What is the best approach and/or software for moving images of lead sheets to a laptop display, and organizing their files for use during rehearsal and performance?

Any thoughts you have or ecperience you care to share on this will be most appreciated.

Merrill

Merrill, do a seach on this forum and you will find info. Also search for "Music Pad Pro" or maybe string those words together.

DonM uses Word for a laptop.

If you say ANY then I have also something to say...

...why not using the traditional way of moving lead sheets? I think there's really no need to change from paper to a screen.

BTW: Sometimes it seems to me that nobody is able to do anything without a PC anymore. Sometimes I'm asking myself what our ancestors did in such situations...*lol*

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

I kinda wish I could get regular music (not lead sheet) into a laptop or something and just use like a foot peadal or something to turn pages...

I know they have something like this.. a Friend of ours was watching a show in Vegas and all the musicians in the orchestra had monitors in front of them for there music...

It would be pretty neat to be able to play songs without having to mess with page turns etc..

Hey, that's easy!!! I'm doing it since I'm playing guitar (since about 20 years). I have always formed a picture of the music sheets in my mind...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Go to the web site music123.com and do a search for "Music Pad Pro Plus" It's a device that is pretty much what looks to me what you'd want if you have $1199. US dollars to spend. I just got a catalog from them in today's mail. It's in that catalog.

I've owned my MusicPad Pro+ for 2 months now and I don't know how I lived without it. Pricey, but 'worth every penny' to me. I've got all my essential song charts (from lyrics to leadsheets) all in ONE place now. Some special features include, intuitive touch screen (via finger or pen) a very bright EZ to read screen, maximizing the viewable dimensions of standard sheet & lead sheet charts, the ability to mark up and edit lyrics, chords, and even the idiviual notes on the staff, unlimited storage via removeable USB pen drive, custom playlists etc. Convenient 'tap the screen' page turning or via footpedal if desired, Quick recall of any song in my growing 1,000+ song library. Some initial work is required to get your music in, but thru the combined efforts of other musicpad owners here (and swapping files), as well as direct import of digital leadsheet files, its pretty quick:
http://www.music123.com/Freehand-Music-Pad-Pro-Plus-i152034.music
http://freehandsystems.com/products.html

Scott


[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 04-30-2005).]

Woah, a metal stand doesn't cost more than 20 $US I guess. Merill, if you do not really need this tool right now then I would advise you to wait a while until the price will be fallen. Or try to get a 'free version' maybe from your PC friends... ...nooooo, I would never suggest you to search for illegal warez...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Hi Sheriff: I certainly understand the concern about cost, but to bring a little more perspective on this. Quite a few people seem willing to spend DOUBLE the cost of the MusicPad Pro just to upgrade their current keyboard to the latest (current) model. Considering the fact that sheet music, lead sheets, or lyrics are often an equally important element to helping us create music on our keyboard, I believe (if one's current keyboard is adequate sounding, that investing in a device such as the MusicPad Pro a worthy investment. No more having to drag a stack of fakebooks to a gig, and find the song in the OTHER fakebook which I left at home. - Scott

I've been reading this thread with some degree of fascination. I figured there must be a simple solution to the problem of placing sheet music on your desktop of laptop computer and have the ability to scroll down the page without using your hands.

Placing the sheet music on the computer was a snap using in inexpensive flatbed scanner. Lots of options here, many of which don't require a lot of expensive hardware or software. The scanner is an HP Scanjet 4300-C which I picked up at Best Buy for $69. (I'm sure someone can find it cheaper on the Internet)

I scanned a page out of one of my fake books into Microsoft Word 2000, which took less than 30 seconds. The page display was then set to the screen width, allmost all of the toolbars were removed from the view at the top of the page to add more space, and the bottom bar is dragged below the screen so it too adds to the viewable area.

Now the trick was to scroll down the page without using my hands. Piece of cake! I placed a wireless, scrolling-wheel mouse on a rubber pad on the floor in the opposite direction it would normally be held in your hand. The pad held the mouse firmly in place, but if movement were a problem, you could easily velcro the mouse to a small plywood base with rubber nubs on the bottom to prevent slippage. Now, by resting my foot on the scrolling wheel, when I slide my foot forward, the music scrolls down the screen. It's that simple. Look Mom--no hands.

Now, if I could read sheet music this would be an even better tool. For those of you that can, problem solved.

BTW: The entire file was only 135 kb, which is extremely small. After opening Micrsoft Word, the document loaded in less than a second.

Cheers from an old man,

Gary