This week, pianist James Rhodes gave the first ever live performance reading the music from an iPad. Do onscreen sheet music displays have a future in live music? Will printed music become a thing of the past? And will automatic page turning ever be a realistic possibility, given that IRCAM have been pouring money and expertise into the project for almost 40 years to no apparent avail?

Oh I do hope not!! The idea of iPads on orchestral music stands fills me with dread!!

A lot of hand-wringing and eye-rolling has been expended worrying that digital book-readers such as the Kindle will replace 'real' books, but from what a friend of mine tells me (he's a Waterstones manager), book sales are stronger than ever (interestingly, Waterstones reported an increase in sales during the depths of the recession), and people are still buying books, because they like books: the look and the feel of them. A digital device can never replace the sheer pleasure of holding a fat tome in one's hands.

And I suspect people are still buying sheet music for the same reasons. I love the feel of a new score, especially the Henle and Wiener Verlag urtext editions with their heavy, cream paper. From a practical point of view, how does one annotate a score loaded onto an iPad? No serious musician, professional or amateur, would dream of working without printed paper score and pencil.

The use of an iPad in a piano recital sounds like a pretentious gimmick to me. (There speaks a purist!). I love Apple's products (I am writing this on my Macbook), and the iPad looks exciting and innovative, but I do not think it has a place in the concert hall.

Here's the infamous performance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbJ2FQB_nOg

In my edition of the Chopin's Preludes (Dover - thin paper, but contains Chopin's own annotations), the one Rhodes plays is on only one page anyway, so there is no need to turn the page if one has the right edition! ;-)

Oh,I can't wait until we're all using digital displays! Especially when you're travelling... I hate being somewhere and realizing I have 10 minutes to practice but the passage I want to look at is far away on some old bit of tree... :)

I love the idea of a digital music reader being the primary form of notated music, but like with other media, I don't imagine printed scores will ever die out. Just as there'll always be a market for CDs as souvenirs (even if most people listen by digital subscription) and paper books (even if the majority of books become digital - wouldn't you want a paper book to give as a gift?), so people will always want the option of a paper score.

It's just that it'll have to be a 'special order'.... print on demand or something, otherwise the economics wouldn't add up. But I wouldn't be afraid of embracing digital readers just because of a fear of paper scores dying out... for as long as there is demand for them, they won't!

Oh,I can't wait until we're all using digital displays! Especially when you're travelling... I hate being somewhere and realizing I have 10 minutes to practice but the passage I want to look at is far away on some old bit of tree... :)

I love the idea of a digital music reader being the primary form of notated music, but like with other media, I don't imagine printed scores will ever die out. Just as there'll always be a market for CDs as souvenirs (even if most people listen by digital subscription) and paper books (even if the majority of books become digital - wouldn't you want a paper book to give as a gift?), so people will always want the option of a paper score.

It's just that it'll have to be a 'special order'.... print on demand or something, otherwise the economics wouldn't add up. But I wouldn't be afraid of embracing digital readers just because of a fear of paper scores dying out... for as long as there is demand for them, they won't!

Did you see Lang Lang's flight of the bumblebee actually ON iPad???? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvplGbCBaLA

Judging from the article to which PT has provided a link -

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/arts/music/16string.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha28

yes, onscreen displays are here in live performances, and electronic page-turning via foot has come. There is software that enables you to mark up a digital score, too.

I like the idea of page-turning by foot Louise. Tidier than fiddling about with photo copies!

I'm embracing new technology and have ordered an iPad, ostensibly to use with my students as a teaching aid. Although I still hold that James Rhodes "iPad encore" was a gimmick, some research into the subject of storing scores in PDF format on the iPad has convinced me that it could be really useful. I waste a lot of time in my studio trying to find bits of paper - won't it be wonderful to have all the scores I need (and more!) on one device, all available at the touch of the screen? It will also give me instant access to iTunes, YouTube, games, pictures etc. And the children I teach, who all seem to have the latest gadgets these days, will love it. I will report back when I've got the iPad up and running!

Meanwhile, the score storage app I'm considering is this one http://www.forscoreapp.com/. If anyone is currently using this - or indeed any other music apps for the iPad - I would love to hear your thoughts....

More on iPad apps for musicians on my blog

www.crosseyedpianist.wordpress.com

I promised to report back about the score-reading app on the iPad. My iPad arrived yesterday and I spent all of this morning playing with it, syncing music, photos and files to it, and learning about ForScore. I'm not yet fully conversant with all its features, but on first sight, it's very good indeed. While it has a small downloadable library of music, if you download scores in PDF format from other sites (e.g. Pianostreet), it offers you the option to "read in ForScore" (and then save the file in ForScore). Another neat trick of the app allows you to assign a song to the score via your iPod music library. Thus, I have uploaded most of my current repertoire, linked it to my iPod library and can now listen and read the music simultaneously. Ok, so you can do this with a paper score and CD or MP3 player, but it's great to have it all it one place at your fingertips. The display is also excellent, the page turns are neat and swift, and the programme is fast to download and process commands. I can see myself using this when I'm away from the piano to work on music. So, gold stars all round to ForScore!