Tablets for reading sheet music - Big Band Arranging SECRETS REVEALED 

iPads are amazing onstage! It’s allowed my band to run so much faster! A few thoughts: 1. Music stands kinda suck at holding iPads: get an iPad stand. 2. Have a spare iPad with all the parts loaded! 3. I keep paper copies in a bin in the car. Cheap and Easy insurance. 4. Use forscore: it will sync your library (with notes!) between Macs, iPads and iPhones 5. iPad Pro 12.9 is nearly a 8.5x11 size. They are well worth the money for the extra screen. Amazing topic as usual!

This channel is a goldmine of info. Thanks for sharing so much information in such an accessible way!

I'd add a few, and perhaps it's exclusive to me, downsides to the tablet. I've seen players swipe their iPads out of the stand, which was really painfull doing a gig that even barely paid to fix this broken screen. I've seen many players messing up forms due to dal segno signs and coda's etc, certainly when they'd have to jump like three pages back. And one very personal experience: if you have long rehearsal days or even gigs - like playing dancing gala evenings, my eyes start to have difficulties focusing on screens after around 1 hour + non stop reading. Probably the blue light that it produces, but it might just be something personal that others don't experience. Anyhow, you're right, it will become the norm, if it hasn't already. But I'll keep on printing the pages until the last bit 😂 Printed your arrangement by the way. It is also a nice practicing reminder laying on the stand, as you can't turn it off 👌

INCREDIBLY PRACTICAL! Thank you Elliot!

Haven't used a paper chart since I got my first iPad in 2015 unless it was printed for me and at the gig already. I prefer it so much. It doesn't fly away in wind and it doesn't matter if I forget my stand light. Now I have an iPad with an Apple Pencil and it's soooo nice.

Awesome stuff!

I too, play trumpet. Everyone in the band I play in uses a table of some form. We use a Drop Box distribution where I will download everything to my PC, then separate out the trumpet parts into their own folders. That is then copied to a thumb drive where I upload the trumpet parts to a Chromebook with a 360 degree keyboard. The screen is larger and brighter. I also carry my thumb drive with me as there is always someone who loaded the wrong chart. I know that seems like a lot of work, and it is. But, it has saved us many times.

I really like your music and videos! But I had problem concentrating on what you said and didn't watch the whole video cause of the background music. Maybe it's just me but wanted to give you feedback. Regarding using iPad, I had a "learning" curve for using it in my big band, but It takes that you prepare your iPad with the music etc. But sometimes when it has to go fast on rehearsals I also use sheet music. I'm still using both but I'm more to the iPad nowdays.

Love the content! Would love to see arranging techniques for salsa tunes

I play guitar with a traditional jazz big band with music on paper and also "sub in" with other big bands that uses Tablets (only). My fear on converting to digital is dealing with the DC/DS back pages and CODAs, and variable number of repeats (that can change from gig to gig). How easy is that to navigate with or without a bluetooth page turner? I am thinking of running Mobile Sheets on a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet. Any advice and experience is appreciated. Thank you !

Various thoughts: I love my iPad. But A decent sized iPad is expensive! (like 15 gigs pays for one iPad). Get the largest screen you can afford. Get a battery pack and bring it on gigs. Mine has 3 usb ports on it. You will probably rescue a fellow player with this as well. When marking your music, use colour!! I use forScore. It comes with pre-made “stamps” so you are not physically drawing a # or ^, your just place ing on screen with a tap. I put courtesy accidentals in red. I’ll often use the highlighter tool to draw a line down the left margin to show all the key changes. Yellow for the initial key, green for the next one etc. maybe a horizontal purple line over sections where I have to change to flute for 8 bars. It’s a provides Birds Eye view of the chart. If not a vertical line, just a heavy markup in colour of the actual key change. I load all 5 sax parts on my iPad. I play 1st or 2nd tenor for solo sharing. In prep for a rehearsal/gig, I put a big red check next to title of the one I’m supposed play. I ultimately will declutter the set list by removing charts. More than once I have airdropped the alto chart to my section mate who has misplaced or misfiled his copy. Be prepared!

I had a hilarious experience with my first tablet on a gig a few years ago. I was using an Android-based tablet at the time. I get set up, turn on my shiny new tablet…it boots up and then just shut itself off. I know the battery is charged for sure, that’s not the issue. I boot it up again…same thing, just shuts off. So now I’m panicking…it’s 30 mins to the gig and I’m having a major technical issue, my tablet will not stay powered up, and I have no idea why. And dopey me, being all confident about the awesomeness of using a tablet instead of paper, I didn’t bother to bring my book with me! After fiddling around with it for another 10 minutes, I figured out the issue. I had it clamped into a dedicated tablet holder that I had just purchased for this gig and never used before, and it turned out that the arms were pushing on a combination of buttons on the sides of the tablet that you would press to do a manual shut down. Thankfully I figured it out before the downbeat. I learned a couple of things. One, if you get new gear make sure you thoroughly test out your new setup before a gig - even if the new piece of gear is an analog device lol. Two, and I should know this because I make my living in the I.T. industry, ALWAYS have redundancy, backup and disaster recovery in place. If something’s going to go wrong with your tablet, Murphy’s Law dictates that it’s going to happen at a gig, so you better have hard copies of your music as well.

Interesting blog-i,m old school retired pro-still write scores in pencil and copy parts by hand-then scan and can sell or reprint quite easily.Many old pro friends come and play in my band and comment on how nice it is to play from nicely copied hand written parts.Technology is great and useful in many ways but not for everyone.It would take me forever to be accomplished on Sibelius and I,m just not interested in learning-to me there's definitely something more human about hand written scores/parts-i don,t think anything would change my mind-still an interesting video and thanks for the insight.

It's always been the Holy Grail for gigging, yet still there isn't a really good solution. As a pianist of course I have iReal Book on my phone - that's obligatory. As for detailed parts, I send them as PDFs and take paper to gigs as well... Or did back when there was work around - here in the UK there's virtually no jazz these days but when there is it's pretty dull tribute bands... I'm curious as to why you don't put brass solos on the second part. I know range and lip aren't such an issue these days, but I still find the traditional way useful. Incidentally, my gig bag always contains spare universal transformer for keyboards and chargers for Apple and PC devices as well as power adaptors, various types of batteries, multitool, fuses and even mini soldering kit. And spare mic and leads. For lending but all clearly labelled MINE. The gig paramedic will see you now...

As someone who plays both lead and improvises, I honestly don't understand how guys switch parts when playing lead! I understand playing all over the range of the horn when you're soloing, so switching parts makes sense if you're sitting 2 - 4. But when I'm sitting on a lead book, I don't want to jump down a part or two, as my aperture will want to spread, and I'll actually be left with less endurance than if I simply take a tune off, or take it easy on a couple of well placed tunes that are less lead heavy. Maybe that's just me, and how my chops operate, but I, for one, really hate switching parts...only when I'm on lead. Like I said, from 2 - 4, I'll switch all day. But that's just my two cents!

My band has over 500 charts in our library. So iPad is the way to go instead of lugging all that paper. I wish someone would make a pad specific to music. Hopefully it would be cheaper than apple pads.

BINGO!!!

When using electronic charts, why not eliminate DS, DC, and coda entirely and simply write them out, since there's no need to conserve paper?

Science! :)

Great topic for a video! Regarding the markings: both on paper and on a tablet you can circle stuff not knowing why ;) But indeed correcting it digitally is way easier. In direct sunlight a tablet is indeed still fine, the only thing to worry about is temperatures below zero (celcius), then the battery may unwantedly report being out-of-charge (just bring a powerbank and you're safe)... The same holds for too high temperatures (standing in the open) where a tablet may decide to shutdown to 'protect' it. Regarding the 'challenge' to have all parts covered, in our bigband we have divided the parts and you just put only that specific part in the playlist for that gig, so you know beforehand that you're good to go. Last-minute switches require some coordination, but works fine in my experience. All in all, I would never want to go back to paper :) And for the music stands, we use a special tablet-adapter, so it is firmly locked without the risk of falling down.

It could be a real problem if you or someone else accidentally hits the stand where your ipad is sitting or attached. I play classical music in a symphony and I use both sheet music and my ipad. Placing my ipad Pro on a regular black stand is fine, in my case my stand which has velcro on the surface keeps the ipad secured to the stand. My ipad case has also velcro on its back... at least I know that I am not likely to drop and ruin an item that I paid $1200 while playing a $200 gig...!!

Ipads are fantastic until you play outdoors in bright sunlight…..brutal truth experienced at an outdoor wedding, luckily some pop/jazztunes I could play by ear.