Going 100% Paperless

[Subtropical and Subpar]

[huntman10]

I am within a few weeks of my 74th birthday, and, burdened with having to schlepp around a big notebook of printed parts for each of the 2 groups I play in, I committed about 3 or 4 years ago (right before COVID and 2 knee replacements) to go from over to putting my music on IPAD. I started with the smaller IPAD which worked pretty well at first, but I began to realize that I was making more and more reading errors.

I am not complaining because my overall health is good (aside from a few surgical repairs every year or so) and my overall vision, while great for outdoors or driving, is requiring more and more "reader strength") all the time. Anyway, by last fall I had graduated to the 12 inch screen, specialized IPAD stands, and dedicated music stand special prescription readers.

Additionally, I have about a 45 minute commute to both bands each way, and we often rehearse one of the bands for 2 hours a couple of hours before the weekly concerts, and my IPAD battery is challenged to hold up without my being able to top it off. So I began to reassess whether to use printed or PDF.

Since COVID, the bands I play in now put the music up in PDF format rather than heading out sheets, which would be helpful for IPAD, but puts a strain on ink costs. After discussing my problems with my eye doc, I have decided that the printed .music is much easier for me to read, if I have enough light, due to size and clear contrast on bright paper.

Anyway, I use the IPADS now with Fourscore to store, and print on my new Epson tank printer, which is much better on ink than my 14 year old HP.

Being able to read and store electronic files would, in the long and short run, be ideal, but in my case, not the best solution.
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huntman10
Collector/Player of Fine (and not so fine) Brass Instruments including
Various Strads, Yammies, Al Hirt Courtois, Schilkes,
Selmer 25, Getzen Eternas, Kanstuls (920 Pic, CG)
Martin Custom Large Bore, Lots Olds!, Conns, etc.

[trumpet2012fhl]

[Jaw04]

I use the tiny scanner app on my phone and it makes nice looking PDFs. I put them on my old iPad Pro 12.9 inch that I bought refurbished for cheap about 8 years ago. The battery is starting to wane, so I would be worried on a 4 hour gig but it's never died on me. I haven't had to play a 4 hour gig in quite some time. It HAS overheated twice during hot outdoor gigs in the sun. It's good to have a backup binder of the paper charts in those situations.
I currently don't use a page turning app and I usually just read the docs straight off of iBooks or Dropbox. I had some issues with Fourscore in the past and now I just avoid it. I think my operating system is too old, but I'm not really good about tech like that.
Sometimes on wedding gigs I might miss the first few bars of a tune while I pull up the chart. I should probably work on that...

The benefits are not needing to print, not needing a stand light, and not worrying about wind.

[cheiden]

[benlewis]

[trumpet2012fhl]