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By Bill L. Winder
#780
I used to play a violin in a school orchestra for several years, and I am an amateur piano player. By far the most frustrating thing I've encountered as a musician is, you have to turn pages in the middle of playing a song. This can be very inconvenient and interruptive of the music's flow, especially if you lose your place and have to re-adjust the music's position, page number, etc.

My idea is, why not invent an LED display that has a foot pedal and that displays entire pieces of music, one page at a time? The foot pedal would turn the electronic "page" for you, eliminating the need to stop playing temporarily to turn the page. Orchestras would greatly benefit from this sort of thing.

I think it's an idea whose time has come. Turning electronic pages with a foot pedal is so much more convenient than turning them by hand.

Reward: Used Technics SX-KN700 musical keyboard.
By Guest
#904
Bill,

Harry Connick, Jr.'s big band has their "book" entirely computerized, with each player having his own monitor. Everyone has to be an excellent sight reader, though, since Harry can re-arrange parts on the fly. The good thing is that if someone's eyesight is bad, they can zoom in on their part...and, as with your idea, there's no page turning.

susanne
By Anders
#1274
I've thought about this idea over the years - but not for page turning - although that is a great idea. How about pianists? They need it even more than orchestral players. Would we add another pedal for them? Maybe just a large soft button on the display that the pianist could tap to advance the page. Where a page will end could be selected in advance by the performer for the best "turns". Even better - intelligent software that can listen and turn the page automatically when the performer approaches the end. This already exists in the form of accompaniment software that listens to a performer and follows with tempo adjustment - the amount of rubato (degree of following) is preselected from 0 - 100%.

What I have envisioned over the years are electronic music stands to be used in band/orchestra classes, etc. The director could highlight in the students parts (ex. key signature notes) instantly from the podium or ahead of time in planning the lesson. Editing the parts momentarily for practice variations on technical passages, etc. etc. Students would still carry their own parts on a disc or whatnot so they could use them at home complete with updates. There would be many many potential uses. Here's another - students are assigned to write a melody. The teacher can see all the melodies the students have made and stored on their discs. He can select one and have it put on all student screen - complete with appropriate transposition - ready to play.

A music teacher's dream!!

nellsonic@yahoo.com
By Mspikes
#3094
Hi, I'm not sure if the writer is still checking this post, as it is almost a year old but, I wanted to state that what he's asking for is in production now. Under the name The MusicPad PRO, this product allows for the view of sheet music on an 12.2 inch LCD screen. The pages can be turned by tapping on the screen or by attaching a foot petal that will turn the page for you. I have not used this device personally, but I have seen it featured in keyboard magazine.

Find out more at: http://www.freehandsystems.com

Hope this helps you and any other person who sees it, and oh yeah, if you wanna send me that keyboard... e-mail me for address.
By Jim10
#3096
I just checked this freehandsystem web site out. Very cool! A little pricey though. I wonder what some kind of mechanical page turning device would look like...or if it is in existence? Jim.
By JSTNANDERS6
#4141
This is a really good idea. Im a viola player. It is really hard to turn pages and play at the same time. To bad someone else didn't invent it.
By charliew
#9964
i made a usb foot pedal
on windows at least, it can be configured to do anything. I have it configured to flip pages of bass tab for me.
if somebody could supply me with the following things, I would make one for you for $5 (not including the cost of the items)
1 PS/2 (not USB) ball (not optical) mouse
1 PS/2-to-USB adapter

-cw
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