iOS Music Apps Weekend

I just received an email from www.newzik.com about their Christmas by Newzik app. If you like singing and playing Christmas songs form your iPad this app could be worth checking out. Especially since it will be free on the 18th and 19th of December, 2011. Notion’s notation app is only $0.99 until the 21st of December.

If you have not heard about the new music notation app from Notion you should head over to http://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/ and read ChoirGuys comparison of Notion to SymphonyPro. The fact that Notion actually has a notation software for Mac and Windows means that the iPad is going to be looked at as a viable option for creating music notation from. I would love to have this app and a set of iPads in the hands of students!

ChoirGuy also mentions that one of the apps I’ve used in the past for accessing my PDF music on my iPad is soon coming out with an update. DeepDish GigBook is adding annotation to their app. This means that this app will be as useful to musicians, students, performers and educators as ForScore and UnRealBook!

I have been using Avid Scorch’s iPad app Scorch through this Christmas season while performing and rehearsing for our Christmas concerts. I have really liked the ability to be able to pull up any one individual part at any time. I also appreciate the fact that Scorch does not rely on scanning quality. The score you are seeing is of great quality! The lack of annotation has been an issue though. I’ve really wanted to mark my scores up during rehearsal so I would remember certain key elements but I’ve not been able to do that while using Scorch. I wonder if Avid could figure out a way for us to even highlight something in the Scorch files. (Are you out there Tom?)

I will be glad to see Sibelius come out with an iPad notation app in the future. I’m sure it will happen. In the mean time Notion and Symphony Pro serve the purpose for that gap. Of course you should buy Notion now! Along with Newzik’s Christmas app.

UPDATE: As you can see from the comments before it was brought to my attention that Notion could be a large app! So I took a look at the size’s and download times. When I started downloading Notion onto my iPad it was 6:58. at 7:28 I finally stopped the iPad download! It wasn’t done for some reason 30 minutes after I started it! I just copied it onto my iPad from iTunes – that took almost 5 minutes just to do that! When I started putting Notion onto my iPad I had 5.6GB free and now I have 3.8GB free. So this app is going to take up a lot of space compared to other iPad apps. Almost makes me fell like I am working with a desktop application!

I will say that the playback on Notion is very nice. I am sure this is the reason for the large file size of the app. Notion is very simple to use and pretty quick to get notes into the app too. You get 5 string instruments, 9 woodwinds, 6 brass, 4 keyboards , 3 guitars, a Drum set, Tamborine, Snare Drum, Sus. Cym, Cr. Cym, Bass Drum, Timpani and a Xylophone for free that come installed. There are four more stringed instruments you can download for free. There are a bunch of other instruments that will cost you $0.99 to download. You get basically one of every instrument you might need.

As I was entering notes I did notice that Notion will allow you to enter more beats per measure than your time signature is set for. This was a bit weird as I am used to working with Sibelius where this isn’t allowed. This means that students could end up with some messed up music!

It was very different as I went to enter notes into a trumpet part the first time too. Even though I was playing a B on the keyboard Notion was writing a C# on the music. I did not expect this as the Key Signature for all the staves were the same. I understand that a Trumpet should be a whole step higher than the piano but at the same time the key signature should be different as well. I had to go in and set the Key Signature before the Trumpet key appeared different.

There are some very nice technique markings that Notion has included. For instance flutter Tongue on trumpet. Those markings playback as well.

Using your iPad and PDF’s to make music in the classroom more efficient.

I am using the iPad to make my life easier and more efficient. That in turn gives me a chance to do my job better as a music teacher.

First thing is that I have come up with a workflow that I think is going to streamline one of the biggest hassles we have as music teachers. That job of getting music out to students. From now on I will be creating PDF files of every song we do in class. I will have two files, one for the score and one for the parts. I tried creating a separate PDF for each part but have decided that gave me too many files to keep track of and properly label. It is so much easier to just create one PDF with all the parts in it. So now when I need a part for a student, I simply find the correct page and print off a part. The beauty of this is that I can do this very quickly from my iPad. If I have all the current songs we are playing in my DropBox account, or even better right on my iPad, access is quick and it is easy to print out that one sheet. What used to take a trip off the podium, to the music cabinet, digging through the box of music (and hoping there was still a part in there) and then a trip to the copy room is now boiled down to about 30 seconds. I will of course have a much larger collection of all the songs I have ever created PDF’s for on my computer. I suppose there really isn’t any need to carry al those with me on my iPad though, just the current pieces we are working on.

The second workflow involves songs that are in Sibelius. I have quite a few songs that I have Sibelius files for. With Scorch for the iPad now available I can see that I will be creating even more files soon. Yes it will take time to put those songs into Sibelius but I think it will be worth it in the long run. These will be songs that I will use in future years, not just a one time thing. Having the piece in Sibelius opens up flexibility I would not have otherwise. For instance, I currently have a freshman horn player. She is very capable but young. She needs some assistance and backup on a few important riffs in her part. Since I have the parts in Sibelius I can take those sections and mix them into the trombone part, where I have a very strong upperclassman player, and come up with a new part so everything is covered! One thing about Sibelius files though that is going to change this year. In the past I never made PDF files of the parts for those pieces. I made a PDF of the score for my iPad but not the parts. I would go open Sibelius and print the music from there. From now on I will be creating a PDF file with all the parts in it too. Why? Access and speed. It is so much faster to open a PDF then it is Sibelius.

Third point I want to bring out is the annotation of PDF files from my iPad. It has been discussed, very heatedly in some cases, about whether or not musicians should be annotating their music. I am of the opinion that this is a no brainer. My students know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they should be writing on their music. My students see me writing in my music. During marching band I write drill notes in my music scores. When I play my euphonium I am constantly writing in fingerings, notes from the conductor, circling passages to practice more and making marks to help me be a better performer. All these annotations should be kept for future reference! The trouble is that they only live on my iPad until I export them out. ForScore does a great job of this for instance. After annotating pieces, I go to the email icon under “Share Files” and select “with annotations” and email myself a PDF. After renaming the file so I know there are annotations in this version I file it in the proper spot with the original, clean PDF. If you have the right software you could just print the file to your computer as well. For this sort of solution check out Printopia. (http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/)

So the moral of the story? PDF files for all! Life should be easier and more fun!

Sibelius and Scorch for the iPad

I am currently at Band Camp and working hard. I am driving those kids hard too! The more tired at night the better is my philosophy!

On Saturday before I left I put my band camp scores that I had already done in Sibelius onto my iPad so I could boot up Scorch for the iPad and use that while at camp. Well come to find out it did not work! I could not see all my parts. Some of the instruments at the very bottom of the score were not there! I emailed Sibelius people and sent them files so they could see what was going on. They responded quickly, that says tons for how much they care about their users!

Come to find out you MUST make sure EVERY instrument in your Sibelius score MUST be labeled with a different name. So if you have two trumpet lines you should name one Trumpet 1 and the other Trumpet 2. Make sure you also check the abbreviation for each instrument as well. With that fix my scores are working wonderfully in Scorch. I love having my music in Sibelius. I am now able to do fun and practical things like take the french horn part and create a trombone part so I can play along with my freshman french horn players on my trombone without transposing! I printed out tab parts for my bass player.

With Scorch on my iPad it is a cinch to go from looking at the full score to looking at any specific part and only that part. It is way easier than trying to play along with the students and turning pages on a score! Plus when I am in sectionals it is so nice to be able to just focus on one part and not see the whole score if I don’t want to!

NAME THOSE STAFFS PEOPLE!

Sibelius 7

I saw a post that Sibelius 7 was out. Excitedly I went to their website and started downloading the trail of the new version. I didn’t even read what was new! I just hit download. After the software was downloading then I started reading the new updated features. Several items jumped out at me -
1)Redesigned UI
2)Improved sound library – This is a huge item. Right now I have purchased several other sound libraries in order to make my scores sound as good as possible. This is a hassle to have to keep these other libraries updated and running and incorporate them into Sibelius. It’s just one additional step. The new updated sounds may make that extra step go away. We will have to wait to see as I’m not really seeing a way to try them out. There are a few sound bytes – I’m not very impressed by them though.
3)The inclusion of XML. Previously if you wanted to send files back and forth between that other notation program and Sibelius you would have to spend several hundred dollars and purchase an XML Dolet. Now Sibelius comes with XML support both directions you can import AND export.
There are other improvements as well – those 3 were what jumped out to me though. When you visit their web-stie you can see the other new and “improved” features.

I will give you my first impression of the new version since I first downloaded it and opened it. “Oh, No!” That’s all I can keep thinking. The new UI is so different. Some of the old keyboard shortcuts are changed and things are in different places and it all looks different. The new mixer is hard to read because the font size is so small. Now I have sat back the last few days and listened to people complain about Apple’s Lion. I like Lion. This new version of Sibelius may be the same thing – I just might need to get used to it. I do have to say though that this might be the first time I have not upgraded to the newest version of Sibelius though. I for sure know that I will not be upgrading immediately like I thought I would – I am in the middle of preparing for Band Camp and I think the upgrade would just slow me down. I really want to get all my music into Sibelius this year. That would allow me to use Scorch for iPad! But…….. WOW! (big sigh….)

I will keep trying the new update – I strongly suggest you go download the free 30 day trial and try it out for yourself!

Why Avid, Why?

Sibelius and PhotoScore Pro

Well I just found out that PhotoScore Pro does NOT like reading in mallet parts that have rolls in them! PhotoScore also does not like to read in the stuff from the bottom of the parts either! I wish it wasn’t there! I just end up having to delete it any ways and re-type it.

In order to go through all the wind parts and have PhotoScore read the TIFF files – it is taking me about two hours per piece. I wonder if I could just play them in by using the keyboard this fast? there are still too many errors that are having to be fixed. Of course if I did like they said and actually scanned the parts in as grayscale it would be better I’m sure. I am using the school copier though – and I think it will only do black and white. Boy does it do them fast too! I can have all the parts scanned AND emailed to myself in a matter of like 60 seconds! Try doing it that fast on your personal copier/scanner!

I think that I am really going to like having Scorch – it does mean this extra work up front but when it is done I will have really good looking music on my iPad – I will be able to pull up anyones part in an instant or switch back to the score. I wish that JWPEPPER would just sell me the Sibelius file! I’m sure someone has to know how to copy protect it!

iPad and Sibelius

The way we interact with our iPads and music notation has once again changed dramatically! Today Avid has released Scorch for the iPad. For those of you that are not making the connection Scorch and Sibelius work hand in hand. If you use Sibelius to create music notation on your computer then you will love working with Scorch for iPad! I will start off by saying that I have never been impressed with the original Scorch software – Scorch has been around for a while now and here is the description from their web-site – “Scorch is the free software which lets you view, play, customize and print Sibelius scores on the Internet.” It worked too – I did use it on my web-sites and for getting music to students during the summer time. The problem was that it frequently crashed.

With that being said…. I love Scorch for the iPad. In fact in light of the recent announcements by Apple I love it even more! So let me give you my version of what this App will do for music teachers. First of all you create your score in Sibelius (which is not THAT hard to do), then you load it into your iPad via the iTunes sharing and then you are in business! The app comes with a few sample scores installed to give you an idea of what can be done. The magic starts to happen when you load in a score of your own. For instance, I am in the midst of DrumLine practices starting. So now I have all my DrumLine warmups and cadences loaded into Scorch. I can see the full score of all the parts and conduct from that, which is something I could already do with unrealBook for instance, but I can do so much more! For scores with multiple parts reading from the entire score can be a hassle because you can only see a few measures at a time. With Scorch there is a parts button (which looks like three little pages stacked on top of each other). Using the parts button I can quickly select any of the parts and see just that instrument. This allows me to see most of the song then for that instrument! This is going to be a huge time saver, not to mention convenience. DrumLine is one of those activities where I am usually inclined to play along with the students. Of course trying to play drums and turn pages on my score is an issue – Now I will not have to worry – I will just grab my snare sticks, pull up the snare part and away we go. What about being able to have my iPad projected onto the screen in front of the class room, and being able to quickly pull up ANYONES part for the ENTIRE class to see! Of course my comments to Avid were that they should be looking at ways to make use of Apple’s AirPlay technologies so we could do this wirelessly! Then Apple came around with their announcements this week at WWDC and made those dreams come true! I am very excited about being able to use this in the classroom this next school year! Everyone being able to see Everyones part whenever I see the need is going to be a powerful tool – especially when I could be ANYWHERE in the room while doing it!

Scorch for the iPad has other great features as well. Like the store they built into the app…., the ability to transpose my music freely, and a metronome. Of course what would this App be if you couldn’t play the score as well – now my DrumLine music that I usually use Virtual DrumLine Sounds for are NOT sounding very good because the sounds built into this app are more generic but for any other instrument this is going to be useful. The quality is of the sound may be sketchy but for a student to SEE and HEAR at the same time is a great asset!

Scorch has two modes for viewing your scores, the normal view and a music stand view. In the normal view you swipe the page to turn it and you will see the toolbar at the top. In the music stand view you simply tap the page to turn it and the tool bar goes away.

The quality of the music that you are seeing is obviously wonderful because we are not scanning this music but it is instead computer generated. The file sizes are small so these file will be taking up WAY less room on your iPad. The drawback of course is that you have to actually get your music INTO Sibelius in the first place which takes time and effort.

I see one huge issue and several smaller issues that will not allow me to use Scorch only and give up my other music reader programs that I am currently using. The huge problem is that there is no way to annotate a score. I know why this is not available yet – Scorch is not a static display – it is using fonts and what you are seeing on the screen is not always in the same spot. Avid is going to figure this out though – right? Smaller issues  - the first is that in order for me to get scores into the App I HAVE to go through iTunes. I hardly ever do this right now with unrealBook. Email and Dropbox are so much faster and convenient. (We CAN indeed use DropBox with Scorch – as noted below in the comments. You just simply go into DropBox, select the Sibelius score and then click on the ‘Open in’ button. The beautiful thing is that this button will actually work because not many apps will open a Sibelius file so you will be assured to actually SEE Scorch as one of your options! Thanks Daniel!) One other smaller item is more of a wish list – I sure do wish I could print my OWN scores right from my iPad. Imagine that pesky percussionist who wastes your time constantly because he can not take care of his music…. If I could print from my iPad it would be a few seconds of my time NOT what it is now.

Avid priced Scorch at $4.99. If you own Sibelius this is a no-brainer! Go buy it NOW! I will be using this app constantly in class. It is fast to switch between apps – especially if you can use the multi-touch gestures to do so – so even though I may still be using unrealBook most of the time I will be using Scorch right alongside of it. My kids are gonna love this! (Just as a side note – Google is getting scary fast! I had hit the publish button on this post and then seconds after I clicked it I realized I did not have a link to the App. In those 30 seconds I wasted switching over to my history to see if I already had a link there – realizing no I did not – switching back to google to do a search and then performing a search my OWN post came up!)

Go get Scorch

New thought on Digital Music

You know for years I have been slowly putting my Concert Band music into Sibelius. This has allowed me to manipulate the music in many different ways for different reasons. Like re-writting parts for missing instruments, changing parts because of ability level or simply quickly being able to re-print a part when one goes missing for whatever reason.

The new thought I had came to me today while a middle school band was sitting waiting to rehearse. I was sitting waiting for Sibelius to do its start up routine when it hit me that this process could be made even quicker! All I needed to do was print all the individual parts, combine them into one PDF file then I could simply QUICKLY open that PDF file, find the correct part and hit print! This would cut out a few of those moments that allowed middle school kids to “loose it”.

So my new process is this – Step 1 )Input music into Sibelius.   Step 2)Put the Sibelius file, a PDF file with all the parts in it, and a PDF file of the score all into one folder.   Step 3) Put the PDF file of the score into my DropBox folder with all my current scores in it.    Step 4)Put PDF score onto my iPad

If you do not yet have a DropBox account you need to Drop everything you are doing and go sign up for one by the way!

Notation on the iPad

Notation, as in actually creating an editable score right on the iPad! Where did I miss this? Here is the first paragraph from their website:

 

“Symphony Pro is the long-awaited music notation & composition application for your iPad. Importing and exporting your projects is a breeze, and with the built-in keyboard, creating new compositions just as easy.”

I think that is vitally important to note the fact that this program will do Music XML. This means ti will “talk”, to some degree, to Sibelius and Finale. We sure don’t really need ONE MORE standard out there. Plus I have a zillion Sibelius files already around. I wonder how well I will be able to still access those Sibelius files when I stop using my laptop?

Here is the link to their website…. http://www.symphonypro.net/

The app costs $12.99

 

Voice-to-MIDI iPhone App

How about singing into your iPhone to control one of your keyboards? It will control GarageBand as well – I wonder how well it would work with Sibelius or Finale.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/midi-voice-controller/id413505342?mt=8

New Keyboard/Laptop Dock

This is very interesting for those of us that like to use our laptops still, along with a keyboard. I know I always have issues trying to figure out where in the world to put my laptop.