Has anyone here done any experimenting with using tablet PCs for string and transporting music? If so, I'd appreciate your insights and experiences.

I play whistle, mostly by ear, and mountain dulcimer in a beginner/intermediate session group with a heavy emphasis on music proselytizing, e.g. finding, teaching and encouraging beginners with an interest in American and Celtic traditional music.

For a variety of reasons, I often find myself lugging binders and books of sheet music that weigh more than my instrument. Indexing and then retrieving pieces is a pain also. I'm very interested in getting a tablet for this purpose. I already have one, a 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab, but I feel the screen format is too small for convenient use.

I am also a strong believer in not reinventing the wheel, so if anyone else has information I am never too proud to ask.

TIA

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Its Winter - Gotta learn to play the blues

Hi Chuck

Any tablet with a screen of 10 inches or above would likely do, with the proviso that it can take a micro SD card. I am assuming that you have the sheet music/ABC on your main computer and a micro SD card would be the best way of transferring them.

David

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Payday, Piping, Percussion and Poetry- the 4 best Ps

I'd look at the software available then pick a tablet that runs that software. It sounds like you want to catalog sheet music in something like .pdf files. I'm not familiar with software to do that but a Google search will probably get you started. Don't scrimp on tablet when you figure out what you need. Get a tablet with a high def, bright screen. Cheap tablets have cheap screens that are difficult to see off-axis (two people looking at the same screen) and impossible to read in sunlight. iPad Retina screens, Google Nexus and Kindle Fire hi-def screens are all good screens. Agree that 7" is probably too small for what you want. 10" should work well for traditional music.

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The Walrus

What would a wild walrus whistle if a walrus could whistle wild?

The second mouse may get the cheese but the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

An additional thought: while an sd card slot isn't necessary, it is a way to get more memory. Memory is good, more memory is better and too much memory is just right. .pdf files don't take that much memory but you'll be surprised how many other uses you will find for a tablet. Get as much memory as you can afford.

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The Walrus

What would a wild walrus whistle if a walrus could whistle wild?

The second mouse may get the cheese but the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

I use forScore on my iPad for all my church stuff (there's a LOT) and a lot of my Irish stuff, too. It allows you to create setlists and much more. It can import PDF music, which is a big plus, because I usually "poke in" the music using iWriteMusic (on the iPad) and then export it directly into the forScore application. For the Irish stuff, TunePalHD is REALLY cool, btw!

Pat

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Pat Plunkett, Wheeling, WV
Flutes: John Gallagher 8-key Pratten, Garry Somers Pratten, Copley F, Yamaha 684
Whistles: Lots
Bodhran: Finnegan Hill 14"
Bones: from IrishBones.com (just because!!!)

To continue this topic, I received a new Galaxy Tab 4 10.1" tablet for Christmas and have been testing Mobile Sheets, which I like. My next task is building up my files. As one part of this, I have a fairly large collection of printed sheet music, some of which I'd like to get into machine format. There are a number of Android scanner apps on the market. Does anyone here have a recommendation for (or against) any of those apps? Thanks again.

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Its Winter - Gotta learn to play the blues

Hi Chuck

Why not use the camera on your tablet. No need to invest in a scanner.

David

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Payday, Piping, Percussion and Poetry- the 4 best Ps

I will. What I was referring to area group of Android apps that use the tablet'camera but auto-correct the results to compensate for angle discrepancies that resort from hand-held shooting and that distort the image so that it doesn't appear to be a true rectangular sheet. Another solution would be to build a frame to hold the tablet and page in the proper relationship, like photographers have for decades, but I'm not enough of a carpenter to do it properly.

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Its Winter - Gotta learn to play the blues

I'm not aware of such an Android application (but there *must* be, right? I'll start looking), but a cheap Ricoh compact camera I bought a long time ago has that feature built in. I can take pictures of whiteboards and indeed sheet music at an angle and it can auto-straighten the picture so that it looks like it's taken directly in front/above (great for whiteboards if you use a flash, because you'll have to do that from an angle unless you want the flash reflected back into the camera). And pictures of skyscrapers of course.. it works impressivly well, as long as there's no ambiguity as to where the right outline is to be found in the picture.

I've been pretty happy using my iBook. My vision isn't the greatest, but it fits easily on a music stand and has a bright, clear screen. I use both iBooks (stores music locally) and DropBox. DropBox stores data on line, but can be installed on multiple devices. It makes sharing files between devices a snap. You can also scan sheet music with the camera.