ELECTRONIC SCREEN FOR SONG WORDS

[Damien Quinn]

Hi Folks

I am a one man band using guitar and tracks and i have a music stand with printed songwords in a folder resting on it.

Is there any portable tablet that i can get to transfer the song words from my pc onto it so as to use at my gigs. What or them ebooks like , could they do the job.

I use my ipod for the tracks and it sits on a clamp attached to the mic stand.

My song words were created in Microsoft word so i don't think any of the Apple products will open the files like the ipad etc.

[rodclement]

Both the Ipad and the Android Tablets have apps that run lyrics for you, I use my Motorola XOOM tablet and "Lyrics Note" app, it works great! I also have a mount from "Ram-Mount" that holds the tablet to a mic stand, perfect set-up. The only downfall to this is that it only works with .txt documents so I had to convert my lyrics from word to text, good use of my sick time this past week!

 

Rod

[MikeyParent]

I am using OnSong for iOS which is not bad. I have not gigged with it yet though. It allows you to use DropBox. There are mounts that allow you to mount either iPad or iPod/iPhone to a mic stand. Primacoustic makes a nice one.

 

Also, you can absolutely view office documents on an iPhone/iPad/iPod. "Files Lite" is one program that you can use to do this, or Dropbox. Both of which are free.

[Jersey Jack]

I've heard about lyric apps, and I'm curious about how they work. They can't scroll automatically, right? We would have to set the tempo somehow, and this would not be an intuitive thing, as some lyrics are of course sung a lot faster than others. Nor can there (I think) be any kind of external triggering device, like a footswitch.

 

So just how do they work?

[Bajazz]

Sit back children, and let uncle Bajazz tell you a story:

 

Once upon a time I used a big binder and stand, and tried to make it smaller and easier to navigate. I also lowered the stand and put it to the side to make everything more discret. I wouldn't want them to know I was cheating. Then I got the idea for electronic gizmo hidden in a monitor, long before tablets and ipads were invented. But before I built it, I one day forgot my binder on a gig. I decided to smile, and fake it and discovered that ALL THE SONGS WERE IN MY HEAD!!! I also discovered that I could communicate much better with the audience, and not look lost panicly searching for the lyrics as people stood waiting to hear their request. No stand people could tip over, or binder they would steal away. This was awesome!!!

Later I replaced the mic&stand with a small descret countryman headset (invisible from few feets away) and wireless on the guitar. Now people also stopped slamming my mic in my teeth and stealing the mic in the middle of a song!! So now my stage is very clean and I play directly to and for the audience. My act has been taking a big leap and I feel total freedom!

 

I since then been seeing lots of soloacts sorry to say, but: A music stand or laptop in front of a man looks kinda lame...

[Damien Quinn]

Sit back children, and let uncle Bajazz tell you a story: Once upon a time I used a big binder and stand, and tried to make it smaller and easier to navigate. I also lowered the stand and put it to the side to make everything more discret. I wouldn't want them to know I was cheating. Then I got the idea for electronic gizmo hidden in a monitor, long before tablets and ipads were invented. But before I built it, I one day forgot my binder on a gig. I decided to smile, and fake it and discovered that ALL THE SONGS WERE IN MY HEAD!!! I also discovered that I could communicate much better with the audience, and not look lost panicly searching for the lyrics as people stood waiting to hear their request. No stand people could tip over, or binder they would steal away. This was awesome!!! Later I replaced the mic&stand with a small descret countryman headset (invisible from few feets away) and wireless on the guitar. Now people also stopped slamming my mic in my teeth and stealing the mic in the middle of a song!! So now my stage is very clean and I play directly to and for the audience. My act has been taking a big leap and I feel total freedom! I since then been seeing lots of soloacts sorry to say, but: A music stand or laptop in front of a man looks kinda lame...

Having the words is just like a babys soother, comfort zone. Even lazy format. Most of the time u just turn the page to the song and then don't use it. But knowing that its there is something else.

Good for learning new songs in this fast world were u can hardly get five minutes to urself to sit down and practice them.

[MikeyParent]

I've heard about lyric apps, and I'm curious about how they work. They can't scroll automatically, right? We would have to set the tempo somehow, and this would not be an intuitive thing, as some lyrics are of course sung a lot faster than others. Nor can there (I think) be any kind of external triggering device, like a footswitch. So just how do they work?

Happily, you are incorrect on both counts :-)

 

http://www.onsongapp.com/features/

 

This app lets you set the key and tempo when you input or upload a song into it and you can change either after the fact. And it autoscrolls. And supports USB footswitches.

[MikeyParent]

Sit back children, and let uncle Bajazz tell you a story: Once upon a time I used a big binder and stand, and tried to make it smaller and easier to navigate. I also lowered the stand and put it to the side to make everything more discret. I wouldn't want them to know I was cheating. Then I got the idea for electronic gizmo hidden in a monitor, long before tablets and ipads were invented. But before I built it, I one day forgot my binder on a gig. I decided to smile, and fake it and discovered that ALL THE SONGS WERE IN MY HEAD!!! I also discovered that I could communicate much better with the audience, and not look lost panicly searching for the lyrics as people stood waiting to hear their request. No stand people could tip over, or binder they would steal away. This was awesome!!! Later I replaced the mic&stand with a small descret countryman headset (invisible from few feets away) and wireless on the guitar. Now people also stopped slamming my mic in my teeth and stealing the mic in the middle of a song!! So now my stage is very clean and I play directly to and for the audience. My act has been taking a big leap and I feel total freedom! I since then been seeing lots of soloacts sorry to say, but: A music stand or laptop in front of a man looks kinda lame...

 

I hear you (and the next poster about the security blanket mentality). I do not advocate sheet stands and the like but sometimes (like when you are starting with a new band as I am currently) they are a necessary evil. But I do think of it as a temporary or interim thing.

[rodclement]

..or for people like me that have ocd and need the lyrics as a safety blanket, I would feel so insecure without it that I would not be able to perform, and as said before, I seldom use it, I just have ot there as a safety blanket, by having it and being calm, I am able to deliver a great performance. Whenever I sing with people, even a song I have been doing for decades, and don;t have the song there, I get so uneasy that it ruins my delivery.

 

Another situation is bands that play the same gig week to week and (like us) learn two or three new songs every gig to please patrons or owners, it helps with meeting this goal and making people happy without having to "wing it".

 

As an anedocte, I just had a duo play at my Club this Memorial Holiday weekend, they both had the ipad with the app tha Mike has described, they work seven days a week, in the NYC market, full time as musicians, they are great...and they both had the gizmo and swear by it! Their song list covered more than 300 songs, most of wich they don't play for months untill someone requests it, so they just tap the tablet, move to the song requested with notes and everything and deliver...again much better than "faking it"!

 

Jersey, I am not sure how the Ipad works but I know it has a lot more features that the one for Android (Lyrics Note). For the Android it imports .txt files and organize them either aplha or by set, then you can set timing for scroll either for all songs or individually, or you can it manually. I am sure you can attach a mouse device and use it to scroll as well.

Most of my lyrics use one page so I don't have a lot of scrolling to do, as mentioned before, I use the lyrics more as a safety blanket so it's not like I am looking at them all the time, you can adjust text size, contrast color either for day or night viewing, etc it is great at a dark satge and more visible than the paper sheets with a light over them!

 

Rod

[MDLMUSIC]

I'm also one of those guys who has a binder of lyrics/chords discreetly off to the side at crotch level. I have mine on the powered PA mixer which is sitting on a fold-up piano bench. An added plus with this is it makes it much easier to mix from the stage.

 

I rarely need to look at the lyrics, but when I get a brain fart, it's good to know I can glance at them for half-a-second and download the song back into my head.

 

I have worked with musicians who are truly absurd when it comes to using music stands. One bass player had his at head height right in front of him, so that all the audience saw of him was his body from the neck down. And it wasn't a very attractive body to look at anyway.

[Jersey Jack]

Happily, you are incorrect on both counts :-) http://www.onsongapp.com/features/ This app lets you set the key and tempo when you input or upload a song into it and you can change either after the fact. And it autoscrolls. And supports USB footswitches.

 

WOW! Thanks, this is potentially a great app. No more putting together and then lugging around big looseleaf binders--which invariably fall off the music stand at some point. And thousands of trees saved, which can continue to absorb carbon dioxide and save us from global warming!

 

I do want to endorse Uncle Bajazz's wise counsel, however. While there may be good practical reasons for using lyric/chord sheets--and while I obviously indulge myself--there is no question but that my performance is elevated when I work without a sheet. It's just a fact. And the audience isn't tempted to watch the performer's eyes, which I always end up doing when I see someone performing from chord charts. They should be alert to the soulfullness in your eyes, not to your clerical support needs.

 

Finally, you don't really know a song until it is firmly memorized. That's the reason why some of us (again, I include myself) feel anxious when we don't have the chart.

[Damien Quinn]

Is there any sort of app out there that say if i had an ipad and all my mp3s on it that if i play a song i can link the lyrics to that song to open when i push play.

It just means that u are not searching for a song to play and then having to search for the lyrics to go with it.

[MikeyParent]

OnSong does this in reverse. Call up the lyrics and tap the speaker icon to play the mp3. I am pretty sure though that there are lots of apps that do lyrics lookup for songs.

[Jersey Jack]

I looked again at the OnSong site, and I'm struck by the Christian emphasis. Hmm.... This is probably a stupid question, but I want to confirm that there's nothing about this app that limits the content. I mean, it won't prevent certain songs or words from appearing--or interfere with the content in any way, right? Does it come loaded down with Christian material, Jesus pop-ups, etc?

 

Suppose I were to suddenly take a hankering to Satanic metal, I could still use this app, right?

 

I have nothing against worship bands, but it ain't my thing, and as a good old-fashioned secular humanist with powerful Buddhist leanings, I am wary of venturing into this world. Can anyone set my mind at ease?

[rodclement]

Funny and so true! It seems that every software out there for lyric content has worship bands as a primary focus! Do worship bands have bad memory?

 

Rod

[MikeyParent]

I looked again at the OnSong site, and I'm struck by the Christian emphasis. Hmm.... This is probably a stupid question, but I want to confirm that there's nothing about this app that limits the content. I mean, it won't prevent certain songs or words from appearing--or interfere with the content in any way, right? Does it come loaded down with Christian material, Jesus pop-ups, etc? Suppose I were to suddenly take a hankering to Satanic metal, I could still use this app, right? I have nothing against worship bands, but it ain't my thing, and as a good old-fashioned secular humanist with powerful Buddhist leanings, I am wary of venturing into this world. Can anyone set my mind at ease?

 

LOL - well Sex on Fire is on mine... so I think it's pretty safe. :-)

[EightString]

For my own gigs, I leave the lyrics at home. But sometimes I do fill-ins, where I might get the call the day of the gig, and there may be a significant amount of material either I haven't done in a long time, or have never done at all.

 

So, in those cases, I figure it's more pro to have a discreet music stand low and to the side and be able to READ THE WORDS than to not have the lyrics and maybe go "la la la la la" through the entire second verse because I haven't done that song since 1982 or something.

[EightString]

Setting aside my prior "philosophical" post, I AM a technophile, and so I do use an iPad, mounted discreetly on a mic stand, instead of the old fashioned paper lyrics binder.

 

In my case, I don't use a dedicated app for musicians. I just use a plain old PDF reader, with all the pages of lyrics in a single file that I can easily index and finger-scroll through. Each page has a single song, and sometimes, just some "reminder" lyrics, not the whole song.

 

But even so, for those "fill-in" gigs where I use the iPad, I only reference lyrics of songs in the band's set list that I don't have down, otherwise I ignore the iPad.

[Bajazz]

I hear you alll defend the need for music stand and binder/iPad. I did too for years, but the security blanket is NOT neccesary once you stop using it.

 

Let me ask you a question: Would you allow your son or children to keep the support wheels on their bikes for the rest of their lives? How long would you give your child before you give up on them learning to walk?

 

You ALL are able to keep the lyrics in your head if you give yourself a chance. Your show will be much better.

 

I use sheet sometimes when I practice, and I sometimes put a tape strip with the first word in each verse written of the latest song when I perform it the first time on a gig. Other than that I have the philosofy that as long as I need the sheet, I don't know the song. And as long as I don't know the song I don't perform it in front of an audience. That's almost an insult to the people coming to hear me and me not doing my job.

[EightString]

 

I hear you alll defend the need for music stand and binder/iPad. I did too for years, but the security blanket is NOT neccesary once you stop using it. Let me ask you a question: Would you allow your son or children to keep the support wheels on their bikes for the rest of their lives? How long would you give your child before you give up on them learning to walk? You ALL are able to keep the lyrics in your head if you give yourself a chance. Your show will be much better. I use sheet sometimes when I practice, and I sometimes put a tape strip with the first word in each verse written of the latest song when I perform it the first time on a gig. Other than that I have the philosofy that as long as I need the sheet, I don't know the song. And as long as I don't know the song I don't perform it in front of an audience. That's almost an insult to the people coming to hear me and me not doing my job.

 

 

I'll simplify my prior posts: I only use lyrics for situations like last minute fill-ins because someone's singer got sick.

[MikeyParent]

 

I hear you alll defend the need for music stand and binder/iPad. I did too for years, but the security blanket is NOT neccesary once you stop using it. Let me ask you a question: Would you allow your son or children to keep the support wheels on their bikes for the rest of their lives? How long would you give your child before you give up on them learning to walk? You ALL are able to keep the lyrics in your head if you give yourself a chance. Your show will be much better. I use sheet sometimes when I practice, and I sometimes put a tape strip with the first word in each verse written of the latest song when I perform it the first time on a gig. Other than that I have the philosofy that as long as I need the sheet, I don't know the song. And as long as I don't know the song I don't perform it in front of an audience. That's almost an insult to the people coming to hear me and me not doing my job.

 

 

I get what you are saying. Obviously it's preferable to not have to rely on such things but if you are discreet about it and it helps you be more relaxed performing then whats the big dealio?

 

PS: It's hard to hear you way down here, can you get off your high horse for a second? ;-)

[rodclement]

Bajazz...tell that to every professional musician in orchestras, cover bands (the working ones, not the weekend warriors), the jazz musicians, studio musicians, choir, broadway shows...and on and on that rely on tabs and lyrics every day for their work.

 

Dude your opinion is taken and respected, now please stop trying to give it more importance than it calls for! What you think is only relevant to you, stop preaching!

 

Rod