How widespread is iPad use?

[tubanh84]

My normal joking aside, I generally don't consider myself a technological dinosaur. I'm a solid older millennial who tries to keep up with technology. But I have spent the last ten years or so mostly keeping to myself musically and working on things I already have or out of my daughter's violin books.

All that said. I still use a music stand and sheet music.

Every time I go to a concert or recital, though, it seems like the soloists/performers are working off of iPads. I can definitely see the benefits, especially for piano and string players who have both hands occupied. I can I can think of a few awkward page turns I've had in performances where an iPad with a foot button(?) would be useful.

So general question - How pervasive is iPad use vs sheet music these days? And what programs/apps/physical add-ons do people find most useful? And follow up, how do you get your music uploaded to it? I don't know that I'll ever start using it, but my daughter is doing a lot more 3-4 pages violin pieces now, and it might be nice for her.

[Dopey]

I play in two community brass bands, one is more competitive than the other.

Really only seen 2 people using digital tablets, a few times they've been stuck holding up the group trying to find the specific song we were going to play (number X from Y book).

We occasionally have a local pro join us for concerts to fill in spots, the last one to join us used a tablet for the music. The previous few just used sheet music as normal.

It feels 'slightly' more common than 2-3 years ago, but not spreading. From my 2 band sample.

I've been tempted, as I work in tech and love gadgets... but I feel like i'd be carrying the paper sheetmusic as i'd be too afraid of the device dying or any other number of issues. A bit like using my watch to pay/phone, but still carrying my wallet around.

[gocsick]

It has come up a few times before… but most people in the street band I play in are now on iPads. We have over 150 charts in our library, and while we have a set list that is set before hand… audibles are not uncommon. Plus I have several real books and lead sheet libraries.. and I might be on baritone or trombone for a few songs instead of Sousa… So my life is much much simpler on iPad than paper.. No more huge binders or backpacks with real books.

That being said we did have a casuality a few weeks back.. one of our trombone players lost their iPad in the wind.. then damaged their slide while trying to catch it. So you have to be willing to risk the chance of breaking a screen if you don’t have a really reliable stand.

For concert band or the community jazz band.. paper 100%. If I can easily fit my music in one folder and I know the order of our charts.. then I would much rather read of paper than a screen.

[bloke]

"street band":
I have a definition or two of that, but I have no idea if my definition is the same as anyone's else.

- definition #1: something like Tuba Skinny (whether as arranged as their songs are, or whether it's just jamming/head charts)
- definition #2: something like a NOLA brass band which both stands stationary and marches down the street, with fairly specific funky bass lines attached to the various stanzas (if multiple stanzas) of the songs played

For playing on/in the street, just learn the songs, and avoid carrying along delicate electronic equipment (featuring delicate screens, microcircuits, etc.)

me...??
Candidly, I
- either (have trouble recalling a few funky bass lines associated with a few of the NOLA brass band tunes), OR...
- I remember the funky bass lines, but have trouble associating them with the NAMES of the TUNES

solution:
the front-and-back of an index card with a few names of songs, and the first two bars or so of funky bass lines associated with various stanzas...and the index card is probably stuffed in my shirt pocket, mostly
...and yes: I write very small, about the "font" size of a crib-sheet...oh yeah: and I save the card (actually two of them)...They're on my dresser.

[Kevbach33]

Not an iPad user (Samsung S7FE with Mobile Sheets), but in the groups I play in, some members in one community band use tablets of some kind, and in my big band, everyone except our drummer uses tablets (saxes, soloists and trombones except myself on iPads, trumpets have another app for Windows). That's probably 25 or so out of 90+. One uses an iPad with Mobile Sheets. All other iPad users seem to use Forescore.

For add ons, I use a page turner since some of the bass trombone stuff is/can be constant playing.

[1 Ton Tommy]

One of the groups I play in is a street band or at least we play outdoors a lot. Mostly simple old rock tunes of a couple of chords. The guy on keys is a gadget geek and uses an iPad a couple of us use nothing.

On tuba I use guitar charts with chords written on them for new tunes, otherwise I play by ear. We do a few Jazz tunes out of Hall Leonard book where I play trumpet and I use photocopies till I learn the head. Same with the flute player. The others play off the chords on the C book. No iPads on those tunes.

I go to a couple of Jazz jams and it seems to be about 50/50 for the house band. Vocalists almost always use paper so they can hand out charts if it's something they've written or not a standard. I've had to pass out a couple of charts when I called something nobody knew.

The symphony is all paper. The librarian hands out folders and sometimes I get downloads off IMSLP but then they get printed.

[Mary Ann]

So probably a dumb question. I see these offered by Verizon etc and along side of cell phones. Do you have to use some kind of provider to use one?

[tadawson]

There are tablets that are WiFi only, and units (typically sold by the phine carriers) that will run WiFi on the cell network. For most musical score work, you use the network toload the music on the device, and the performance is run off network. So no, on those you would not need to have a phone co account active to use the device, but it will probably come with that $ervice anyway. Likely better to buy a WiFi only device from an electroics store unless you have a specific need to be on the network anywhere. (I'm on a Samsung S7+ that is WiFi only . . . if I ever need mobile network access, I can just spin up the hotspot on my phine and get it online that way).

[Schlitzz]

I use a 13” M2 iPad Air, and the latest mini, for folio sized marches. The mini has cellular access, so I get the music off the network. I use Scanner Pro to digitize the printed stuff, and then export it to ForScore. The clown that forgets the book, uses the mini. Years ago, we had a guy named Tom, that kept a spare viola, and book, in his car trunk. Sometimes 2. True story.

[UncleBeer]

solution:
the front-and-back of an index card with a few names of songs, and the first two bars or so of funky bass lines associated with various stanzas...and the index card is probably stuffed in my shirt pocket, mostly

The band I play with regularly knows 650 tunes, none written down. That'd be a whole lotta index cards! I've got about 150 internalized, but I'm content using my android tablet.

[Dopey]

Have folks found what the optimal size is? (I assume bigger the better?) If so, what the minimal size is?

I had imagined if playing with groups that have such long list of charts, and potential audible calls mid performance they can make sense. When I do my fundraising I play from a selection from a fakebook, but given the fact it is snow, ice, rain, slush, cold, nightmare. I actually make a binder full with plastic sheets to give me enough options. Trying to use a digital device for that would best case result in it falling, worse case someone running off with it mid song. ^_^

Have anyone found benefits for the more fixed list of pieces (brass bands, wind ensembles, etc)? Does it do anything better than pencil/paper? The only thing I can imagine is perhaps easier page turns? Is writing notes on as easy/better or worse than paper/pencil?

[andycat]

14" TCL Nxtpaper android tablet. Cheaper than an ipad, and the paper feature (like a kindle) means music looks better than n an ipad, and there's no glare.

Main band (Foden's) is still all paper though.....

[russiantuba]

Something that came up on a gig this past weekend.

So, like gocsick, I have been playing with a tuba quartet that does popular music, and though I printed over 100 tunes (3 set lists and on call), when one of the members arranged half the Tubachristmas book and the majority of the Octubafest book and another member is an avid arranger who can pump out quality arrangements in his sleep, music keeps getting added. I brought the iPad last time as a "if we get a request" to not hold us up. I did use it on one, and it is a smaller iPad that is very old (not as old as my other one that won't even play youtube, and was my wife's old one).

Playing first euphonium was the retired bass trombonist of the Cincinnati Symphony (yes, the same guy on Church Windows). The second euphonium, who was on an iPad, offered to do some first parts to give his chops a rest, and the first said he couldn't use an iPad due to vision issues. He then mentioned how it shocked him when he has played with regional orchestras since with seeing people on iPads, because when subs or members brought them in Cincinnati Symphony rehearsals, the music librarians would freak out and tell them to put them away due to licensing and copyright laws. I suspect the larger orchestras in the major cities would more likely be under a microscope and be more prone to "inspection" than a freeway philharmonic.

Seems like for orchestras, in theory, until I am proven wrong, they would have to buy a digital licensing and a paper license (kind of like Cimarron Music Press, where you can buy physical or the download), and there are some members that are not going to be able to use an iPad for vision issues like mentioned above.

[travisd]

I'm playing in two groups - an all-ages community orchestra, and a college band (That lets community members play). In the latter I think there's typically two of us using tablets. In the all-ages group I've seen me and one or two others, depending on why's playing any given semester. One of the others is a guy who's retired and plays in a bunch of different groups all over.

I'm using a 1st gen iPad Pro, originally bought for Work stuff. I actually have it in a pretty sturdy hard case that has a leather hand strap on the back that rotates - this makes it usable for handheld use for sousaphone gigs (I've brought it to college winter pep band gigs where the current and more recently current students are all reading music from their phones - the pep band ditched the printed music notebooks several years ago).

[bloke]

These are just 30 or 40 NOLA brass band tunes with the beginnings of the most common stanzas of funky bass lines of locally commonly called up NOLA brass band tunes on those two cards.

I think the tablet vs paper has begun to become a B flat vs C / lacquer vs silver type of thing.
Being old, I have countless tunes in my head (many of which - in all genres - I don't even know their titles but - once somebody hums the first phrase - I realize I know the entire song: all the changes in the melody...and I never remember tunes by their keys and their specific letter-name chord changes, so I don't give a flip what key in which anyone wants to play any song in particular), but I haven't been playing NOLA brass band gigs my entire life (probably only started playing that type of music less than two decades ago), and I think my mind uses frequent chord changes (as are found in older songs) as hooks for memorizing songs, whereas NOLA brass band music has way fewer chord changes and it's a little bit more difficult for me to memorize them, as well as remembering all of their specific funky bass lines from their different stanzas.

My cards work pretty well for those gigs, because it seems like the same two or three people - who hire people for those types of jobs around here - call up the same three or four dozen tunes... and often such tunes are stretched out as long as eight minutes or so, so not too many tunes are played per set. Further, band leaders always send tune lists and links to YouTube, so - if they include a tune I've not encountered before - I can squeeze it onto one of my two cards.

tablets... bulky semi-portable music stands... tool kits... tuba playing stands... secondary mouthpieces... twenty-minute-long permission-to-play-well warm-up routines...

As I've already made the decision - approaching my '70s, no less - to use heavier hard cases (because I'm tired of mystery dents), I just try to take a few things as possible to gig and particularly try to avoid taking things that are fragile and expensive, and - in the case of tablets in particular - theft targets.

Again, those NOLA brass band cheat sheet cards fit my shirt pocket. Most all the other tunes that I'm asked to play fit in my head.

orchestral:
Again, one of my freeway philharmonics asks before every set of services if I'm bringing a tablet...ie.
"Are you bringing your own expensive fragile theft target to read the music - which requires making sure a battery is charged and whereby the maximum page size is only the size of a piece of typing paper, or would you just like us to put a folder on your stand with the publishers' original engraved parts, most of which are 10x14?
---------
That seems like a big "duh" to me.

[opus37]

I play in 3 concert bands and 2 brass quintets. I also have a it of solo work. I have everything on a 14 inch iPad Pro. Oystein Baadsvik has all his stuff on a similar iPad. I’m the only one in any of those bands or quintets that uses an iPad. Frankly, I really like it. My only con is changing pages in the middle of a song. I have a foot peddle but I sometimes have operator (aka me) problems.

[ronr]

So probably a dumb question. I see these offered by Verizon etc and along side of cell phones. Do you have to use some kind of provider to use one?

No need for a provider as long as you are only using it with WiFi.

[BramJ]

So probably a dumb question. I see these offered by Verizon etc and along side of cell phones. Do you have to use some kind of provider to use one?

No need for a provider as long as you are only using it with WiFi.

@Mary Ann and you can also get usb RJ45/wired network adapters.

While in use network connectivity is not needed, just when adding new pieces.


In my band tablets are used quite a bit, probably 40% of the players?
I recently switched to a 13" e-reader, that uses a reflective e-ink screen that has a more paper like look. Also doesn't consume energy while displaying static content, so great battery life

[UncleBeer]

So probably a dumb question. I see these offered by Verizon etc and along side of cell phones. Do you have to use some kind of provider to use one?

No need for a provider as long as you are only using it with WiFi.

I just wirelessly tether my tablet to my phone when on stage. Works great, and no need for a SIM card or extra subscription.

[Sousaswag]

I use mine all the time. In my regular concert band, I’d say it’s about 70-30 paper-iPad use right now. However, as the seasons go on more and more people drop the paper music in favor of digital.

For me, it just works. For the multiple groups I play in, I have to bring ONE thing that has access to everything. In a particular brass band, iPad use is much more common because of the amount of music we play. It’s enormous and the folders would be huge as well.

Each has pros and cons. I just like the iPad system better. YMMV.