Monday, December 1, 2014

Making the iPad Friendly for the Working Musician - ForScore App Overview


    I recently downloaded iGigBook( $14.99) and ForScore ( $4.99 ) from the App Store expressly for reading music on the iPad.   While I don’t have in-depth experience with iGigBook, and I recognize that many people love iGigBook,  I abandoned it within a day because of its non-intuitive user interface ( I did spend several hours trying to make sense of it ), it’s limited annotation capability, lack of landscape view and lack of a user-guide ( at least I was never able to find one). On the other hand, ForScore was immediately  up and running, easy to use and has all the features I need, except perhaps, searchable fake-book ( aka real-book) index capability.  I don’t find that a problem though.  If you call up the index and find the page number you wish to view, you can get to that page in just a second with the swipe of a finger along a “seek-bar” at the bottom of the screen while looking at the pop-up preview.  The index itself is not searchable, however. ( The manual discusses a feature where ForScore will scan your pdf for a table of contents and import it but I’ve had no luck making that happen )   It is also easy to offset the actual page numbers to match the indexed page-numbers. 
    In practice the iPad has been working very well except in direct sunlight.  The small size is not a problem given that the image contrast is so much greater than a printed page though, if you wear reading glasses, don't leave them at home.  There are numerous online instructional videos for ForScore for those who prefer. 
   

  So here are the features that I like about ForScore, in order of importance,  and only a couple I’m not crazy about.  I leave it to others to compare feature-by-feature to other music readers and to correct my errors.  

   1.  The program is set up as a relational database, so you can enter in any number of“keywords” known as "tags",  and you can assign a category to each score ( piece of music ) known as “genres”.   These are all searchable later - if I want to find a “swing” tune that’s also a “bebop” tune I can search and screen for just those tunes that contain both words in the metadata.  Other fields in the database include Composer, Difficulty, Time, and Quality Rating.  I get a little confused with having Tags AND Genres, as there is some overlap here. I’m never sure, for example,  whether I should call “Musette” a tag or a genre.   I’m tempted to just put all my searchable keywords under “tags” and skip using the “genres” field altogether, or vica-versa.   If you use the term “Jazz” as both a “tag" and a “genre”. when you search for tunes with that keyword, you will get 2 separate lists of tunes, one that has “jazz” listed as  tags and one for genres.   Another thing to note is that the search engine is case sensitive,  so the “french” songs will be in a different genre than the “French” songs.  This is a little annoying, but I just make it a point to capitalize first letter of any genre or tag word.   Genres and tags will Auto-fill as you are typing to speed up the entry process, and you can also batch edit a group of tunes if they are all going to get the same tag/genre assignment. 

   2.   Annotation is the ability to write on the page, erase, make changes and notes, add in missing accidentals, phrase and dynamic markings, using a stylus.   The symbols are editable by size and boldness and are accessed in a series of drop down boxes, or you just just draw anything you want in freehand. It’s quite slick and easy to use. Color options are great for highlighting those hard-to-see repeat signs and Coda signs.  

  3.  Landscape and Portrait mode switchable by just turning the iPad 90 degrees. 

  4. Editing the border is easy to do in ForScore if you want the narrow the margins so the music fits the screen better.  A permanent cropping tool is available or you can do it on a temporary basis using a scroll bar below a preview window.  You can also zoom in using two fingertips. 

   5.  Page turns are accomplished with a light tap of the screen, forward and backward, or with an accessory page turning pedal.  You can also program “links” between repeat signs to jump back to the beginning of the repeated section, wherever it is.  

   6.  Compatible file formats include pdf, doc, docx, and rtf.  I wish jpg were on this list because I do all editing of my scans in Photoshop and save as jpg’s.  Thankfully, on the Mac, converting to a pdf is easily done from the Preview menu ( file/export as pdf).  In Photoshop I like to resample each scan to 150 ppi at 8.5”x11” and save as a jpg at level 9 jpg compression.  Files are coming out at about 300KB (relatively small) and look great on the iPad.  Larger files will work just fine but eat up the memory fast.  1000 tunes at 2MB each will eat up 2GB of your iPad memory, which I guess is not a big deal unless you have a lot of other stuff on your iPad. If you’re using the iPad for music and photos, running short on memory is a real possibility.  
    I've been loading files into the iPad by way of iTunes. Follow the path iTunes/iPad/Apps/ForScore/Add      ( Note that "Add" is way at the bottom of the screen and might be hidden from view until you scroll way down ).  After adding tunes to the cache, you clink "sync" to load them into the iPad. 

   7. The ForScore User Manual is terrific. Written by actual English-speakers, it spells everything out very clearly.  Except maybe that paragraph about importing Table of Contents.

   8. You can create Setlists  for tunes that will be played sequentially, and easily change the order, add and delete tunes.  When you tap the screen it goes to the next tune in the set.  You can navigate backwards if you need to as well. 

   9. Merging tunes is the process of taking individual pdf files and turning them into one multi-page document.  For example, a 5 page score that was added to ForScore can be turned into 1 file, with one filename, and the pages turn just as they would normally, by tapping the screen.

    10.  Other features include email and bluetooth capabilities, linking pages, bookmarking to jump to predetermined locations in the score, creating separate libraries of music, linking iPads, audio and midi playback and wireless printing. There is a tuner, a playable piano keyboard, camera, a pitch pipe, and custom programmable touch features, recording option, backup capability and an online store to purchase pre-formatted pdf’s.   


I think I hit most of the features of ForScore here - hope this is helpful!