New Piece Of Gear To Try Out - Wind Clips

My uke groups have been playing several outdoor events lately. We've done one community festival, a neighborhood street party, and this Friday evening we're playing for a local city art walk. Keeping music on my stand, and not getting blown around is always an issue outdoors. I have numerous medium sized clips, clothes pins, and jumbo paper clips. None of them have worked very well. Pages still blow around, and unclipping quickly to change music pages can be treacherous. I did a search on Amazon and found Musicmaide Wind Clips. MMAZ1000 is the product number. They are large, clear plastic clips that attach to the shelf of my music stand (Peak One stand). They slide easily back & forth on the shelf, and you don't have to remove them to change pages. They cover the pages securely from bottom to top and they are see through. I've used them at rehearsals, but Friday will be the real test in the outdoor environment. They come in two sizes for stands with thinner shelfs, and the large works perfect on the Peak stand with the thicker shelf.

I will report back with a functional review after Friday evening. I am old school, and do not have (or want to have at this time) my music on an iPad or the like. Maybe at some point I will, but so far, the computer tablet users in my uke groups seem to fiddle around with them much more than I do with paper music.

We used to use clear, ~1/4” plexiglass cut to sheets closer to legal size so they could cover orchestral sheet music when we would have outdoor performances in orchestra.

They worked quite well. Just put them over the music, and the larger size means they can usually handle whatever format you need to keep from flopping around. Of course, you can cut the sheets to whatever size you’d like.

Cheap-ish solution for any DIY-ers out there.

Edit: I replied without taking the time to search out the product on Amazon/company website, and I’m super intrigued! They look way better than the plexiglass we used to use and much less cumbersome to transport.

Hey RafterGirl thanks for sharing, those are a very well thought out product, I enjoyed the video. Let us know how they work out for you

They used to call them clothespins...

DownUpDave said:

Hey RafterGirl thanks for sharing, those are a very well thought out product, I enjoyed the video. Let us know how they work out for you

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Yes, the video on how they work was well done. It influenced me to give these a try. After a “flyaway music” incident while quickly unclipping the clothespins to change music, I decided to look for something different.

Interesting concept. Based on the video, though, it looks like turning pages is not easy. I'll be interested to hear your review.

I like mine.

UkerDanno said:

They used to call them clothespins...

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Yes, I've heard of them.

RafterGirl said:

I am old school, and do not have (or want to have at this time) my music on an iPad or the like. Maybe at some point I will, but so far, the computer tablet users in my uke groups seem to fiddle around with them much more than I do with paper music.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. Clever idea.
https://smile.amazon.com/Clips-musi...lips+mmaz1000&qid=1560333316&s=gateway&sr=8-1

For my Wednesdays night sessions, I used to wheel a 25 lb suitcase full of music to the library - Yellow book, Blue book, and loose sheets. Now, everything fits inside a 10" Kindle Fire. I have over 1,200 songs listed by book and also alphabetically, so I can get to them very quickly. As for the fiddling, sometimes, that's part of the fun of electronics.

I use a pair of extra large Bulldog clips.

Mine are 5” long but they can be bought 11” long.

Amazon

The clips worked great yesterday evening. We played for almost 2 hours on an open city plaza. The weather was good, not too windy and thankfully no thunderstorm like we had the evening before. The clips kept my music well controlled, with no fluttering or fly away. No need to remove anything to change pages. Thumbs up on these.

I am glad to hear they worked well. Sounds like you've found a winner.