Synthesia for Ipad as a sheet music reading app

[maccer]

I started singing i a choir a few moths ago, but I'm still not very good at reading sheet music. I've been using Sweet Midi Player for Iphone to play back MIDI files where the voices are separated. By using a different instrument and volume for the tenor voice that I am singing I've been able to slowly learn the melody.

But now I would need an ipad app that could be used during the choir rehearsals. Some features I would like to see is:

1. full-screen sheet music (I hope this is planned for both the Ipad version and the desktop version?)

2. tap (or maybe double-tap) a measure in the sheet music to quickly jump to the beginning of that measure and start playig from there, instead of having to use the timeline

3. Individual track volume (I think this was on the voting list, but now I can't even find the list - is it gone?)

4. the ability to tap the tempo

5. the ability to manually set the staff of each track (I know we've discussed this earlier) so that I can make the sheet music look as much as possible like the "real" sheet music on paper.

6. set markers that show up both in both the timeline and in the sheet music, and make it possible to assign any text I want to them. I would be interested in being able to enter the measure number for certain markers to correspond with the "real" sheet music.

7. always see the current measure and beat somewhere, for example above the time in the timeline.

8. the possibility to manually flick pages (if the full-screen sheet music is going to be shown in pages) and start playing from the start of the page you've flicked to.

9. see and input lyrics in the sheet music

10. wishful thinking: the app hears what the choir is singing (or what an instrument is playing) and automatically adjusts the playback position and tempo so that I can have the app playing back the tenor voice in my ear in real time while singing


I started to look for apps that could handle some of these features, but didn't find any and then came to think of Synthesia. If it could handle at least 1-5 it would already be quite helpful. What I really want is point 10, but I guess that's very hard to do and won't be possible for quite some time.

[jimhenry]

maccer,

You've outlined what sounds like a very useful app for choirs. I wonder if someone hasn't already produced something specifically targeted for that use. Around here you are more likely to find out about things geared toward keyboard players.

Have you looked at music score apps? These tend to be more like specialized eBook or PDF readers. They don't allow you to interact with the music the way Synthesia does, but they do allow you to use a scan of the real sheet music. In your case I would think having a good copy of the sheet music would be important. The realities of MIDI make it hard, if not impossible, to reverse engineer a good sheet music display. Whatever Synthesia might eventually be able to do, it will never be as good as using an image of the sheet music. Piascore is one such application. As you might guess from the name, it is geared toward pianists. I don't know how many of your desired features it has. It does allow for easy page turns, including by a head movement but that probably wouldn't be good in choir.

Good luck with your search.

[Nicholas]

I was reminded of SmartMusic while reading that list. I know there are a few points (notably being able to sing into a microphone and have it follow along) that it covers.

Still, there are some neat ideas to add to Synthesia. "Tap to set tempo" is something I haven't heard anyone suggest before, and it'd be a tiny amount of effort. To shoot through the list real fast:

1, 3: Yes, these are still planned for both platforms. (In general, everything is planned for both. There should be very few things that are desktop or iPad only.) #1 in particular is challenging before sheet gets a little higher quality/reliable and before things like 2, 6, and 8 happen.

4, 7: These are things I'm not sure I've heard suggested before but that I like a lot!

5: I'm hoping to avoid the need with much smarter clef selection. (It will be able to change mid-staff and things like double-treble will be allowed.)

9: MIDI supports lyrics just fine and it's easy enough to place them where they belong in either the sheet view or falling notes. This has just been a low priority feature I haven't gotten around to doing in all these years.

10: Check out SmartMusic.

[maccer]

Hm, I gave Piascore a try, but it can't do 2). And SmartMusic isn't an Ipad app, and having a laptop is quite a bit more cumbersome. And as i can't find a demo version I don't know if it can do 2) and if it copes with a single voice or if it can manage multiple simultaneous voices for a choir.

But yes, having the possibility to combine scanned images of sheet music with a MIDI file would be the best option. Then you would need some way to draw lines and insert markers into the files so that it can be connected to the timeline of the MIDI file and make 2) possible. I'm almost thinking of trying to create an app myself, but it would take quite a lot of time since my IOS/Objective-C programming skills are very limited. I'd rather see the functionality in Synthesia

[Nicholas]

Then you would need some way to draw lines and insert markers into the files so that it can be connected to the timeline of the MIDI file...

Yeah, the implementation I've already imagined for that feature a couple years ago including marking out the measures so at least a little bit of interactivity could be salvaged.

(Maybe also so the images might be auto-straightened/aligned, because scans and photos are often rotated a bit... but that's work that wouldn't have to go in the first time around.)