
Harry Connick Jr has been using computer monitors for his band for years. They can program their own page turns, make updates etc. He’s probably on tablets now, I would reckon. I can only imagine the chaos if his system went down.
I guess what is new is that it is coming to the classical stage. I had not seen it before and didn’t realize how much it was already used. Interesting.
I’ve played piano with an iPad for a while now, and I actually find playing off printed music feels quite strange! I use the Forscore app and downloaded my classical music from pianostreet.
The Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra stopped using sheet music in favor of tablets last November.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57546915-1/orchestra-swaps-sheet-music-for-the-galaxy-note-10.1/