iPad Fiddlers

I was delighted to receive the very generous gift of an iPad from my daughter this Christmas. I wanted one primarily to store sheet music. One of the women in the women's fiddle group I play with already had one. She plays the tin whistle, so it is a little easier for her to position the iPad close enough for her to see it when she plays, but it is, I have found, quite possible to use a iPad for cello music too.

So, I walked into the women's fiddle group this past Saturday, with my new iPad (still very few songs in my sheet musica library, and not yet ready to play from it,) I was amazed to see three other women with iPads--and actually using them!

I haven't seen anyone locally using the iPad for classical music, but the fiddleers have really embraced it. In part, this is because, I think, that fiddle tunes are short and more easily viewed on an iPad than more complex classsical musc, and because there is an abundance of online fiddle music libraries already formatted for iPad. Fewer for cello--I have to transpose a lot of the fiddle music for cello or otherwise convert the music to PDF.

The Borromeo String Quartet uses laptop computers to store and play from their sheet music, but such use of digital devices is still apparently rare in the classical world.

I am currently using a program called Scorecerer to store PDF files. It also allows you to ddfingerings, bowings, and other markings, just as you might with a pencil, except you mark with your finger. There are some other programs I might also try, but for now, I think I need to focus on getting my music into PDF files so I can actually use this wonderful little device in sessions.