iPad Pro 13 inch M4 Pro for reading music?

[Marzzz]

iPad Pro works well for sheet music, I understand there is even a bluetooth enabled pedal for turning pages.

 

[IAmStumped]

iPad Pro works well for sheet music, I understand there is even a bluetooth enabled pedal for turning pages.

View attachment 2480293

I'm surprised that big-time artists like Yuja Wang are using music on stage. I remember the days when such a thing would have been completely frowned upon.

 

[Euroamerican]

I use the 10.9 Air 4th Gen for looking at sheet music while playing guitar and for running Fender Play lessons, and I wish I had more screen space. I run the tablet in landscape orientation. Lots of dragging the image up and down!

I should try portrait orientation, but i cannot recall why i haven't so far. Crazy....

Anyway, I'd love to have a larger iPad screen for the purpose of looking at conventional sheet music PDFs, ideally full screen...

 

[Marzzz]

I'm surprised that big-time artists like Yuja Wang are using music on stage. I remember the days when such a thing would have been completely frowned upon.

I am no expert on her playing habits, but it seems she uses it for encores or other situations where she picks a piece to play on a whim. I understand she has performed entire (solo) concerts where she left the music selection up in the air until the last moment, and that page of the program would literally be blank. I have also seen this comment elsewhere:

Throughout the 20th century and right up to the present, as contemporary music has become less conventionally melodic or harmonic, more complex and harmonically dense, and frequently atonal, it has become more common for musicians, including soloists, however photographic their memories, to play with the printed music.

I would also love to know how she plays in 6-inch spiked heels, but I understand any questions regarding her attire, including shoes, pisses her off...

 

[IAmStumped]

I am no expert on her playing habits, but it seems she uses it for encores or other situations where she picks a piece to play on a whim. I understand she has performed entire (solo) concerts where she left the music selection up in the air until the last moment, and that page of the program would literally be blank. I have also seen this comment elsewhere:

Throughout the 20th century and right up to the present, as contemporary music has become less conventionally melodic or harmonic, more complex and harmonically dense, and frequently atonal, it has become more common for musicians, including soloists, however photographic their memories, to play with the printed music.

I would also love to know how she plays in 6-inch spiked heels, but I understand any questions regarding her attire, including shoes, pisses her off...

Yes, that's a good point. While I still think playing from memory should be the norm, those are both very good instances where not doing so would be understandable.

 

[BenGoren]

Yes, that's a good point. While I still think playing from memory should be the norm, those are both very good instances where not doing so would be understandable.

I studied trumpet with David Hickman who, at the time, was perhaps the most sought-after trumpet teacher in the States. Certainly this side of the Mississippi.

He never performed without printed music.

Not even the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, which literally every trumpet student ever admitted to a degree program has looooong since memorized.

And not because he had any memory problems! Quite the contrary — in lessons, he’d often play random obscure stuff we were working on perfectly without bothering to look at the music.

But … he made the point. We’re all human. It’s not at all weird for the mind to drift, even momentarily, and you’re suddenly left wondering … are we at the recap, or is this the first time through? Or you otherwise get distracted and lose your train of thought.

If you have music in front of you, you just have to open your eyes and point them in the general direction of the page in time to avert disaster. Instantly, you’re back on track, and nobody is the wiser. In practice, you’re almost guaranteed secure again even before your eyes are focussed on the right spot on the page.

If not … even the best can easily suffer an instant devastating cascade of confusion and self-doubt that’s impossible to recover from without some sort of really embarrassing crutch, like stopping and backing up, or pathetic improvisation, or whatever.

So why risk it?

Within rounding, nobody in your audience will care — and hardly any will even notice in the first place.

They will care, of course, if you crash and burn! (I forget, but I vaguely remember Mr. Hickman might have had a story about one of his own performances of the Haydn which featured a memory-slip fueled crash-and-burn.)

The conceit is that you’re supposed to be so knowledgeable of and absorbed in the music that you don’t need a printed reference, and that using printed music will instead cause you to deliver an uninspired, mechanical interpretation devoid of life. But, as it turns out … I’ve rarely had such a complaint about somebody performing with printed music, and I’ve much more often had such complaints about those performing from memory. To be sure, I’ve only had those complaints about young and inexperienced musicians who’d be musically struggling even with printed music … but the point is that it’s most emphatically not the printed music making them stiff and robotic. If anything, it’s the opposite; they drilled so hard to memorize it so they could play it note-perfect that they never stopped to wonder what it was that they were trying to express.

And, of course: there are certainly instances where printed music isn’t remotely an option, such as for role-playing singers on stage (opera, Broadway, etc.). And, by the time you know a piece well enough to have something worth listening to when you perform it, you’re almost certainly just fine performing it without printed music.

… but … if there’s no need to add to your stress at an already-stress-inducing moment … why would you?

Cheers,

b&

 

[themaestro]

I'm still using 2015 iPad Pro 12.9 for reading music. Have been thinking about buying the M4 iPad Pro for a while as I love its lightness and the black colour. Enjoy whatever you end up with

 

[Marzzz]

The conceit is that you’re supposed to be so knowledgeable of and absorbed in the music that you don’t need a printed reference, and that using printed music will instead cause you to deliver an uninspired, mechanical interpretation devoid of life. But, as it turns out … I’ve rarely had such a complaint about somebody performing with printed music, and I’ve much more often had such complaints about those performing from memory. To be sure, I’ve only had those complaints about young and inexperienced musicians who’d be musically struggling even with printed music … but the point is that it’s most emphatically not the printed music making them stiff and robotic. If anything, it’s the opposite; they drilled so hard to memorize it so they could play it note-perfect that they never stopped to wonder what it was that they were trying to express.

And, of course: there are certainly instances where printed music isn’t remotely an option, such as for role-playing singers on stage (opera, Broadway, etc.). And, by the time you know a piece well enough to have something worth listening to when you perform it, you’re almost certainly just fine performing it without printed music.

… but … if there’s no need to add to your stress at an already-stress-inducing moment … why would you?

Cheers,

b&

Sometimes muscle memory gets so in the way that if that it is possible to completely lose your place in the music. Also, while not printed, in Opera they have prompters hidden from audience view to help performers...

Opera Prompter

 

[prospervic]

I'm surprised that big-time artists like Yuja Wang are using music on stage. I remember the days when such a thing would have been completely frowned upon.

Beethoven reportedly hated the idea of musicians playing from memory. He wanted them to focus on his music on the paper in front of them, and not struggling with memorization.

 

[prospervic]

Sometimes muscle memory gets so in the way that if that it is possible to completely lose your place in the music. Also, while not printed, in Opera they have prompters hidden from audience view to help performers...

Opera Prompter

View attachment 2484622

OMG! She is such a HOTTIE! (And plays amazingly, too!)

 

[jazzer15]

For those following, I bought an open box 13 inch Pro a while back and returned it because it wasn't as advertised and actually had a small screen scratch. I decided to hold off and wait until the iPad Air was upgraded to see what they did. Now that it has been released, I need to decide what to do. If I want a 256GB Air to match the storage on a Pro, the price difference between the two will be $250 (because the Pro is on sale).

The Pro seems like it is worth the extra money given all of the extras, but since I will be using it a lot for reading music (i.e., a static screen), I wonder if the Air makes more sense rather than OLED which would be more likely to suffer burn in over time (even if Apple has tried to address the issue). Also, I wonder if the Air will be a bit sturdier, albeit heavier.

Thoughts?

 

[alecgold]

Hmmm, if you don’t do anything special, the air will be enough.
But then again, the brightness of the pro and the lack of reflection on the nano-pro are really nice extras.
I wouldn’t worry about burn in, unless you are rehearsing the same page hours and hours, hell, even days without any rest.

 

[Wando64]

Given the puck size of Mac mini and its ability to run Garage Band or Logic Pro, consider it with a portable 4K monitor or two for expansive screen space that can still fit into a bag. Display more music on the bigger screen and also have a full Logic Pro studio at your disposal too.

There's even bigger portable monitors than that one if you want even more screen R.E.

Music Reading ≠ Music Production

 

[Wando64]

If OP is going on stage, he could cut it down to only Mac Mini and 1 screen. Mac Mini is about the size of a guitar pedal these days. And if stage is the big play here, he can get a 13" screen (one example of many) to be the same size as the iPad for about $1000 LESS than the iPad.

In post #5, OP specifically references the desire for a bigger screen than the 11" he already has. 13" is bigger but 17.3" is a LOT bigger. There's plenty of sizes between those if 17" is too big. This idea offers a path to that for a LOT less cost than the bigger iPad Pro.

Besides addressing that problem in a bigger way, Mac mini would also be capable of running the desktop incarnation of Logic Pro or GarageBand, both of which are arguably superior to iPad versions in many ways.

I suspect if there is a page turner foot switch that works with iPad, there's one that works with Mac Mini too (yep and another and there are likely many more).

Mac is generally much more functional & flexible than iPad. macOS is generally much more functional and flexible than iPadOS. I'm not saying OP should absolutely go this way... just offering that they could... and enjoy all of the "full computer" benefits too instead of the more limited benefits of iPad. And I write this while owning Mac and iPads myself, so nothing particular against iPad. In fact, I use my own iPad every single day.

I am not sure you fully appreciate the issue.

First of all, Logic and GarageBand have nothing to do with music score reading for performances.
Second, the various abilities and capabilities of one OS versus another are completely irrelevant for the purpose of reading music during a performance.
Third, you don’t need to be a musician to understand that a Mac would not be practical in the scenario of music score reading during a performance.

Finally I should also point out that just the bow of one of this instruments can cost well in excess of $5000 (Yes, that is Thousands). When it comes to music performance it is important to use the correct tools. A Mac of any denomination would not be allowed anywhere near a classical stage.

 

[StoneJack]

i use Air M1 for such purposes *music annotations, guitar tabs etc, but generally any basic iPad can do it.

 

[jazzer15]

i use Air M1 for such purposes *music annotations, guitar tabs etc, but generally any basic iPad can do it.

How much storage do you feel is sufficient?

Since the M4 open box didn't work out, I'm thinking about getting an M2 Pro with 128GB instead. I know the M4 Pro (and even the M2) is more than is necessary, but I like some of the Pro features and music reading won't be the only thing I use it for.

 

[BenGoren]

How much storage do you feel is sufficient?

Since the M4 open box didn't work out, I'm thinking about getting an M2 Pro with 128GB instead. I know the M4 Pro (and even the M2) is more than is necessary, but I like some of the Pro features and music reading won't be the only thing I use it for.

Your scores will be saved as PDFs. Which are vanishingly tiny by modern standards.

Just to pick some random examples … the violin part to the Haydn “Gypsy” trio from IMSLP is a four-page full-color scan that’s half a megabyte. A (paid-for, excellently curated and prepared) collection of the complete trumpet parts to basically every public-domain orchestral work you’ll ever likely encounter in an audition is under 30 Mbytes. I made high-resolution full-color scans of the entire set of Rafael Mendez trumpet solos — both trumpet and piano parts; that comes in at 300 Mbytes. The Library of Congress’s “Aaron Copland Collection” (full-color scans of 46 of the composer’s original handwritten scores, mostly sketches) is 200 Mbytes.

Any professional musician could trivially work with a single-gigabyte limitation on tablet storage, especially assuming you had more storage elsewhere for your full collection. You are never going to show up to any kind of gig actually needing more than a gigabyte of PDFs.

(In practice, of course, you’ll show up with all of everything in your entire collection, for the simple reason that it’s less brain work to just keep everything than juggle loading and unloading what you need for the performance. But, if we lived in an era where the most you could have with you at any one gig was a single gigabyte, nobody would ever run out of space.)

Only a minority of musicians will amass collections that break into double-digit gigabyte ranges.

Just as a ballpark guesstimate, I would expect that you could fit the entire score-and-parts collection of the Metropolitan Opera (including everything they’ve ever rented or borrowed) into a terabyte with room to spare — especially if you knew from the start that you had such a limitation, as opposed to simply mindlessly scanning everything as high-resolution color for the sake of it.

All that writ … it’s much easier to blow through storage with recorded music, and especially with video. If you want to couple a massive score collection with recordings, especially if you want multiple recordings for reference, you might want as much storage as you can afford.

But if it’s just scores for use on stage … the smallest-capacity large-screen iPad that Apple ever made is more than adequate.

Cheers,

b&

 

[BenGoren]

EDIT: Finally I should also point out that just the bow of one of this instruments can cost well in excess of $5000 (Yes, that is Thousands). When it comes to music performance it is important to use the correct tools. A Mac of any denomination would not be allowed anywhere near a classical stage.

The cheap bows are $5000. And many of the string players have carbon-fiber cases that cost in excess of $5000. Hmpf … I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the bench that Ms. Wang is sitting on in those photos above costs more than $5000.

Every musician on stage has a big financial investment in their instruments. Us trumpeters have it about as good as it gets … you can get a perfectly fine trumpet for a few grand these days. But you’re going to have a bare minimum of three (Bb, C, and piccolo). And guaranteed at least a few more (Eb, cornet, flugelhorn). And not uncommonly more than one of each type, such as both piston- and rotary-valved C trumpets, or maybe a “backup” Bb for settings too risky for an instrument you care about. Oh — and, while there are good instruments available for “cheap,” most professionals are playing on instruments that cost twice (or more) what the cheap ones cost. And may well have flown across the country (or an ocean) to a manufacturer’s factory or a large music conference to try a number of instruments before making a selection. (And all this is before the mouthpieces, the mutes, the cases …)

It’s also worth bearing in mind that classical musicians are not paid well at all. School teachers are paid better on average. I don’t think there’s a single orchestral musician in the history of the profession that’s ever had a seven-figure salary. Maybe a principal in the LA Philharmonic who seriously hustles side gigs in recording studios and also has way too many private students could pull it off these days, maybe? But I’d be surprised if there actually is any such person … you’d be spreading yourself too thin. The base pay of the best orchestras in the highest-cost-of-living cities is still under $200,000 — nice work if you can get it, but that’s as good as it gets, and there aren’t very many of those gigs.

And the thought of bringing a computer and display on stage, then snaking power cables around … yeah right. Even the flute players aren’t allowed to have a case on stage during a performance. Drinking water is highly frowned upon.

I guarantee you that there are still orchestras which would flat-out forbid the use of a tablet on stage, too. Probably only a handful by now, and perhaps not for long.

So … yeah. A musician is definitely going to be frugal, but also willing to spend quite a pretty penny if it’s actually worth it. In the context of tech for reading scores on a screen, that’s going to mean spending extra on an unobtrusive device with a great display, but skipping the extra storage, cellular modem, that sort of thing. You’ll get the Bluetooth page-turning pedal and probably the pencil, but you’d only get the keyboard if this is going to be your one-and-only “desktop” computer (and, of course, even then you’ll leave the keyboard in your instrument case backstage).

b&

 

[StoneJack]

How much storage do you feel is sufficient?

Since the M4 open box didn't work out, I'm thinking about getting an M2 Pro with 128GB instead. I know the M4 Pro (and even the M2) is more than is necessary, but I like some of the Pro features and music reading won't be the only thing I use it for.

I have 256 gb in the air m1