Before proceeding I must warn you about two facts. One: despite the name of the blog, I am a Trekkie. Two: I am not a neutral observer. In my opinion traditional books publishing, as well as media labels, are going to lose. Those not able to adapt to changing times will disappear. Resistance is futile.
The musicians are going to adopt electronic lecterns sooner rather than later. The electronic scores begin to replace the editions printed on dead trees, as is already happening with books. There are some solutions on the market, more or less primitive.
MusicPad: Hardware and software.
How could you describe it? It is like a Kindle with legs. There is a "Master" version with twice the surface. Among its outstanding features: it is completely silent. Great virtue, because silence is also music.
MusicReader: Software only.
"The facto MusicPad Killer", they say. It is a program with Windows and Mac versions, which has more than just a page viewer. There is an optional accessory for turning pages with the foot. It can display half pages enlarged, as an aid to accessibility. Integrated additional functions: recorder, player, metronome and tuner.
eStand: Software for Windows, page viewer.
All of them are readers for electronic formats such as PDF or similar, showing pages, sections or page sets. MusicReader seems the most complete, yet is far from perfect. Some desirable features for an electronic music stand:
- Pages no, thanks. The pages have no musical function and are mainly a nuisance. No pedal to turn pages, automatic scrolling is much better. Bookmarks, notes, sections, movements, labels, individually numbered bars. Everything indexed and easily searchable.
- Size does matter. The musicians are supposed to have good ear, but nothing is said about sight. So it is better if the size of the staves is adjustable. For this reason, PDF is not very well suited for scores, it may be necessary to adjust the layout depending on the available area of representation. In this sense, the graphical representation of music resembles the visual organization of the widgets in graphical user interfaces.
- Content indexing, cross referenced, not only metadata but all the data resulting from semantic content analysis. For example: tessitura of the parts (lowest and highest notes used by each voice and instrument in the composition) for each one of the scores in the library. With this data available, it may be possible to filter the appropriate pieces for different levels of students. Publishers must provide rich metadata, MIDI sequences, critical texts, and musicological analysis. It is not just changing the medium of the product, it is about changing the cellulose based mindset, into another way of thinking based on information.
- Metronome. Probably many of the users will be students, so it will be convenient to have a metronome at the same place, taking the rhythm meter and the speed automatically from the values in the score. And of course, in addition to the optional audio reference, each bar should be highlighted while playing, keeping the current bar clearly visible in a central position, taking control of the scroll function, even when the metronome is quiet. Something like this.
- Pitch tuner, recorder, playback. Computer: add an accompaniment. Computer: change the clarinet by an oboe. Computer: pause recording ...
Star Trek TNG 6/8: "A Fistful of Datas"
- High connectivity: USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet ...
- If there is a small or large group of musicians, they may want to synchronize the electronic stands, loading and unloading documents and synchronizing the timers/metronomes.
- Music Typesetting, engraving PDF or PostScript scores: Lilypond.
- Programs, libraries and components to display these documents: Okular.
- Sequencers, synthesizers and MIDI players: KMid.
- Free content: www.mutopiaproject.org
We have the opportunity to occupy a niche in musical education, and from here future musicians shall develop the habit of using free software. Perhaps with time, even to generate free content.
Star Trek Voyager 5/22: "Someone to Watch Over Me"
I've been hoping for something like this for a while now. I especially liked the way you pointed out how access to all that metadata will change our way of thinking. It would also be a big help in the practice room: you could have the software assemble the exercises you are working on from various method books to eliminate flipping through a dozen books. I really hope this becomes a reality - and free software is perfect for this kind of technology.
ReplyDeleteFirst let me apologise for making such a blatant advertisement but when you said automatic scrolling I thought you should know about that "pageturner" project I started recently (on sourceforge). It basically listens to someone playing music and then scrolls the sheet music (displayed by any program that supports scripting) as it recognises it. I made a connector for okular (turning pages using dbus), I'm making one for html pages (scrolling at the client through ajax) right now (warning, it works but is in a very early stage still).
ReplyDeleteYou are a KDE programmer, right? Would you be interested in working together on this? It looks like we could both benefit from this project getting completed faster.
As someone who has played the trumpet in a number of groups / situations, another feature that may be desirable in such an application is on-demand transposing. While in some cases you may have a work with orchestral-type score (with separate scores for piano, strings, woodwinds, brass etc.), in many situations with less "organised" music/performances, the brass players often end up having to transpose on-the-fly from (the single score for piano, in) C to B-flat.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I had to play in a situation like this with relatively little practice time, I wrote the transposed notes out on my copy. After about the 20th time, I got used to transposing while playing (but it was still always tricky with incidentals). A software application has the benefit of being able to transpose easily, so it would be a really nice feature.
Getting back to the case of orchestral-type music, support for multiple instruments in a single "piece" (even for example 1st violin vs 2nd violin) instead of individual per-instrument scores, and conductor integration (e.g. Wii controller-type device as the conductor's baton, or even a phone which has an accelerometer and bluetooth) would be cool, especially for instruments that are unlucky enough to have to sit out large sections, as it becomes too easy to mis-count by one bar and come in too late.
Integration with a kind of (private) sheet-music library accessible by multiple devices/applications/instances, as well as being able to buy scores directly from the application (and have them stored in the library), would also be interesting.
Also, consider the needs of (say) religious use of music, where you may have a band/orchestra/music team of some kind, and an audience that participates (assuming you can render lyrics separately).
Finally, depending on the licensing of the sheet music, you may be required to pay royalties for performances, so being able to track performances (separately from rehearsals) may be required. Bonus points for having integrated payment of royalties.
While I don't play much these days (one of the reasons being that it is difficult to travel with a lot of sheet music), I would definitely be interested in software like this (even for a smaller platform such as Nokia N900, which might do quite well with it's TV-out connected to a larger screen such as portable DVD player or similar). I think it is worthwhile starting a project to get interested parties on-board and start hacking.