When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some concert performers use human assistant for that. Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. Is there such thing already? Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Designs www.abvolt.com
Automatic note stand
Started by ●August 1, 2013
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
Vladimir Vassilevsky <nospam@nowhere.com> writes:> When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some > concert performers use human assistant for that. > > Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? > A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. > > The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. > Is there such thing already?Being a musician, I thought of just such a device. I didn't do anything else about it, but I think it's a great idea if you could get them cheap enough. There would also be great utility in the idea for churches, schools, etc. in that music could be electronically distributed to the devices by the band director. Sortof a musical "Kindle" with a few extra functions. -- Randy Yates Digital Signal Labs http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
On 8/1/13 11:17 AM, Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:> > When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some > concert performers use human assistant for that. > > Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen?i think i've seen that in multiple contexts. one was the conductor's stand and the other was a keyboard player.> A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. > > The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. > Is there such thing already?i think it's called an "iPad". but not so much about "following the music". that's another female canine, Vlad. she'll leave teeth marks on your ass. -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
Vladimir Vassilevsky <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote:> When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some > concert performers use human assistant for that.> Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? > A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically.I have wondered about it, and suspected that someone must have tried. I am not so sure how easy it is to follow the music, though. Consider that if a human turns the page too early, a whisper will get it back. Harder to do that with a computer. I don't know how far ahead professional musicians read. As far as I know, they have it mostly memorized but just need some hints. Exactly when to turn might not be so obvious. I could also imagine a smooth scroll (people used to do that on CRT terminals) where the lines of music would slowly move up, such that there was no page boundary. That would remove the surprise when the page suddenly changed.> The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. > Is there such thing already?I believe accurately following the music isn't so easy, but the rest should be pretty easy. -- glen
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 19:41:31 +0000, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:> Vladimir Vassilevsky <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote: > >> When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some >> concert performers use human assistant for that. > >> Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? >> A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically.<< snip >>> I don't know how far ahead professional musicians read. As far as I > know, they have it mostly memorized but just need some hints. Exactly > when to turn might not be so obvious.Most accomplished (pro or not) musicians will have the piece mostly memorized. You learn to do a bit of extra memorization around the page turns. Sometimes you curse the arranger for putting some tricky part right where you need to turn a page. Page-turning is complicated by the fact that music often contains repeats, and the repeats don't always repeat exactly the same thing. You can have different endings that range in size from one measure to half the length of the whole piece, you can have directions to repeat a section twice, then jump back to an earlier spot and repeat, then jump forward, etc. I recently sang a piece in my church choir that had us repeating one section of the music four or five times, with various repeats that started at different places and ended at different places. It went something like page 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, ... If you really wanted to do it right you'd have some electronic form that would either track or unroll the loop constructs. This, in turn, means that you can't just load up a pdf of the printed music -- you'd at least need some electronic annotation of where you should be in the music. Then, for rehearsal, you'd need a quick way of saying not only which spot you needed to go to in the music, but which repeat you're on. Note that if you did just unroll the loops, you'd lose the fact of the repeat. Musicians want to annotate their music, so you'd have to accommodate that in a way that's not going to severely interrupt a practice session. Usually in a repeated section they want the annotations to stand for all the repeats. Sometimes these annotations are their own, sometimes the conductor will ask for something different than what is written down. These need to be properly treated in the repeats. For that matter, they need to be allowed, and they need be done quickly. You'd need to do it all in a way that doesn't hopelessly confuse people who aren't computer literate. For that matter, if you want this to work for a wide distribution your audience may not be very musically literate at all -- we have some great singers in my church choir who can barely read the music: they lean on the musically literate in rehearsals, and essentially memorize the piece for performance. Do you want to take someone who's already flustered by the musical notation, and try to make them go to the right place in the music? -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:17:25 -0500 Vladimir Vassilevsky <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote:> > When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some > concert performers use human assistant for that. > > Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? > A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. > > The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. > Is there such thing already? > > > Vladimir Vassilevsky > DSP and Mixed Signal Designs > www.abvolt.com >How about foot pedal with page forward and page back momentary positions and a tablet? Works for everyone but the pianist and drummer. KISS. -- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
there are boxes like that on the market. Pros use a teleprompter. Folks like me just learn the songs. Or fake it :D _____________________________ Posted through www.DSPRelated.com
Reply by ●August 1, 20132013-08-01
On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:36:06 -0500, "mnentwig" <24789@dsprelated> wrote:>there are boxes like that on the market. >Pros use a teleprompter. >Folks like me just learn the songs. Or fake it :DFaking it has worked for me for many years. ;) As Robb and others have mentioned, this idea has been implemented a number of times over the years with varying degrees of success. They seem to be getting better lately: http://www.musicreader.net/ Products and pedals for page turning: http://store.airturn.com/musicreader/>_____________________________ >Posted through www.DSPRelated.comEric Jacobsen Anchor Hill Communications http://www.anchorhill.com
Reply by ●August 5, 20132013-08-05
On Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:17:25 PM UTC-4, Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:> When musicians play music on notes, they have to turn the pages. Some > > concert performers use human assistant for that. > > > > Why couldn't they read notes from computer screen? > > A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. > > > > The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement. > > Is there such thing already? > > > > > > Vladimir Vassilevsky > > DSP and Mixed Signal Designs > > www.abvolt.com"A computer could follow the music and scroll pages automatically. The idea looks obvious, and not very difficult to implement." Follow complex orchestral piece in a real concert hall ??? Good luck with that, dude... simple foot switch or pedal will do much better
Reply by ●August 7, 20132013-08-07