Do You Use a Tablet, Rather than Books?

Bill1 said:

If you go to a ukulele event, do you take your ukulele in a case? Can you access Dropbox without an internet connection or device?.

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I don't like having to rely on the Internet for my data. We lose our connection occasionally.

The problem with the stick is that if you don't haul a computer around you can't use it. Are there any tablets that even accept a stick?

For just being in the house I'll cast my Dropbox or internet music to the TV. Makes it TONS easier to read.

If I know a song list in advance I'll download the Dropbox files as pdfs to the tablet. Tons of room on it with an extra SD card

I use an ipad pro 11 with Forscore. Having nearly no bezels makes it almost the same size as a piece of sheet music.

I use an iPad Mini and the Photos app. I take a picture of blank TAB and then edit with markup when I’m arranging.

The nice about paper is that it doesnt need fresh electricity. A few days after the hurricane hits, its nice to still be able to play.

Knows Picker said:

The nice about paper is that it doesnt need fresh electricity. A few days after the hurricane hits, its nice to still be able to play.

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Electricity failures aren’t unheard of in the U.K. but are (we’ll have been) a rarity. For storm or prone places the annual disruption of the Hurricane Season must be horrid.

I like and prefer paper copies but my piles of music can be a bother to store and move around. Electronic does have its advantages too and compactness is one of them. When the power is down then a torch lets you read a paper copy in the (otherwise) dark, but if you have battery back up Power Banks then maybe you can run your tablet too.

When out playing at the Uke Club - a distant memory just now - I used a tablet with all of the Club’s songs on it. Once CV19 is even more under control I’ll be back singing and playing my Uke with my Club mates, and it’ll be a Tablet that holds my music.

captain-janeway said:

The problem with the stick is that if you don't haul a computer around you can't use it.

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I have a trailer hitch on the back of my car, so hauling isn't a problem.

Knows Picker said:

The nice about paper is that it doesnt need fresh electricity. A few days after the hurricane hits, its nice to still be able to play.

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Nice thing about a ukulele, a stand and a tablet….
Combined they weigh less than 10 pounds.

Health issues have restricted me to 10 pounds — my music books weigh considerably more. :-(

Both. I have some ukulele books on Kindle and use my iPad to access them. I can also open them in Kindle on my desktop or laptop computers.

I have our club songbook on the iPad but had to download it to iBooks.

I have quite a few printed song and instructional books. For instruction, I prefer printed on paper. I can mark it up. Plus, have a two-page spread open. Lots of my books are from the 70s. Folk and folk rock stuff. Unavailable now.

For jams and performances, I'll copy a song into MS Word with the chords in place in the lyrics. I can make the text larger and often print it as a two-page spread so the type is large and easy to read. I can write in information about instrumentals and pauses that aren't in the original music.

I put the music I'm going to play in a binder in the order of play or alphabetical if the set list order isn't established. Sometimes I'll write in a short introduction about the song.

At the uke club, when we were still meeting, we projected the song on a screen so members wouldn't have to bring music and a stand. The downside is that they also can't make notes about the songs. And the way it's supposed to be played. Which isn't always the way it's written. (One of my pet peeves. Write it out exactly the way it's supposed to be played and sung. Be consistent in the symbols, abbreviations, notations, strum patterns, etc. Otherwise, people get very confused.)

So, both actually.

kkimura said:

Seven books and five binders. I'd love to put them into a tablet but my old eyes can't see the print of a tablet unless I increase the font to where flipping pages becomes an issue.

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Darn truncated post…here’s the short version of what I wrote…
I find that with judicious editing, I can get most songs onto one page and still have a decent font size for these old eyes. The trick is use in-line bracketed chords, not chords above and don’t repeat chorus, just “…CH”. A bigger tablet would be nice but too pricey. I’d love it too if iPad got rid of the glare. I’d love to be able to use an app like Onsong but on a tablet w/ a screen like the “paper” Kindle.

bunnyf said:

Darn truncated post…

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Don't feel bad. I just posted something, and nothing appeared.

I've given up re-typing responses.

I'm pleased to report that ForScore now supports multi device syncing through iCloud. I have it set up on my iPad Pro as the primary device, and it auto syncs to my iPad Mini and my iPhone. It is working flawlessly.

Now, I wish ForScore would add a scroll feature. When viewing on the iPhone, I need to use landscape mode in order to make the score large enough to be readable. Unfortunately, that means I only see four or five lines of the tune. I have to manually scroll down to read the rest. An auto scroll feature would fix that.

I'll have to check into that. I was hoping it would work that way.

VegasGeorge said:

I'm pleased to report that ForScore now supports multi device syncing through iCloud. I have it set up on my iPad Pro as the primary device, and it auto syncs to my iPad Mini and my iPhone. It is working flawlessly.

Now, I wish ForScore would add a scroll feature. When viewing on the iPhone, I need to use landscape mode in order to make the score large enough to be readable. Unfortunately, that means I only see four or five lines of the tune. I have to manually scroll down to read the rest. An auto scroll feature would fix that.

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Re my wish for an auto scroll feature in ForScore: I see that ForScore has something similar. It is an auto page turn feature that works off a metronome count. You set the tempo and time signature. You tell it how many measures per page. You give yourself some pick up beats. Then you start it up. It automatically turns to the next page when it reaches the set count. And, in landscape mode, it auto scrolls down (all at once) when you reach the half way point on your page. I haven't actually gotten it to work yet. I can set the parameters OK, but I can't figure out how to get it going with a visible metronome. I'll keep trying.

Oh, and I found an app that will tweak the IOS to provide auto scroll in almost any app. But, you have to jailbreak your iphone to get the app. I won't do that.