I Forgot my iPad this Weekend

[mr3lions]

I had a gig at about 40 mins away from my house on Saturday (solo acoustic). Arrived about 30 minutes before (setup with my bose L1 takes 10 mins). I look in my case and my iPad isn't there! After frantically searching my car, gig bag and guitar Case. I realize it's still charging on the kitchen counter. Now I have a backup bag in the car with a backup of everything-- except an iPad.

 

So I realize it's time to get sorted. Normally I use the iPad with OnSong. I have setlists that flow and it reminds me of the key. The 600 plus songs also help if someone requests something I haven't played in a while.

I grabbed some paper, and my mind went blank, but when I calmed down I wrote a list of 30+ songs .Sure many of them were G, C, D specials but I tried to jazz them up with fills and such.

Long story short, I got through the gig. A few fumbles that no one noticed but me. I'm pleased I got through but I'm still going to continue with the iPad.

I did learn a valuable lesson that I need a backup cheatsheet and that I do need to have more faith in the fact that I know my songs and not look down at the iPad so much.

 

 

[skmarshall]

That's my nightmare too!

 

Just about every trip to a gig I have that "Did I pack the iPad?!?" moment, and I find myself trying to drive and reach into the computer bag to make sure it's there at the same time. I have put OnSong on my iPhone and keep it backed up with the same data as the iPad, but the screen is so small, it would be a tough night.

 

I'm glad you made it through the night ok, good work!

[daddymack]

Sounds like you need a 'gig gear checklist'....and a back-up tablet

I gave up on using my tablet because it was too small to read...I just have a printed setlist, and maybe four or five printed lyrics I have a hard time with. I think the 'self-reliance' comes across as a stronger performance. YMMV

[Shaster]

Re: gear checklists, I usually forget to check them!

 

I'm reluctant to even talk about forgetting my tablets. Don't want to jinx myself. I use self produced backing tracks, and they're a big part of my act. I can play many of the songs live with no tracks, and have done in the past, but single note Benson, Metheny, or even songs like Sleepwalk are best served with a basic backing track. I have my files on my phone, on two tablets, and online. Much like skmarshall though, several times during my journey, I find myself patting my softshell guitar pouch to make sure I've packed my laptops. Only difference is, I usually take the Skytrain to my gigs, so I don't have to worry about a distracted driving charge - it's about a $1000 fine here in Vancouver.

[daddymack]

can potentially be punishable by death...

[mr3lions]

First time I've ever forgot it. Usually I plug it in and leave my keys on top. So I can't leave without it. Saturday was different as my wife had to load some stuff in the car and grabbed them first. I already have another.ipad on order as this one has a crack.

live and learn

[Bob Dey]

My ipad is my backup! Laptop is my primary tool. Just let me say, it's better to leave your ipad at home than to leave it at the gig! Good job of winging it. You're a pro!

[Mikeo]

I have a question: I was thinking about getting an Ipad or a Samsung Tablet, just to have all my practice sheets in order. It should have a 10" screen. I guess I could put music on it to listen to and rehearse songs.

 

Most of all it's just a handy ring binder thing. Most of the stuff I have written or rehearse has been written in open office or MS Word.

 

I'm not a huge Apple fan, but I have nothing against the company either. Would be nice if it had a USB port. micro USB, but I could send stuff to myself, or do a cloud.

 

 

Any suggestions.

[Pat'sStrat]

I forget mine every so often. Fortunately I have just over three and a half hours of material; committed to memory.

[ggm1960]

I've only ever used my ipad for the wireless monitor mix program but then to date I've only ever played with a band and have yet to do a proper solo/duo gig. With the last band where my main function was keys I also used a MBP computer to run Digital Performer along with a MOTU interface etc.. For the majority of my time I had a dedicated MBP for band use only but at the beginning of this year I'd switched to a Thunderbolt MOTU interface and had to start using my current home MBP. I forgot to grab it a couple of times but fortunately I was playing close to home. After that I put a piece of masking tape on the tote I use and simply wrote "computer" on it.

[Voltan]

i used to have alternate song lists for alternate song lists... now i dont bother, it doesnt fit what i do. ive had much more success by not having a list. it forces me to pay attention to... the audience instead of an electronic device or piece of paper on the ground... or heaven forbid, a music stand!

i found i cant plan on what other folks reaction will be on any given night so ive changed tactics and for me, it works. size up the area, the patrons and get a feel for the place before i ever decide what direction i want to try. don’t forget, press the flesh... make contact with people.. listen to conversation, ask questions, be interested in them... it will pay off... as set up progresses listen for clues, parts of conversation that reminds you of a lyric or song... then when you step up, no distractions, look them in the eye, and give them your heart... play a tired eagles tune that youd rather not but tom, whom youve just met, was talking about being in winslow... and now he thinks youre playing just for him... use that. i dont subscribe to genres, i like and am willing to play whatever style trips your trigger and im a huge fan of taking it apart and making my own arrangements, like hendrix manic depression on a five string banjo followed by gershwins summertime, again on a melodic minor tuned five string with a particularly sleazy descending harmonic counter melody... these and similars can be used to counter the “happy banjo” misnomer and brings fun to the table... my ipad, onsong and several other progs... loaded to the gills with tunes and charts stays off the stage. im old school in several ways... i was taught that only amateurs needed charts on stage unless youre a hired gun for the night... ymmv and thats perfectly cool by me, all the time i used programmng and planning is better spent playing, rearranging, or writing another piece...

[steve mac]

I have a question: I was thinking about getting an Ipad or a Samsung Tablet, just to have all my practice sheets in order. It should have a 10" screen. I guess I could put music on it to listen to and rehearse songs.

 

I'm not a huge Apple fan, but I have nothing against the company either. Would be nice if it had a USB port. micro USB, but I could send stuff to myself, or do a cloud.

 

Any suggestions.

 

I am also not a huge fan of Apple, my wife's Android tablet knocks it into a cocked hat, however I researched the best gigging app and hands down it was Onsong which only works on Apple. Accordingly I bought a refurbished iPad and have recently bought a more modern "referbished" one.

Having read the OP I will today write out a hard copy set list, such a good idea.

I create a set list for every gig I do (takes about five minutes), which means I can avoid playing the same old songs when ever I play the same venue.

I also create a blank song for each venue with the venue as its title, instead of lyrics I note things like the owners/managers name and contact numbers, other staff names, load in details like parking and electrical sockets, sound details like "tiled floors so cut reverb", plus anything else I can think of. I place this venue song at the start of every relevant set.

All of my songs have note appended like harmonica key, capo fret, looper settings etc

I also add notes to random songs which are an aid memoir for starting a bit of banter for example on "Love me Do" I have a note that this was written after John Lennon had a particularly good haircut.

Onsong also stores my break music making playback seamless and easy, same for backing tracks.

i don't use lights or lyric projection but it will also control that.

With hundreds of songs that can be recalled almost instantly by title or artist it's great for dealing with requests.

However I hardly ever use the app for reading lyrics, a quick glance of the title and I am away, but I would struggle without it.

[skmarshall]

"I also create a blank song for each venue with the venue as its title, instead of lyrics I note things like the owners/managers name and contact numbers, other staff names,"

 

What an amazing idea! Seriously, why didn't that ever occur to me? I'm so bad at remembering names of managers and waitstaff, and details like that make such a difference.

 

I'm going to start that tonight. Thanks Steve!

[daddymack]

I learned to do that 'house list' many years ago from, of all people, Kenny G...he goes to a venue and he has all the staff names, manager's wives names, kids names...my takeaway was that this approach is the fine art of salesmanship that you need to fuse with the entertainer in order to succeed.

It isn't enough to just be a musician anymore, maybe it never was...

 

I used to [when I was playing bars/clubs every weekend] keep an excel file on the owners, managers, bartenders, servers, parking valets, even some of the 'regulars'...whoever I thought would appreciate a mention. Many of them were very appreciative, and I think it goes a long way to making yourself more bookable if the people see you care enough to know who is who.

As a solo, I rarely [read rarely] play the same place twice because my solo work is private parties, and the same for Blues Channel over the last decade+, my 'corporate' band. But for the 7 piece Swing Kings I totally knew the entire staff of the venue, and the same with the GrandStand Jam hosting group. [steveMac attended one of their jams with me shortly before I took over guitar and vocal duties, and no one in that group ever said anything nice about the staff...and the owner of one venue took me aside and thanked me after I started doing that]

 

Blues Channel was in a new venue this week, hosting what we hope will become a bi-monthly jam, and the booker texted us saying how much she liked the fact that we engaged with the audience, complimented the staff, spoke directly to members of the audience, etc...and I've made a list of staff names for next time...

 

[Mikeo]

 

I am also not a huge fan of Apple, my wife's Android tablet knocks it into a cocked hat, however I researched the best gigging app and hands down it was Onsong which only works on Apple. Accordingly I bought a refurbished iPad and have recently bought a more modern "referbished" one.

Having read the OP I will today write out a hard copy set list, such a good idea.

I create a set list for every gig I do (takes about five minutes), which means I can avoid playing the same old songs when ever I play the same venue.

I also create a blank song for each venue with the venue as its title, instead of lyrics I note things like the owners/managers name and contact numbers, other staff names, load in details like parking and electrical sockets, sound details like "tiled floors so cut reverb", plus anything else I can think of. I place this venue song at the start of every relevant set.

All of my songs have note appended like harmonica key, capo fret, looper settings etc

I also add notes to random songs which are an aid memoir for starting a bit of banter for example on "Love me Do" I have a note that this was written after John Lennon had a particularly good haircut.

Onsong also stores my break music making playback seamless and easy, same for backing tracks.

i don't use lights or lyric projection but it will also control that.

With hundreds of songs that can be recalled almost instantly by title or artist it's great for dealing with requests.

However I hardly ever use the app for reading lyrics, a quick glance of the title and I am away, but I would struggle without it.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I looked at the On Song app a bit and it looks like it likes text documents, so anything I have now in MS Word could be saved as a Plain Text Doc and imported.

 

I'm not sure how fancy of an Ipad I would need, or the screen size.

 

The app would be handy, whether I'm practicing at the house or playing out.

 

I looked at the Apple 9.7" iPad with Wi-Fi, 32GB, Space Gray (6th Gen) for about 3 hundred.

 

[steve mac]

I still use my original IPad 2 with no problem for practise and at the price you can get one of them it would be risk free. Like I said not a fan of Apple but I a much huge on of Onsong. Cheers Steve

[Notes_Norton]

I use laptops instead of an iPad. I like the always there keyboard. It helps me pick songs on the spur of the moment and get them started almost instantly.

 

I run 3 on stage where I only need two (backing tracks are duplicated), Leilani needs one, and a el-cheapo spare comes along.

 

Since 2002 when I went ThinkPad, I've had two potential gig stoppers. Hard drive got flaky on one, and CMOS batter on the other. I switched the USB to the other on stage and booted up computer and nobody knew there was a problem but me.

 

And yes, a check list is important.

 

Notes

[Drummer44]

We have a few Android tablets (10", 8", and 7"), and a 12" windows tablet/laptop. I use Songbook on the tablets, and keys uses Mobilsheets Pro (for full scores) on either the tablet/laptop or on the 10" tablet.

 

The 12" and 10" screens are decent; smaller is OK for back-up but not optimal. Songbook is excellent, although I don't use many of its capabilities. Mobilsheets Pro is also excellent, hampered only by the process of jumping back and forth in full scores (a pedal helps), as does sequential page set-up).

 

Songbook (or similar) is key for me (there's a pun there, wait for it...) because when I'm playing -- with whomever, wherever -- the vocalist usually chooses the key in which he/she can best sing a given song. Files in Chordpro format, slightly onerous to create if everything is already in Word or PDF or whatever, easily fixes that key change thing on the fly. Just last night I had to reset keys for 20 or so songs, easy and fast, no big deal... with Chordpro formatting in an app like Songbook or similar.

 

-D44

[pogo97]

A bit OT, but transposing has come up.

 

Transposing song chords can be a bit of a nuisance in text-based systems. I use InDesign for my sheets and ran into the transpositions gotcha: if you use find and replace on the chords it trips over its previous actions. For example, if you're going from C major to D major and you start with C, when if gets around to changing the Ds to Es it will change all of them, including the "Ds" that you just changed from C. There is no one-step solution to this that I know of.

 

So what I do is transpose from the original key to Nashville notation (the major tonic is 1, the dominant is 5 and so-on) then I go from Nashville to the destination key. And I've written simple scripts to automate it.

 

From the key of C major to Nashville:

 

set rootArray to {"C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "A", "B"}

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"

tell selection

search for item 1 of rootArray replacing with "1"

search for item 2 of rootArray replacing with "2"

search for item 3 of rootArray replacing with "3"

search for item 4 of rootArray replacing with "4"

search for item 5 of rootArray replacing with "5"

search for item 6 of rootArray replacing with "6"

search for item 7 of rootArray replacing with "7"

end tell

end tell

 

and from Nashville to D major (« is a sharp in the font I use and character id 92 is a flat)

 

set rootArray to {"D", "E", "F«", "G", "A", "B", "C«"}

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"

tell selection

search for "1" replacing with item 1 of rootArray

search for "2" replacing with item 2 of rootArray

search for "3" & character id 92 replacing with character 1 of item 3 of rootArray

search for "3" replacing with item 3 of rootArray

search for "4" replacing with item 4 of rootArray

search for "5" replacing with item 5 of rootArray

search for "6" replacing with item 6 of rootArray

search for "7" & character id 92 replacing with character 1 of item 7 of rootArray

search for "7" replacing with item 7 of rootArray

--comment: the following deals with some enharmonic glitches

search for "E«" replacing with "F"

search for "F" & character id 92 replacing with "E"

search for "B«" replacing with "C"

search for "C" & character id 92 replacing with "B"

search for "«" & character id 92 replacing with ""

search for character id 92 & "«" replacing with ""

end tell

end tell

 

 

 

[Drummer44]

The 12" and 10" screens are decent; smaller is OK for back-up but not optimal. Songbook is excellent, although I don't use many of its capabilities. Mobilsheets Pro is also excellent, hampered only by the process of jumping back and forth in full scores (a pedal helps), as does sequential page set-up).

 

 

A bit more about navigation in full scores in an app like Mobilsheets Pro and similar...

 

The more difficult method is to jump back and forth -- as with a two-pedal Air Turn (for example) set-up for forward and reverse -- to display the appropriate "next" portion of a given song.

 

An easier method is to insert additional pages as necessary -- page 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, etc. -- and then only use a "forward" pedal. Seems like it can become more automatic, with slightly less chance of hose-up. Sometimes helps to also highlight starting points on those additional pages (as in the middle of a page) with additional markups for faster recognition.

 

-D44