Tag: app

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Some of my Regular Favs

I figured it was high time to update my list of what products I have found useful in my musicking: which products I regularly use and would recommend to others….

Violin Strings

(And, actually, yes, I have found shopping for strings at Amazon to be far cheaper for the set I currently have fallen in love with):

I’ve found this combo of Infeld Reds and the “Universal” Pirastro E to be PERFECT for Flora! 😉

6-String Electric Violin Strings

Currently, I’ve got a full set of Thomastik Vision strings.

I originally found it on Amazon… unfortunately it’s not there as of this posting… I’ll keep my eye out for it…

Rosin

Shoulder Pad (Rest)

Music Stands

Every gigging musician (or practicing musician for that matter) needs one! I have two that I absolutely love!

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First Day of the Future

Today I’m beginning the full-on usage of my new technological music operations!

I’m about to head out for a rehearsal with the Rosé Violin Trio to prepare for our big show this Saturday. First I want to mention how *immensely * helpful forScore has been in my preparations– you see, for one of the new pieces of music we’re tackling (Suite in G minor, Op. 71 for Two Violins and Piano by Maurice Moskowski) I’ve turned the final movement of the work into an explosion for THREE violins, where we’ll be tossing the original themes between all three of us. 🙂 And forScore enabled me to take my amended parts and touch them up properly and send them off to the girls for review.

Needless to say, I’ve now got my parts for our entire Saturday show set up in order in a set list… And (here’s the exciting news) my new Bluetooth foot pedal-hands free-page turner arrived just in time! I got to try it out a bit today, and I’m SO pleased with the whole set up now!

I’m going full-on techie for my gigs now! Woo!!

Enjoy these photos and video I took of my new set-up…. Gotta run and practice now, but look for more later! :mrgreen:

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forScore – An Excellent Score Reader for iPad

Be sure to read “First Day of the Future” to find my delighted reactions to adding a Bluetooth foot pedal to my high-tech music-reading experience!

I spent the rest of my delightful day today working toward making my basic gigging life easier through the use of an iPad Score Reader App. (Yes, I know, it was high time I looked into transferring some of my massive music library over to such a system….) 🙄 What can I say? I’m old-fashioned. 😎

Well, I took my time to think over my two favorites of those I had found in the App Store; it was a tie between forScore and the much more expensive Scorecerer. After finding numerous positive reviews for **forScore** (and naught for Scorecerer but a review that made mention of the fact that, while Scorecerer was indeed a fine app, forScore actually had more to it, and for way less $$), I went ahead with my whole 5-bucks and gave it a whirl!

I’m thoroughly delighted with it so far!!!
I’ve easily imported all of my random scores and parts that I use (or could foresee using) regularly, which had been scattered all over my poor laptop’s system. How to import? There are several ways to do this — either via iTunes syncing, or via other importing apps such as Mail or iBooks — and I found the easiest way today was to email myself a whole slew of my PDFs and then open them in my Mail app on the iPad, where I could then “hold” over the attachment until the options of where to open it appeared. When it did, I selected forScore. Piece of cake!

From there, I could easily add all necessary data, such as title, composer, keywords, etc…

I can arrange my music into set lists — so I’m even plotting gathering up the courage to use only my iPad when I perform with groups like String Theory Quartet, or when I’m out and about either busking or playing background music for any number of events. 😯

 

Some other features I’ve found, but haven’t yet explored, that I’m excited about include:

  • Auto-Turn function, usable in conjunction with metronome: (I’m a little concerned about using this function in performance, as I and the group I’m with would have to be ultra precise with our tempo, or I’d find myself unnecessarily frustrated, flinging at my iPad, on stage… we’ll see… But otherwise, the regular swiping/tapping of turning pages is very easy and brisk!)

 

  • Linking! I experimented with creating a link (like a wormhole portal) from a D.S. to its corresponding Sign (for example)…. Really great function, to get you around those music road maps!

 

And of course, there’s all the annotating and note-making… file sharing… I can even “scan” in the rest of my music lurking in my massive gig books via a camera function in the app itself! Excellent! Look at all you can do:

 

I highly recommend anyone looking for a good Score Reader to give forScore a try! I look forward to really putting it to the test out in the field soon… 😉