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Electronic Music Readers Redux

Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-05-11 23:35

Hi all:

A few weeks ago I started a post on the topic of transition from paper to electronically displayed (clarinet) music.

I received some great ideas from people and want to share what I ended up with (so far) because I bet there's a lot of people out there like me who don't want to put down $1K on an Apple Ipad Pro 12.9" model, especially those players who would consider transitioning to a tablet device mostly for the purposes of reading music--as opposed to desiring a tablet for the the high end computing and processing speed it offers as well.

It's not that this Apple device isn't great. It's that I, at least for now (famous last words, I know) only sought a tablet for reading music. For me, the convenience of having every piece of music for the clarinet I ever owned sitting the 1/4" thickness of a tablet, whose pages don't blow in the wind during outdoor concerts, and which doesn't require music stand lights for these "old eyes" to read paper, was appealing.

I have no "horse in this race," nor is my computer acumen nor time with the following gear adequate enough to write a piece worthy of CNET publication. If I have any bias, it's that I would have preferred an Apple device given my familiarity with the interface from my iPhone.

That said, I went with this: https://tinyurl.com/4486dk7t the Amazon Fire HD 10 Plus with 32GB of storage and 4GM of memory.

Best Buy, where I purchased it, had it for $119 recently.

It is my intention to by a cover and a music stand holder for it, a glare protector, a pen/stylus, and a foot pedal for hands free page turning. This was the pedal recommended to me: https://store.airturn.com/products/airturn-bt500s-2-controller.

Finally, for $13 I purchased the music score reading app MobileSheets Pro https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zubersoft.mobilesheetspro.

At this price, if my decision turns out to be a flop, and so far it hasn't, I, or the members of my family will be glad to use this tablet for simply accessing the internet.

While the screen isn't the 12.9" diagonal size of the Apple Pro, 10.1" diagonally instead, I do not find it cumbersome to turn the device sideways, to see only 1/2 a page of music at a time in its original size. MobileSheetsPro has the ability to adjustably scroll music automatically based on user set tempo, or various ways of pressing the screen, that when my foot pedal arrives will also not be needed. Additionally, when bringing music into MobileSheetsPro you have the option of it cropping all the white space around the margins of the page to make the musical notation larger.

I will say, if you want to see a full page of music in near original size and portrait mode, this Amazon device isn't for you: the Apple Ipad Pro 12/9" is.

I used it at a rehearsal this week without the foot pedal I've yet to receive, and minimal learning curve, without much issue.

Although I have imported band selections into MobileSheetsPro by scanning them into PDF files on my printer/scanner, the Amazon Fire can use its camera to effect same.

Convinced I'd make it a year long project to scan the staple etude studies like Bearmann, Lazaris, Rose, Kroepsh, etc. into the device over time, I was amazed to find most of these works that I've yet to search in PDF format for free on the internet already.

To say I'm a novice at Amazon Fire devices, MobileSheetsPro, and electronically scanned music is quite the underestimate. But if I can answer any questions please let me know.

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