Electronic Aids to study?

JackLuis

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I saw a thread on using an Ipad for storing music sheets and songs but I can't find it now.
I've got an older 8" tablet that is only useful for reading e-books because it can't be upgraded and Coby is out of business but was thinking about buying a newer one for Music storage.

Since I spent most of my 'mad money' on Ukes, I was wondering if I could use the tablet to display pdf's or maybe jpgs of music sheets?

Then I got to wondering if there is an Android/Windoze app for Music that would display the Staff music and/or tabs and play the notes, at differing time scales to practice along with? It seems to me that anapp like that would sell and if method books used it it would save a lot of trees!

Any of you know about the kind of things that are available?
 
Songbook, or On Song for the iPad. I use Songbook and I'm happy enough not to switch to On Song. Both allow you to change keys and display chord fingering for several stringed instruments. I'm not familiar with the other platforms.
 
Songbook, or On Song for the iPad. I use Songbook and I'm happy enough not to switch to On Song. Both allow you to change keys and display chord fingering for several stringed instruments. I'm not familiar with the other platforms.

That is seriously cool. I like being able to transpose and pick Baritone or C Uke too. I just got a Baritone today.
Here is a Youtube review of Songbook pro

The price is very light too just ~$8 for android on Goggle Play

Thanks wconley.:shaka:
 
For Windows, Android, and iOS, there's MuseScore (it's free).

I use both my Nexus 7 (I like the smallness of it) and my iPad Air 2 (more powerful) for music-related stuff. For recording my practice sessions (to get a better feel for my progress), as metronomes, for PDF reading (the graphically more demanding ones on the iPad), for ePub e-book reading (mostly on the Nexus, I find the Air too large for reading plain text books comfortable for long periods of time). I don't yet use a dedicated song sheet application on the iPad, though eventually that's the plan. For now, I just use PDFs.

If you're looking to buy a new device, I feel that iOS is the superior choice for anything music-related. Also generally better supported, unless you get one of Google's Android devices. Perhaps the last generation iPad Mini can be found at a good price. The Air 2 itself is lovely, but it's the current model, so even used devices tend to not be inexpensive. There's also the iPad Pro now, which I think would be great for sheet music, but I didn't want to spend that kind of money for what is in essence just a larger iPad.
 
For Windows, Android, and iOS, there's MuseScore (it's free).

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Wow That is very cool too. and Free! (I downloaded it) and available for my standby Linux box too I might be able to use MuseScore to learn to read the staff! We need this thread in the Beginners Forum.

My neighbor Gary is going to Love this when I see him tomorrow at Uke Practice. I think he has a midi piano too.

I'm not familiar with iOS, I have to look it up. I've been looking at Androids and it seems that 5.1 Lolliepop is the latest version. But a lot of the cheap droids are 4.4. I was leery of buying one of those cheap 7" $40 droids with 4.4 because I've seen what new releases do in software evolution. Having followed Mac and Windoz for as long as they have been around.:wallbash:

Thanks Mivo! :bowdown:

I just wish these kind of tools and aids had been available in the 60's-70's when I first started to learn guitar.
 
There is a notation system which comes with packages to edit and play and print/display music on computers. -

It is what is called an open system, so anyone can use it for no financial cost, and it has some rules for administration so a user group can set up and get system wide changes, such as making a specific ukulele module for example.

Have you go a link to that? Just a hint so I can chase it down. I did a search for ABC song system and got way too many hits to sort through.
 
Wow That is very cool too. and Free! (I downloaded it) and available for my standby Linux box too I might be able to use MuseScore to learn to read the staff! We need this thread in the Beginners Forum.

Glad it's useful to you! :) MuseScore does tabs, too (video). Haven't really played much with it, but that's on my list of things to do. I do like the open source aspect of it and that it's available on different platforms.

But a lot of the cheap droids are 4.4. I was leery of buying one of those cheap 7" $40 droids with 4.4 because I've seen what new releases do in software evolution.

For $40 it might be worth it, for a little while, but I'd probably also not do it. 4.4 (KitKat) came out in late 2013, so it's not terribly old, and it was pretty good too, but if the device can't be updated, it's just a dead end. Still, it might serve you well for a couple years. The Nexus line from Google is nice because they keep updating Android for it (I bought my Nexus 7 in summer of 2013 and it came with 4.x, then last year it got 5.x, and just recently it updated to 6.x - in retrospect that was the probably most economic Android device ever. I still use it every day when the iPad is too bulky. (I don't have a smartphone.)

By the way, as for learning to read the staff, there's a book I can recommend: "The Everything Reading Music Book" by Marc Schonbrun (there's a quasi-sequel by the same author in the same series that covers music theory in depth). It took me a while to get my hands on it over here (took my bookstore three months to obtain it... one day I'll learn to use Amazon, but today is not that day!) and there's no e-book version of it as far as I know, but it's excellent.
 

Very nice too. The range of software and platforms is overwhelming, but very interesting.

I'm sure glad I asked about this on UU. This community is so friendly, helpful, and noob tolerant too. :shaka: :cheers:

Mivo, thanks for you input re Droids. I'll check out the Nexus line. With the software available and easily upgradability it sounds like what I was looking for.
 
I carry my HP Chromebook everywhere. I got a refurbished one on Woot that has a free for life monthly 4G . It is lightweight and easily fits in my backpack. For the cost of a tablet, I got a real keypad and a bigger screen. All my songs are in Google Drive.

Thanks for the MuseScore link - I will see if it works on the Chromebook. If not, it will go on my laptop.
 
Wow I just loaded and opened MuseScore on my desktop PC and really like it so far. It is easy to use and seems very intuitive.

I bought an new 'droid yesterday to replace my obsolete Coby. After I bought the iRuLU, I found a link on how to upgrade my Coby, but that method may not work so I guess the $70 for the iRuLU is still a good deal. I'll try to upgrade the Coby Kyros but only as a display and e-pub reader. I got one of those Keyboard covers with the iRuLu for $9.99 so It's like a mini laptop.

I guess I'm getting up to speed on this new cyber century.
 
I got the iRuLu yesterday and opened the box, it was sleek and slim, lightweight and I thought how cool it was going to be to keep all my music and Musescore on it.

THEN! After about three hours trying to get it set up and not being able to connect to the net, or get it to respond to the screen touches, I decided to pack it back up and send it back. I just don't need the aggravation of dealing with another Chinese puzzle. I'll just print my music sheets off my desk top.

I found out how to set up MuseScore to do tabs and Staff scoring, but only for guitar? Is there a patch to add uke Tabs or do you just ignore the bottom two lines?
 
I found out how to set up MuseScore to do tabs and Staff scoring, but only for guitar? Is there a patch to add uke Tabs or do you just ignore the bottom two lines?

It does support ukulele tabs, too. :) When you create a new score, pick "Choose Instrument" (it's right at the top left when you are setting up a new sheet, looks like a blank page). Then select "Common Instruments" and look in the "Plucked Strings" (not just "Strings") category. There will be a template called "Ukulele (Tabulature)". You can also modify the tuning if you use something other than standard tuning. It can display both the tab and a regular staff, or only one of the two.

See here for details: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/tablature
 
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It does support ukulele tabs, too. :) When you create a new score, pick "Choose Instrument" (it's right at the top left when you are setting up a new sheet, looks like a blank page). Then select "Common Instruments" and look in the "Plucked Strings" (not just "Strings") category. There will be a template called "Ukulele (Tabulature)". You can also modify the tuning if you use something other than standard tuning. It can display both the tab and a regular staff, or only one of the two.

See here for details: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/tablature

I'll try that today. I guess it helps to read the manual too! This is a very impressive program.

Setting a Uke for low G or low D, do you use G1 and D1 or??? to set the pitches of the strings? I thought I'd try to set up a dual tab score for Baritone and Tenor Uke.

I bought a "Baritone Uke Book 1," by Hal Leonard and it starts off using TABs I thought I'd test the program by creating some scales exercises to learn the program, and the Baritone and Tenor. I think setting up the different scales in tab and staff would be useful for learning sight reading and muscle memory of the scales.
 
After putting in a few hours learning how to set up staffs and tabs for the C tuned Uke and a G tuned Baritone I feel a bit more positive about MuseScore. It's not so hard for a noobie to learn and it does/can teach you a lot. I'm a long way from mastering this program but I'm liking it for allowing me to document-save-print music on a staff and tablature. I just need to get comfortable with it. There seem to be several settings that need to be adjusted and learning them is a challenge to one's ADD.
But a few minutes/hours a day allowed me to learn a Uke easily so practice, practice, practice. :rolleyes:
 
Your Coby Android tablet will work fine. Most Android tablets take a MicroSD card. With a USB MicroSD card reader, you can save PDF songheets to folders on the MicroSD card. You can open those files with your Coby Android tablet using it's word processor's PDF reader. You don't need to buy an iAnything. Ric
 
I plan on using the Coby as a pdf viewer. I haven't fooled with it for a while, I'm waiting for a cable to show up then I'll get into it and see if I can change out the operation system to 4.0 or maybe 5.1, just to see if that is possible, then it may be a lot better. I found that loading the pdf's in the sd card is a lot better and easier than the way Amazon wants you to do it by loading it on the cloud, in the Fire 7" I bought. I like the Fire but the screen is just too small for a music stand display. Of course with the Fire you need some optional software to really use the sd card effectively, however it is easy to get what you need and info on how to do it is more broadly available for the Fire.

I want to play with adjusting the aspect ratio (LxW) of a pdf to allow for the different ratios of the Fire and Colby displays. That will allow me to adjust the font sizes and colors to format Chord Lyric sheets to be more easily read on the two 'droids. Next I want to look at adjusting the out put of MuseScore to fit the form factors for the 'droids. If I can use MuseScore to input the music and then output the right aspect ratio pdf's I'll be thrilled.

However fooling with 'droids and software really cuts into my baritone practice time. :biglaugh:
 
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