Sheet Music Now Available for Kindle

[Gideon]

Amazon now has sheet music available for download. Prices vary, as does selection.

Kindle the Muse

Link care of Gizmodo

[Abecedary]

Does TTS work on these?

[JSWolf]

Speaking of TTS, does it work with PDF?

[Gideon]

TTS on PDFs? No. PDFs on the Kindle can be searched and bookmarked and that is about it.

[purl4peace]

If I'm not mistaken, the format of the music is basically already a PDF file. The music is offered by "FreeHand" which has offered a dedicated sheet-music reader for several years.

I have often relished using the DX for reading music. However, the timeout is an issue. To make it really useful, Kindle will have to come up with a way to disable the timeout because it depending on what you are playing/practicing, it would be a pain to have the thing keep switching over to the screen saver.



Specifications:

MusicPad Pro Plus -- $899.
• Size: 13.3" x 9.9" x 1.8" (just over 4 lbs.)
• Easy-to-read, low glare, touch screen
• 12.1" TFT LCD back-lit, color display eliminates need for external music stand lighting
• Resolution: 1024 x 768

[davidspitzer]

Could that thing be used as an ebook reader - or more specifically a pdf reader?

Nice big screen - back lit - annotation capable hmmmm

[Gideon]

Yeah, I have a lot of PDFs I'm reading currently. It works great for that.

[Gideon]

Oh, sorry... I didn't connect with the above post.

[Barcey]

If they add a microphone it should be able to follow the music you're playing and automatically turn the page for you. I think a lot of musicians would appreciate that.

[purl4peace]

Originally Posted by Barcey

If they add a microphone it should be able to follow the music you're playing and automatically turn the page for you. I think a lot of musicians would appreciate that.

I know they have MIDI capability and want to say it has some ability to "play out" somehow. I'm pretty sure they used to cost well over a thousand bucks so the price has really come even in the last 6 months.

More features:

• Scan your music library into a computer and then convert
• Fully annotative with zoom in and zoom out feature while writing
• Add or erase rehearsal marks and notations
• Easy-to-read personal on screen color notes
• Extensive library of notation symbols
• Text annotation via a virtual keyboard
• Half-page turn option for look-ahead viewing in portrait mode
• Two-page display in landscape mode
• Remote easy page turning
• Audio Player for MIDI
• File browser and quick search
• Expanded play list capability

Here's a link to the full description. I looked for what formats they support but it doesn't say anything (as I say, it predates ebook readers so I'm pretty sure they really didn't care about the ebook of babel that was developing around them).

MusicPadPro

And... just in case you thought the Kindle DX was too small, check this out:

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Gideon

Amazon now has sheet music available for download. Prices vary, as does selection.

Is this at all usable with K2? I downloaded a sample but it didn't include any actual sheet music...

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by purl4peace

If I'm not mistaken, the format of the music is basically already a PDF file. The music is offered by "FreeHand" which has offered a dedicated sheet-music reader for several years.

I have often relished using the DX for reading music. However, the timeout is an issue. To make it really useful, Kindle will have to come up with a way to disable the timeout because it depending on what you are playing/practicing, it would be a pain to have the thing keep switching over to the screen saver.

I'm curious: why a DX? because it is cheaper than MusicPad? Seems like another limitation of DX in this regard is the inability to turn pages easily (for music that spans several pages). But for some uses it probably would work fine.

Another option to check out is MusicReader (software only - need to have laptop/tablet): http://www.musicreader.net/

[fugazied]

mmm Interesting. I'd hate to site read off the K2, but the DX might be good for it. The musicpadpro looks like the ultimate though!

I sight read pretty poorly now, out of practice, but I'm going to start learning piano (guitarist mostly), so new options for sheet music are welcome.

[Format C:]

I think iRex readers, with bigger screens and no keyboard below them, will do a better job for music sheets.

[Sweetpea]

Hmm, when I went to see the War of the Worlds two weeks ago, I noticed that the orchestra didn't have paper in front of them, but LCD screens... And I never saw them "turning" a page, so I assume it was all done electronically. There was a sort of clock (I've absolutely no knowledge of music and musical terms, especially for orchestras!) underneath it. I think the turning of the page was connected with that clock (I was sitting in front of the conductor (I believe it's called) so had a decent view )