New piano style lcd display for sheet music

[stebesplace]

Here is something that came to me while i was in a concert some time back.

I was in New Jersey before x-mas to a Vienna Boy's Choir concert. It was quite good. But one thing i noticed was the fact that there was one kid who constantly had to turn the sheet music for the pianist. Who was also the conductor.

It dawned on me that perhaps there must be a better way to control the way sheet music is displayed and how you are to use it.

That being said I drew up an idea.




I pictured a piano and instead of a place for sheet music, I pictured a display, thin, like an lcd, which could run a proprietary unix or custom OS, and a custom made peice of software for sheet music display. Mount that to the piano, put an antiglare screen on, and make the display 11x14 or something like that. x2 because you have two sides. Possibly more.

There would be some trigger method either through the foot, or something, which would 'advance' the sheets of music electronically. Now these music sheets are not actualy sheets, just scanned in versions and put out for high res display. The screen would have a module which could interact with a server sitting back stage which housed all the music, and which would send the music wirelessly to and from the piano.

This concept could be adapted to a music stand as well, although this method is not highly recommended due to cost and feasability.

Another way to 'turn' the music, is to have a microphone built in, which knows what phrase of the music you are on, and will automatically turn to which ever section is next.

Am i nuts? Could this work? I know the old school performers could give two rats a$$ about it, but i thought it was kind of cool. I can only really see this being adapted for piano, givin the whole both hands are busy thing.

I was just curious what others here thought.

-Steve

 

[sao123]

i play the piano, and I like the idea.

this would be especially good if it could be implemented for high school concert band. though I think its out of the question for marching band.

 

[stebesplace]

One would hope that the marching unit corp would have memorized their music

The only real world application, for cost, that I can think of would be perfessional piano playing.


In a high school band setting, it would work good in the sence that kids do not have to forget their music, but its not that good in the sence that the kids would have little appreciation for paper music, sheet music rather. As well, the cost to impliment something like that in a school setting would be way to high for most any school. They seem to be fine with their manhasset stands and their sheet music.

-Steve

 

[kdb003]

Originally posted by: stebesplace
One would hope that the marching unit corp would have memorized their music

The only real world application, for cost, that I can think of would be perfessional piano playing.


In a high school band setting, it would work good in the sence that kids do not have to forget their music, but its not that good in the sence that the kids would have little appreciation for paper music, sheet music rather. As well, the cost to impliment something like that in a school setting would be way to high for most any school. They seem to be fine with their manhasset stands and their sheet music.

-Steve

I wouldn't be so sure that that is out of a schools budjet. For example my school has installed camera's monitering the stairways, the gym, the cafeteria and in most of the hallway intersections even though there was not really a discipline problem.

 

[sao123]

but its not that good in the sence that the kids would have little appreciation for paper music, sheet music rather. As well, the cost to impliment something like that in a school setting would be way to high for most any school. They seem to be fine with their manhasset stands and their sheet music.

One would hope, that the appreciation would develop for the playing of music itself, regardless of whether the notes are written on paper, or on an LCD screen.

I still feel that when playing a concert with many songs which are multiple pages each, this could be a very beneficial device. It would prevent the following from becoming a problem:
1)A sheet blows off the stand during a song.
2)One or more sheets are ruined somehow.
3)Playing a concert in a dim/dark environment.

**The world is moving in a general direction to the paperless office, why cant we have paperless music?
We have to keep up with advancements in technology.

 

[stebesplace]

Much agreed. One thing I would like to add. . .

In refference to the cost. You must understand that to design a specialty application screen, like these, which are larger in size and not a standard monitor which you can buy a best buy, is going to incure a heavy cost. I could predict for example, that a module such as this, with a screen, wireless device, and transmitting computer built in, could cost upwards around 2 grand or more. For a piano thats not much, but for a high school music stand application, thats WAY to much. At least where i came from, that would have been beyond to much. No high school that I am aware of would shell out, at 2 grand a pop. . .30+ music stands. One can do the math, but its so much of a cost, which is why I leaned towards a specialty application use, like the piano.

-Steve

 

[ProviaFan]

Well, you could probably do with a standard 16 or 17 inch LCD, and one of those Shuttle mini-PC boxes. The cost probably wouldn't be a whole lot over $1,000. That assumes you already have a way to scan the music, or you can get the music in a digital form already. Otherwise, a good scanner ($170) would need to be added to the cost.

Edit: I forgot about the foot trigger. That would be an added cost.

 

[sao123]

This whole thing could be done for under $2500.

Get a value PC running windows ($500-600), any number of 15in flat TVs($$$), a video card with coax out for TV ($50), a cable tv multi-port video distribution device($50), a spool of RG59 coax cable($150), and a piece of software from Midisoft($199)... which takes care of the sheet music on screen.

The pc displays all the sheet music on unlimited standard plasma tvs.

Believe me this is easy, I already set one up to distribute a powerpoint presentation throughout the building where I work.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: sao123
This whole thing could be done for under $2500.

Get a value PC running windows ($500-600), any number of 15in flat TVs($$$), a video card with coax out for TV ($50), a cable tv multi-port video distribution device($50), a spool of RG59 coax cable($150), and a piece of software from Midisoft($199)... which takes care of the sheet music on screen.

The pc displays all the sheet music on unlimited standard plasma tvs.

Believe me this is easy, I already set one up to distribute a powerpoint presentation throughout the building where I work.

The only problem might be resolution of the displays, but that shouldn't be an issue if the music is enlarged so it may be easily seen.

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Also, as time goes on, you could develop custom software for this kind of application. Could be expanded to include visual reminders of the key signature, could be modified to interface with the actual keys and know what mistakes were made, etc. Kind of like a "practice" mode, to better learn the song (for beginners, especially in a school setting).

 

[stebesplace]

If a manufacturer such as Manhasset outsourced a company to come in and design and build such a device for a music stand. I believe there would be a major cost in the following degree's.

First, you need to design a sturdy stand that will take abuse of kids.
Second, you will have to have a display which make up the entire stand itself. Or at least 80% of the stand horizontally.
Third, you would want to have the display scratch resistant, anti glare, either one large panel or two smaller one's, and have some sort of housing that the screen is in, or built in, costom, made of metal which would provide durable crash protection.

Aside from that, the screen cost is the major factor.

Another thing, and i wish i was technically incline to know this, is that i could picture this being a completly wireless featureset. Each stand is wireless. Now I do not know if this means that you need to have a computer on each stand? Or wether you can send a signal to each monitor"" from a server in the back room? Perhaps with a costom distribution and management system. If we want to get really technical, we could make each screen like a tablet touch sensative screen, so a stylus could be used to make notes on the actual music.

The more I think about it, the more I would live to have the capitol to bring something like this to light.

-Steve

 

[jarsoffart]

I think this might already be happening. My french horn teacher mentioned that he's heard of the idea but never had one for any of the groups he plays in.

 

[stebesplace]

Its all entirly possible that this object might exsist. If anyone knows of one, or has seen on implimented, I would love ot see it.

-Steve

 

[wviperw]

Yea, I've thought of this very idea many times when at concerts/performances in which the pianist was having trouble w/ the sheet music. The biggest thing would be expense as people have said prior, but w/ costs coming down, I could see it as something that would work in the future.

 

[Ipno]

You're thinking on a big scale where music sheets are bigger for the mere convenience that you don't have to turn the page every so often.

Here's the thing about music however, it has a tempo. You don't need to tell it when to move the page, you just need to tell it what the tempo is and then tell it when to start, then it can move the music for you.

And for high school band purposes I don't think it even needs to be very big. Piano music is a bit more complex, yes, but when I played trumpet in high school our marching band music was small, on like 4x6 sheets. I bet you could get away with a 4x6 screen or even smaller, since thing can actuall move, you can set the tempo and let it kinda scroll.

It would be weird to get used to at first but once you were used to it it would be pretty easy.

And something that small would be well within a high school budget, especially if mass produced. I mean heck, look at the game boy advance, its only like $60 anymore.

Neat idea.

 

[stebesplace]

I was in FYE over lunch today looking at music and such. They have these small 4x4 or 5x5 lcd screens that display movie's, pull from music databases etc. . .all from a barcode. It would be intresting to design a similar system, only the screen is basically as described above, but bigger. Pulling from a database, module etc. and having it right in your face like that.

It is true with costs going down, that a more feasable system could be installed. I would just love to see something like this in action, and see what the real performers are saying.

Another day perhaps.

-Steve

 

[everman]

It would need to be able to display a very high quality scan, because I often make a lot of marks on my sheet music (Piano) to indicate certain things in the piece I"m playing. This would all need to be reproduced with great detail.

 

[Geniere]

Such a device would be simple to implement and, as previously posted, could be automated. In fact with a keyboard interface the whole process could be automated thus precluding the need for the Pianist.

Just Kidding

 

[Shalmanese]

Why scan the music? Wouldn't it be easier to implement some type of XML/HTMLesqe coding scheme to code the music into some kind of symbolic format that can be rendered onto the screen? Then, you could do the equivilant of an OCR and store the result as something miniscule. Pop a 16MB flash card in and you could easily store 500 songs in there.

Also, some of the very high end keyboards already have a small LCD screen built into them, Im sure it wouldn't be too hard to modify it to display music rather than the UI. What would really interest me would be some of the specialised software that you could implement alongside it. You could build in training programs, review programs, prompters, instant playbacks of sections, patch bits together etc.

 

[BobTheHallucinatingCow]

This is far simpler than anyone seems to have imagined.

In designing it think this:

What does it need to do?

How does it do it?

There is only one task being performed here so all that is needed is an embedded piece of software. (Linux is free and can run in PDA format as in the Sharp Zaurus)

Music is based on a set of parallel lines (i know it's not very technical but for the purpose of this design the less technical I am the easier it becomes!)
Outputisplay lines

The lines are punctuated with vertical lines at regular intervalss in indicate bars
Output:vertical line dependent on tempo.

All music starts with the timing of the piece and so all that is needed is this to be stored in binary.
Format of crochets, quavers etc...
Just have a binary code for each type, same goes for notes.
Storage: store a music string that contains all the information of the tablature in an electornic format.

This already exists! All composition programs use a standard fromat that can just be reproduced here.

Display.

Why have a colour plasma screen?
When was the last time you saw multi coloured sheet music?

A monocrome display would be fine so long as there is sufficient contrast between the background and foreground.
The cost of this would be very small and the power consumption even smaller.

Stick an arm processor to the back of a monchrome display, add ROM memory and operating RAM in the same way as a PDA and run the embedded (and super simple) program on it. All else that's needed is something like bluetooth to keep the orchestra in time with each other and allow file transfers. (The files would be very small due to hte simplicity of the task) Add a couple of buttons to the front of the display to allow menu navigation, etc and it'd be a piece of cake.

Who's got a couple of thousand dollars to finance it?

 

[sao123]

Midisoft already has the sheet music software...
something called Midi studio....unless its been discontinued.

it turns sheet music into midi files, and midi files into sheet music. Either way it will display, print and play sheet music.

 

[thraxes]

Yeah I was thinking that at least for a piano, having one that has midi output in addition to the traditional mechanical parts would make it simple for the program to "see" where you are in the piece you are playing and display the appropriate pages.

For the business end you could use one of these: http://www.yamaha.com/cgi-win/webcgi.exe/gGMP00002

You could use a display in the formt of an apple cinema display but keep in monochrome to save costs.

The computer could be a simple via C3 machine with appropriate OS and software, relatively cheap to build. The software would take a bit of work but it seems like quite a cool project.

 

[sao123]

For those of you worried about resolution...
the system I built with 5x 15in plasma TV's is crystal clear @ 1152 x 864 @ 32bit color.

 

[0roo0roo]

u only need a lcd, and a pedal. pianists only use one foot for the pedals, the other is free to trigger a page turn. you do not use multiple piano pedals at once

 

[sao123]

u only need a lcd, and a pedal. pianists only use one foot for the pedals, the other is free to trigger a page turn. you do not use multiple piano pedals at once

Obviously 1 piano = 1 screen duh...

However

this would be especially good if it could be implemented for high school concert band. though I think its out of the question for marching band.

An entire concert band/symphony...consisting of a piano, brass, woods, strings and percussion...
Could make effective use of a multi-monitor system.