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Do any of you have digital sheet music displays? Like, a computer screen that shows the score rather than paper everywhere?

Given that I have a few CD Sheet Music CDs, a few hundred separate PDFs, and of course, access to places like IMSLP and Mutopia, I've been thinking of going digital and saving paper by putting an LCD screen on my piano.

My current 22" LCD for my computer can fit two letter-sized papers side-by-side, and would work great as a screen for sheet music. The only issue is that I have an upright, so I can't just plop the screen on top like I can with a grand, and the LCD is a bit thick to just lay it on the music stand. I've been looking at Tablet PCs that might be able to serve as an e-score display and would have the advantage of being portable. Any thoughts?

I just bought and received a used Tablet PC offa the net. I'm using Adobe Reader in fullscreen mode with some PDFs I downloaded from IMSLP. The mini-joystick on the panel turns the pages left or right. I've calculated that the computer could probably hold about 500,000 black and white scanned pages.

Holy Mackerel. Mazin.
That is so cool, Keep us up to date.
Regards
mike

Neat! Now all you need is a foot pedal to advance the pages.

Hmmm, that display looks defective to me. There are wayyy too many notes on it!

Charles

Sometimes when i don't bother printing out something I know I'm only going to play once, I simply fold down the music stand on my grand piano, then put my laptop on it. Can't do it now, cos my laptop's battery lasts no more than 5 minutes >.<

Looks great! Let us know how you are enjoying it as you use it.

More info in the pianist corner
And here

Mazin,

If you have not already visited this site, you absolutely NEED to:

AirTurn

The resources available there will save you tons of time and give you some great ideas!

Enjoy,

Wow, it's been a while. Bumping with content.

I just came back from a nice cruise and got to know the piano guy at one of the bars, Don. Don's a pretty cool Canadian, but he also has a Tablet PC (also a Toshiba Satellite) that he uses to display lyrics when he performs. He's got a Griffin Powermate, essentially a big aluminum shuttle wheel that connects via USB. It makes turning the page easy (hit the button on top) and flip thru (turn the button), but they're not cheap (about 40--50 USD), and I don't think I need it too badly.



BTW, it's a bit interesting playing piano on a boat... every few seconds you feel gravitated towards one end of the piano.

@lilylady

Thanks for the link! It's apparent that I'm not the first to try this... perhaps Citron and them have some tips they'd like to share.



While on the plane I tried out the Adobe's commenting features. Seems to work pretty well, and the marks also show up in xpdf, SumatraPDF, etc. The marks above were actually for a friend, who can turn the on/off in Adobe Reader. Neat, but I doubt I'll be marking up the sheet music much.

In other news, I've started helping out with IMSLP. IMSLP offer a huge collection of public-domain music as a non-profit project based out of Canada. If you don't know about them, you've been missing out. Lately, they've been in the progress of importing a lot of the sheet music from the CD Sheet Music collection (I and I'm sure some of you guys have these CDs). Problem is, the CDSM logo needs to be removed from each and every score, or we can't legally distribute them. It's a worthy cause if you've got time, and it's also the source of the music shown in my first photo.

@Rich Glassini

You're bordering on spam. Given your affiliation with AirTurn, I understand you're excited about them, but it's irritating to see all the campaigning for AirTurn.

The truth is, AirTurn have few products worth mentioning, none of which are worthy of such exuberant praise: a wireless device that can hit PgDn and PgUp, and software that is largely an amalgam of existing software but with the concern of a proprietary format. Obviously, AirTurn want to get their name out there, but this kind of hyperbole without disclaiming ulterior motives is rather annoying, and I'm starting to see it on places beyond PW.


Speak for yourself. All I found were several hastily written and sometimes off-topic "resources".

Well this all seems pretty cool but, e.g. a concert, its best to use just normal sheet music Just to be on the safe side, i mean you never know, maybe windows wants to have a little update or suddenly your PC crashes, or it just falls. also if the screen is glossy, it can cause a few problems if light is shining at you...
But it is awesome! because it can enlarge the notes which will make it easier to read and all you edit on it can be reversed so its a great choice for less sheet music around in the house but then.. you could just put your computer screen on the music rest, then put your computer under or beside the piano... and then put a mousemat on the side of the music rest and then ... wow maybe i should make the new revolutionary pianuterâ„¢ ... wow.. it could have an expandable keyboard from over the keys so when you,re just surfing the web you can just sit there infront of your piano and surf the web, then open some sheet music from you computer, put in the keyboard, and play I'm going to be rich!

If you just make that keyboard integrated into the piano... it would be the ultimate piano... or not the ultimate.. but its "tech"nically ultimate

Oblacone, that is very similar to the idea I've had for integrating a computer with a piano, but I would keep the acoustic/functional part of the piano intact, and mount a rollout shelf under the main piano keyboard (that you would roll out, slide up and latch onto the front of the keybed) for the keyboard and mouse. Also I was thinking of doing it in a roll-player piano cabinet (with the player components removed), but I like the looks of that cabinet better.
I actually happen to like a cabinet like the one below.

Maybe a sheet music display could be incorporated into something like that?

Sometimes, though, I do like a wide area for sheet music like on the piano below, too.


Anyone know if there are any upright piano cabinets with the best of both designs - the fancy moldings/etc of the Mathuskek with the wide area on the Baldwin?
(Also, anyone know of any good quality high-resolution images of front views of Baldwin 6000s (where you see the entire piano in the picture, and not just part of it) that are at least 1600x1200, and not of an ebony finish? I couldn't find any on google search, and don't have easy access to one to take a picture of it myself. Feel free to PM me if you know of any online pics of them so as not to clutter this thread.)

What's the chance of a manufacturer making a new upright with the fancy cabinet of the Mathushek, the wide music area of the Baldwin, and at least the size of this Knabe below? As far as what computer screen I'd want incorporated into the piano, I was thinking at minimum size one of the 30" widescreen 2560x1600 displays. So who will be building those upright pianos? (The Baldwin 6000, Steingraeber 138, and Heintzman 140 are all too small. Not only would I want the piano large enough to incorporate a large display above the music desk, I would want it large enough to have plain steel trichords down to at least A#2 or A2 (without any foreshortening in the tenor) or even F2 if possible (with no more tenor foreshortening than in a Steinway B).)

Well 88 key pianoplayer, i also wanted the keys to remain, just that that was a picture displaying the screen inside a piano, i think id would be a waste to buy i piano just for its computer possibilities. but i was also thinking maybe on a grand piano, making the music rest into a computer screen... hmm and have the computer localized somewhere below the grand or something... and then for like watching youtube videos, you know the two squares, those that you slide the music rest of from.. well it doesn't matter, but those would be speakers... wow.. what an idea.. and it would be touch screen with a on display keyboard... if someone invents that, I'll sue them

There is a company Universal Display

http://www.universaldisplay.com/default.asp?contentID=585

They are pioneers in thin flexible diplays, and will make the currently LCD diplays seem like and old fashiond CRT display.(think heads-up displays used by figher jets) I could envision the music stand incorporated with this technology.
Add to this a small computer camera facing you with software that let's say, after blinking 3 times quickly, will turn the page....etc.

hehe i seem to notice i forgot to put the pic of the other piano I would incorporate a display with....



now that would be an interesting cabinet in which to incorporate a display.... but then there's the problem of what do you do when you want to spread paper sheet music and span the entire width of the piano like on the Baldwin... and about the knabe mentioned... i can't find the pic i was gonna link... somehow i clicked "post" before i meant to lol but it was taken from that same website the mathushek was taken from (now defunct), and was like 59" tall, and probably at least 66-70" wide (it had a keyblock on the left that was probably a full octave or more wide).

There's a brand new acoustic upright piano being developed by Cunningham Piano Company called the Cunningham Composer - it will feature a built-in touchscreen, as well as MIDI capabilities so that you can use programs such as Garage Band and Sibelius or Finale. MusicReader will also be installed, enabling you to read and annotate PDF scores with your finger. The far left pedal will also eventually be equipped with the AirTurn page turning pedal for hands-free digital page turns.
Here are some videos demonstrating the Cunningham Composer:


Rich Galassini from Cunningham Piano Co. is holding the digital camera, and I'm the director of communications for AirTurn, in addition to being on the faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music, despite my horrible hair day! :P
Hope you enjoy the video demos!

Yeah, I remember seeing a few patents about MIDI devices for acoustic pianos. Googling found one called the " Moog PianoBar", although at 1.5k it's not a casual purchase.

Could somebody tell us what size the screen is on the Cunningham Composer? It looked a bit narrow to me, especially when there's all that space to the right and left, but I can't really tell how tall it is. For reference, a 22" screen at 16:10 can fit two sheets of letter paper (8.5"x11") side-by-side with a tiny margin to spare.

Is there a keyboard or physical buttons for that computer? Everything could be touch-driven, but I don't know how well that works (especially when the button on-screen is smaller than your finger tip )

Wait, that's Mac on-screen. Computer sold separately?

Since the Cunningham Composer is assembled right here in Philadelphia, and each one is a custom installation, it is possible to put any size screen into the piano. After gathering feedback from pianists, the 17" touch screen we chose seems to have a fine balance of size and aesthetics.

Musicians had no trouble reading 2 pages of standard size piano music. The music is just a touch smaller than live, but single pages can be seen and, even as demonstrated on the videos, half pages at significantly larger size can be displayed as well.

Check out the other post called "The Cunningham Composer" for more info.

Cheers,

Mazin,

What model Toshiba are you using? What other models have a detachable screen? Great idea.

We use Power Music - this can display sheet music or chords. You can set up your own chord sheets and transpose really quickly. It's great for setting up playlists, then displaying full screen. Our band uses four monitors on stands, all powered from one fairly old PC. We use a foot pedal to turn pages. What a difference from books and paper falling down and getting mixed up!

http://cambronsoftware.co.uk/products/software/power-music.html

Your pic was the inspiration for creating something that an older person (91) could read! I started with foot petals, but found that the hand swipe on an Android tablet was better. The hard part was connecting the tablet to a large display HDMI...it works, but requires some diligence.

You can see pics of it and a discussion of how it works, a link to a movie, etc. at http://www.sundognorth.com/PeteAJustSayin/?p=434 Suggestions appreciated!

I like your Tablet PC but could find nothing like it these days, especially in the < $500 range!

Pete A