Better Practice Blog- My Experience Performing with an iPad
My Experience Performing with an iPad
I’ve always been a paper-and-pen person. I took notes by hand all throughout college and printed all of my music - even though my backpack was a black hole of loose papers and I had a tablet that worked perfectly fine. I’d go into gigs with my trusty folder, barely holding together at the corners and bursting with sheets of music (which would be hastily reordered when the set was decided).
It was inefficient, to say the least. Still, I trusted in my paper. I loved the simplicity of paper and pencil, especially when jotting down things on the fly.
Until recently. When, at 1:30 in the morning, I got invited to play a gig the next day. I had nothing going on, so I said “Sure, I’d love to,” and prepared to sleep. Well, it turns out this wasn’t my usual gig playing out of a real book. At around 2 AM, I received 30 arrangements of tunes - which means I got 30 sheet music files that I would be reading off of the next day. Ironically, I didn’t own a printer nor would I have access to one before tomorrow. I looked at my iPad and it seems my iPad looked right back at me. It was his time to shine.
So I got to work downloading the files, testing out some sheet music apps, and organizing the files in the apps for the next day. The gig itself? Ran too smoothly. I think I’ve been converted. Overall, I’d give my first iPad experience an 8/10 - really large positives with a couple things that were just a bit troublesome. Here they are listed: The Pros and Cons of Using an iPad for Gigs.
Pros:
1. Wind is powerless against you now. When using paper or books in outdoor gigs, wind was probably my worst enemy. Countless times I’ve had to continue playing with one hand while reaching for both my and my other band members’ music that had flown around. My only options in holding music down were (in order of Most Hassle To Adjust Between Tunes to Not As Bad But Still A Hassle): 1. tape, 2. clips, or 3. that rubber band thing that holds your music against the stand and occasionally snaps off and hits your other band members. Basically - with the iPad, I didn’t even notice the wind. I even welcomed it.
2. Don’t need light. I’ve played in many pit orchestras and even accompanied in pitch dark. I’ve never liked how the clip-on lights illuminate music; it always seems too bright and too dim at the same time (might be just me…). Sometimes I’ve had to play with my music illuminated by a light with a color filter - for example, dark blue. Which is the worst. Anyway, with an iPad, I didn’t have to worry anymore about how the clip-on light doesn’t illuminate the farthest corners of my music, or how the blue light makes all of your notes blend into the paper. The screen is clear, evenly lit, and I could adjust the brightness to whatever I wanted.
3. Music is so easy to find! No more panic, shuffling papers, or muttering the alphabet under my breath to figure out where a song was in the book. I could scroll through the setlist I had created or even do a quick search. All I did was tap - and it was open. No additional fumbling to adjust my sheet music on my stand, or protect my music against the wind, or making it fit under the light. The entire process from song to song was so quick.
Cons:
1. Glare. Although I don’t need to worry about light in dark settings, now I had to worry about light in light settings. It wasn’t too bad though, because often just a slight change of angle could eliminate it completely.
2. Can’t have 2 pages side by side (full size). This was obviously expected, but still just a minor inconvenience. Having 2 pages side by side as halves of the iPad were a bit too small, but I could easily just tap to get to the next page. It might be more of an issue for classical musicians or anyone who has multi-page music, but I understand there are pedals out there that sync with your device to control page turns.
3. A learning curve for apps. I guess this depends on how tech-savvy you are. For me, it was still a little tedious to download each file, open each in the sheet music app, then reorganize it. And to figure out the sheet music apps’ navigation before doing all of that. But once I took the 15-20 minutes to do all of that, the rest (and actual usage) was super easy.
4. Can’t be out in the rain (or at least, I am much more hesitant to be). I’ve played through sprinkling and a little more and no one nor their instruments have died (of course, it’s not ideal, but sometimes we would be playing outside until people realized the weather wasn’t getting any better, then have someone move us indoors). However, I’m a little more paranoid for my iPad to be out in rain, even for a bit.
5. Writing notes was a bit harder. This was probably my biggest issue with using an iPad, but again, not that bad. I have the Apple Pencil for iPad, and the only thing that bugs me is that I constantly have to reconnect it if I close my screen (but my screen usually stays open during gigs). But, usually all it takes is me plugging the pen in for a few seconds. Then, I can write on my music as I normally would. But, you also have to figure out how to do so in the sheet music app you’re using beforehand. Wasn’t a deal breaker for me, just another minor inconvenience.
All in all, the pros are so great that they outweighed the small cons for me. It just took some work beforehand to set up and learn how to use it, but once learned, the whole experience was super smooth and hard to beat. Here are some tips to make using an iPad a whole lot smoother:
Tips:
- Remember to charge and bring a charger (!!! important !!!)
- Set up a setlist in your sheet music app so all of your music for that specific gig is in one list
- Turn off your screensaver so your screen doesn’t shut off/lock in the middle of a tune! I can tell you how for an iPad: Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock > Never