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… 😉
