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.

Scanning Scores for my iPad

Ok – just a quick note….. I’ve been scanning new scores for viewing on my iPad all fall. Each of these multiple page scores have been coming in at about 3 to 5 MB. I forgot how much smaller scores are when simply printed from Sibelius until this morning. Using Sibelius, I finished inputting notes and rewriting parts for my Jazz Combo and emailed a PDF to myself. When I looked at the file size I was REALLY surprised to find the file size to be 225KB! WOW!

Marching Season is Almost over

During marching season I used my iPad in my high school marching band all the time. I used it for score reading, my drill was on it, schedules, locker numbers and combinations were looked up on it and many other things. Like listening to a movie and music on a few of the band trips while riding the bus. Here are my thoughts.

POSITIVES: I love having my music all in this one little device! I am able to read all my marching scores just fine, sometimes I need to zoom in but that is easy to do quickly. I am also reading Jazz Combo and Middle School Concert Band scores just fine. I did still mess up the scanning part of several of the scores while getting it onto my iPad this sumer though. Some of the scans were too big and turning pages just simply was NOT fast enough in a couple of my scores.

I was excited that UnReal Book had incorporated a “shake to turn” feature. Excitedly, I turned it on and explored using that feature. Of course I then forgot about it being turned on until the next day in class. I was playing along with the bass drums and had my iPad sitting on the drum and the pages kept turning by themselves. I could not figure out why. It would flip pages that day while I was conducting too…. while holding the iPad with one hand and conducting with the other. I thought the vibrations from the bass drum had hurt my iPad – it wasn’t until eating lunch and thinking (read as worrying) about this that I remembered that I had turned on the shake to turn feature. Boy was I relieved!

I have been printing PDF scores from Sibelius as well as Logic Studio. Those continue to work really well.

Keeping schedules, lockers and combinations, uniform assignments and all that sort of stuff on my iPad proved invaluable because it meant I did not have to go running for the laptop.

I have been creating Keynote (powerpoint for you windows people out there) files  for use every day in class. I am actually liking doing this using the iPad better than using the laptop. I use Keynote for announcements, daily rehearsal information and anything we do in class that is music theory work. Like working the kids through Major scales and the intervals, terms, patterns and review/quiz work on that sort of stuff. We have a set of Turning Point clickers I use with Keynote to get instant feedback on how well kids are understanding the information taught in class. That information is in the form of a slide in keynote that they respond to with their clicker. Then at the end of class I grab the laptop and print out a report with each students response listed that then gets put into the grade book.

ISSUES: I am not able to give up the laptop though. I really like the bigger screen space for some things. For other tasks, like creating scores and recording music in Logic there just simply isn’t a great way to do that on the iPad yet.

Our school network is still giving me problems though with using Feedler to read my google news feeds as well as using Evernote. Neither one of these programs work with the firewall we have. Considering that I am one of four iPad users in the whole RESD, I don’t see those issues getting fixed.

WISHES: I can see the HUGE benefit to having bought the 3G version of the iPad. Of course I couldn’t wait the extra time, I JUST HAD TO HAVE the iPad the day it came out! So I bought the wi-fi version. The biggest issue is that I am not going to pay a data plan for an iPad AND my cell phone both. So… for now I’ll live.

New Music Possibilities on the iPad!

Wow, the school year has started with a bang this year! There are so many different ideas that are floating around my band room in comparison to previous years. I am finding a ton of different ways to create and interact with music. My students eyes are being slowly opened to the idea that there is a whole new exciting world of possibilities that they want to be a part of.

For this post I will focus on two apps for the iPad and one other app for the Mac that I have been playing around with in the past week. In my “free time”, which means everyone else has gone to bed in the family and I have time to explore.

The first app is called Mugician by Rob Felding. I found this app because I had started searching through YouTube for Musc Tech Ensembles. One search led to another and I found Jordan Rudess, again, playing Mugician on his iPad. I went to this website, http://rrr00bb.blogspot.com/2010/08/mugician-heiroglyphics.html, did a LOT of reading. I bit the bullet and bought it. I couldn’t resist, it was such an interesting new innovative way to create and interact with creating music. It seemed to be way too much fun! Turns out that is exactly what it is, fun! The concepts are all explained on Rob’s website and in videos on the web. Watch them and read the directions because this app is not one of those immediately easy to use apps. The layout makes sense but you have to think about it for a bit first. The controls at the bottom are a bugger at first to figure out how to use! But man have I enjoyed playing on this app. It is a fresh approach and different from let’s say piano. I love the sound it generates, although every now and then the reverb/delay gets out of control. We WILL be using this app in our schools new electric/acoustic ensemble we’ve got going.

Since I mentioned piano, I will admit that the next app was purchased because I am a piano player. I also use a keyboard to create music notation files in Sibelius ALL THE TIME! I’ve been looking at purchasing a small 25 key keyboard or a Korg NanoKey so that I can have keyboard easily accessible to do that work. I have several full size keyboards but it always seems a bit of a hassle to get the laptop and those hooked up to do notation. I have not actually made that purchase yet though because I had tried an app a year  ago on my iPod Touch that almost worked through wi-fi. There were a few issues with it though in that it kept dropping notes. Of course, me being so used to using a regular keyboard that is physically wired to the laptop probably meant that I was expecting a LOT from a wireless MIDI keyboard! Tonight I was reading http://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/ and noticed that “ChoirGuy” had Moo Cow Pianist Pro for his iPad and really liked it. I think that was exactly the sort of review I was looking for in a product like this. So I went to the app store on the iPad and clicked purchase. This is not a plug and play app so again I would suggest that you dig into the instructions and READ! (You know funny thing, reading and writing is what we were discussing tonight in our staff meeting at school!) After getting everything configured and played around with the program for about 30-45 minutes. I used the program by itself as well as hooking up through wi-fi to Garage Band, Logic Studio and Sibelius. There are some good possibilities here. I like the arpeggio generator, the scales section is great (some scales in there I had never heard of before – not that I’m a scale guru though!) and I like the effect/delay. I was disappointed in the selection of available sounds though. I have free music programs that have more sounds in them that are just as good of quality! The wi-fi is what I played with the most though. I have to say that it does connect, it does work. The problem is that it is not smooth enough and consistent enough to use it to play live piano parts. I had issues with it not playing EVERY note and there is a lag time that is annoying some times. I do plan on getting a hold of their tech support and reading on their forums to see if those issues can be fixed. I ABSOLUTELY plan on using the iPad and Pianist Pro with Sibelius ALL THE TIME NOW! The wi-fi works good enough for that step entry of notes. I really like not having to work in a contorted position with one arm way over on my keyboard and the other on my laptop!

If the dropping of notes gets fixed and the lag time can be fixed there are some sweet possibilities for this program!

One other program that I have been messing around with is Samchillian. It’s a weird name but do a google search for it and you will see that it is a weird looking instrument as well! Actually it is a controller. A MIDI controller. The interface is extremely different as well. It will take some time to get used to how to work this program but the person that does take the time to figure it out will be playing things not possible on a piano for instance! This program is free, you simply have to email the author, who is friends with Rob Felding who did the Mugician  app.

When I bought the iPad I knew I wanted to use it for my scores. I was pretty sure I would not be carrying around folders and books full of music anymore. Turns out the iPad does that job very well. I am using it this fall for High School Marching Band scores and it works wonderfully for that. BUT in my conversations with everyone I have time and time again used one line to describe my iPad that has bugged me. I keep telling people that the iPad IS NOT the best tool for CREATION of my music. I have wanted my LAPTOP for that job. BUT with these programs mentioned in this post and earlier posts I am starting to find apps that are GREAT for the CREATION of music AND these apps are not ones that I would have the same experience with on my laptop. The touch interactivity of the iPad is SWEET!

Music reading programs comparison for the iPad

I don’t really have a better title for this post. The programs I’m talking about don’t READ music but they let me read the music. These are really simply programs to manipulate PDF files.

I will start by saying that I have been using GoodReader to see my PDF files. I would take my music, scan it, turn that into a PDF and store it on in my DropBox. If you are not familiar with DropBox you need to go to their website and get an account. It allows me to have access to my files wherever I need it, as long as i have an Internet connection. I really like the way this worked because I never had to actually hook my iPad up to a computer to gain access to my files. The difference here is that when I would access a file from my DropBox, the file would be downloaded to the iPad. If I accessed a file on my DropBox from a computer, that file would be synced and would stay in DropBox. Changes I made to that file would then be seen on any other computer that I went to and accessed that file from. GoodReader never syncs changes, it simply downloads the file. In this case, since I am simply viewing my music/PDF files and not editing them, the way GoodReader works is not a drawback.

The pro side of GoodReader is easy access to my files. The biggest con is that GoodReader is not written FOR music.

The two other programs I have been playing with are UnReal Book and ForScore. Pros for UnReal Book are that it includes a music player built inti the program itself. This allows you to listen to music while playing along on your instrument. I like the visual cues that are left on the screen when in a setlist. I can quickly hit the buttons that take me back and firth between songs, I can also quickly find the button that brings up my setlist of songs. A huge benefit in this program is the ability to set hotspots. These will allow you to quickly jump to a repeat, d.s. Or d.c. Or a coda for instance. One Con in UnReal Book is the landscape mode. I really dislike the list of songs that does not go away when in his mode. I want to be able to use the entire screen for music. I like the zoom function on this program. I can zoom with a simple two finger movement just like in the photo program. Then a quick double tap in the middle of the screen takes the zoom back to the default.

Pros for ForScore are that the page turns are faster than the other two programs, and the biggest item is that there is the ability to write on your music. With the latest update there are
Several colors of pens, a marker and a highlighter. There is also a built in metronome that is both audible as well as visual. I also really like the page turn effects. There is one effect for turning the page and then if you are in a playlist there is a different effect for moving to the piece. One con in ForScore is the scrolling is still being worked on. For instance when I flip the ipad into landscape mode the music scales beautifully but when it is time to scroll, the page jumps a screenful at a time. I’ve been in contact with the programer and he assures me this is being worked on. It works but I’d rather be able to move the music a little at a time. Another con is that ForScore does not allow me to zoom in and look closer at what is on the screen. Not a problem until I get into a full band high school level score with lots of parts.

The biggest issue with these two programs is the quality of what is being displayed. I have used Sibelius to print out PDF files on my Mac for some of what I have been using the past three weeks. These files are pretty well displayed. The Euphonium music for the Community band I play in though has been scanned in. If I had only been using ForScore and UnReal Book i would have figured I needed to rescan at a different resolution. But since i also had been using GoodReader first I had read the music out of GoodReader for three or four rehearsals BEFORE I tried the other two programs. When I tried these scans in the other two programs I was dismayed at the bad quality. I went back and forth a bunch of times on a bunch of different songs because. I could not believe my eyes. In both the music programs it was bad enough that I did not trust myself using those programs for the concert that I played in tonight. I went back to GoodReader. Since i am writing this post on my iPad I’m not so sure i can upload the screenshots I took. To show you the difference but I I’ll upload them in the day or two.

My final verdict is that the quality and ease of accessing files in GoodReader, the hotspots from UnReal Book and the ability to write on the music with the great pages turns from ForScore all need to be combined into one program! I have hardly touched paper music in three weeks and have enjoyed every second of it. I had to laugh because when I was using the paper scores I found myself constantly trying to turn the pages by swiping them like on my iPad screen or just touching the corners and waiting for that nifty effect in ForScore. (it didn’t work)

A last thought is one if the most important I think. Both of the software developers for the two music programs have been very responsive and quick to communicate. Buy their programs and have fun.

Getting Music onto my iPad

Tonight I went through my scores for the upcoming concerts. I REALLY wanted to get rid of the paper scores. The problem I ran into this time through was the resulting file size. If I would have been smart I probably can reset the settings in my scanning software. Since I just used the presets that were already there, I ended up with scores that were 45 mb and 51 mb’s in size. Those were huge! I loaded them onto the iPad. They worked but the page redraws with this size of file, in GoodReader, were slower than what I wanted! The transfer from my iMac onto DropBox and to my iPad was fast though. I’m becoming less and less leery of wireless data transfers!

After some research on the web I came up with a good solution. Considering the time I had spent scanning these scores in already, which my wife wasn’t too happy about because our scanner at home is hooked up to her computer, I did not want to rescan the scores. Follow the directions in this link if you are on a Mac. If you are on a PC the basic translation is that this process uses jpg compression set in a manner that does not result in bad quality but does result in smaller file size. From 51 mb’s down to 3.5 mb’s. I think that is rather significant. You can notice a difference in the quality but at least I can turn the pages now without waiting for the screen to draw the image.

I have been printing scores out from Sibelius as PDF files and those scores are all under 200 KB. AND they are very nice and crisp looking!

What has been your process to get music scores onto your iPad?

Apps to read music on an iPad

Over at Technology in Music Ed.com website there is a good article about two music apps for reading music on an iPad. These are two apps I have tried. Go read the article to see what he has to say over there.

Here are my thoughts on the situation:

I have loaded both of these apps on my iPad and actually prefer to not use them! Now don’t get me wrong, I think both apps mentioned have great potential. I agree with everything said in the review. I like how the MusicReader allows half page turns! I could have used that feature the other day when sightreading the accompaniment for the choir performance!

The biggest issue with both programs right now is accessibility to my files! – When I want to get a song onto my iPad to use it HAS to be quick and easy! If I use MusicReader I have to have their (expensive) program in addition to everything else I own. If I use Forscore I have to load up iTunes.

I am using GoodReader right now because it allows me to get my music onto my iPad in several ways – 1)email the a pdf to my iPad, 2) put a PDF into my DropBox (which is where it is ANYWAYS!) or 3) even create a wifi network between my laptop and iPad. This accessibility feature is a hugh feature that  takes me away from the “music” programs right now.

There are several other features that I have found that are important as well. For instance, as a conductor who will be reading scores for band that may have a lot of information on them, I also like the fact that in GoodReader I can enlarge the music quickly to better see the music. Both ForScore and MusicReader will let me turn the iPad and it will automatically increase the size of the music to portrait or landscape mode. I at times to dig in even further though.

The bad news is that GoodReader is not doing everything I want it to do. I want to be able to write on my music! Yes, I know that MuasicReader allows me to highlight and write on the score.

So that brought about me purchasing  SmartNote. This app does allow me to write, highlight, put little “stamps” on the score and several other neat features! The abilities in SmartNote for writing on the music is very cool! SmartNote does not allow easy access to ALL my music/PDF files though. It also does not allow me to zoom in and out.

Right now I am making things work and anxiously waiting for when one program that does it all!