# Musical Technology Question



## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

The more I watch recent performances on piano (mostly studio/stage recordings that aren't live), the more I am seeing tablets on the music stand instead of sheet music. Ok, fine. But... I am also witnessing the tablet "turning" to the next page as the pianist is playing and the pianist is not touching the tablet, and there is no one there besides the pianist (Page turner). My questions are:

1. Is the tablet's microphone & app following the pianist and knows when to go to the next page of music? or
2. Because it's being recorded, is there someone linked to the tablet off stage somewhere and clicking the next page as pianist plays?

These are the only two possibilities I can think of. Thanks.

V


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Varick said:


> The more I watch recent performances on piano (mostly studio/stage recordings that aren't live), the more I am seeing tablets on the music stand instead of sheet music. Ok, fine. But... I am also witnessing the tablet "turning" to the next page as the pianist is playing and the pianist is not touching the tablet, and there is no one there besides the pianist (Page turner). My questions are:
> 
> 1. Is the tablet's microphone & app following the pianist and knows when to go to the next page of music? or
> 2. Because it's being recorded, is there someone linked to the tablet off stage somewhere and clicking the next page as pianist plays?
> ...


Most tablet music software comes with an option to turn pages by use of a *foot switch*. 

It's also possible to have a remote switch, I suppose, but that would infer that there's also a remote screen, which would be more technology to glitch up everything.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

A foot switch! I'll be damned! Thank you.

V


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Or maybe the tempo is set by the tablet, and the pianist must keep up? The notes are highlighted as the piece progresses, so the performer knows exactly where she's supposed to be.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

NoCoPilot said:


> Or maybe the tempo is set by the tablet, and the pianist must keep up? The notes are highlighted as the piece progresses, so the performer knows exactly where she's supposed to be.


I thought about that, but I couldn't imagine any musician wanting that during any kind of recording or performance. I certainly wouldn't. That would be almost like the musical accompanist leading the singer. The accompanist always follows the singer. It would be too stifling to have a set pace, leaving no pause or attack up to the performer. I haven't noticed highlighted notes in any of the videos I watched, but I will keep an eye out for it. That certainly would add a twist to it and either give credence to your theory or my 1st theory above. It seems to me that *pianozach *came up with answer from first or second hand knowledge.

V


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It must surely be possible to develop technology for a device to recognise where the player is and to turn the pages accordingly? Afterall there is technology that recognises a piece of music and its performance in less than a second. Page turning technology would probably need a database of page turns that it can draw from and that might be quite expensive to develop so it is probably not what is happening now.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I recently saw the Dudok Quartet live and they all play from tablets via use of a footswitch to turn the page. So much easier (and quieter) than cumbersome bits of paper. They looked something like the pic below.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Dropping the iPad off the music stand would be quite a bit noisier than papers.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Merl said:


> I recently saw the Dudok Quartet live and they all play from tablets via use of a footswitch to turn the page. So much easier (and quieter) than cumbersome bits of paper. They looked something like the pic below.


What happens - say - if there is a repeat of a 10 page exposition?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

jegreenwood said:


> What happens - say - if there is a repeat of a 10 page exposition?


http://m.quickmeme.com/img/db/db9b3141492340dcce6f51f84eaebc78a699bc75f4ec2ef2ed82c7bfb6cb7466.jpg


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## rushin (Aug 14, 2021)

jegreenwood said:


> What happens - say - if there is a repeat of a 10 page exposition?


What do they do for printed music in this case? I don't know, genuinely asking. Does the page turner count out the 10 pages?

With electronic sheets, it shouldn't be too hard to have the software just repeat the exposition a second time so you only need to go the next page. Another alternative is the use of bookmarks (like buttons 1, 2, 3,... programmed to go to a certain location) but that can get complicated in a multi-movement piece.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

rushin said:


> What do they do for printed music in this case? I don't know, genuinely asking. Does the page turner count out the 10 pages?
> 
> With electronic sheets, it shouldn't be too hard to have the software just repeat the exposition a second time so you only need to go the next page. Another alternative is the use of bookmarks (like buttons 1, 2, 3,... programmed to go to a certain location) but that can get complicated in a multi-movement piece.


I'll leave that to those more knowledgeable than me.


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## Xenophiliu (Jan 2, 2022)

jegreenwood said:


> What happens - say - if there is a repeat of a 10 page exposition?


I use ForScore, a digital score reader application. You program it to recognize repeats when you want it to (or D.S, D.C., codas, etc.), and it links two parts of the score. Better yet, it allows me to duplicate the pages that repeat, in the order I need, so there is no need to worry about going back.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Varick said:


> A foot switch! I'll be damned! Thank you.
> 
> V


Well, as it turns out, there is another way to turn the pages after all: Facial tracking technology


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

jegreenwood said:


> What happens - say - if there is a repeat of a 10 page exposition?


I have your answer: 

The music you scan in is editable. If you're on page 20, and you need to go back to page 13, you simply have page 13 be the next page after page 20.

Or if it's just a couple of pages, you click the "back" button twice.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

rushin said:


> What do they do for printed music in this case? I don't know, genuinely asking. Does the page turner count out the 10 pages?
> 
> With electronic sheets, it shouldn't be too hard to have the software just repeat the exposition a second time so you only need to go the next page. Another alternative is the use of bookmarks (like buttons 1, 2, 3,... programmed to go to a certain location) but that can get complicated in a multi-movement piece.


I accompany, and some sheet music has idiotic D.C.s and/or repeats*. I will copy the music to use in a three-ring binder, and I will occasionally have to resort to some cutting and pasting and recopying.

*e.g. The music has a repeat right after a page turn (let's say page 8) for only four measures, but the repeat goes back to page 5 (so . . . two page turns back), but there's a skip to coda after 7 measures, so I have to go forward to page 8 again. I see this sort of BS more and more these days. Me and the copier create a better score, where there are NO double page turns either back or forward.

Music used to be engraved by hand, and the engravers would put page turns in logical places. Nowadays the music is spit out by notation software that doesn't give a rat's *** where the page turns appear in the music.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

pianozach said:


> ........................ Nowadays the music is spit out by notation software that doesn't give a rat's *** where the page turns appear in the music.


That's not true Zach. It's up to the programmer where page turns occur and that's easily done with careful layout management. Poor much maligned software, as always it's the darn human at fault.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

lucky for me, the tradition in classical guitar is to play from memory 😧 

...presumably, that's because guitarists can't read anyway


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> That's not true Zach. It's up to the programmer where page turns occur and that's easily done with careful layout management. Poor much maligned software, as always it's the darn human at fault.


Well, okay. But I've seen enough modern scores that it speaks quite poorly of the human creators then.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

pianozach said:


> If you're on page 20, and you need to go back to page 13, you simply have page 13 be the next page after page 20.


Danger. That piece might never end.


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