The stands must be lightweight and collapsable -- not necessarily wire stands, but I have to be able to fit 20 of them in a luggable wheel cart.
Our Community Band has a bunch of similar stands, but they are Manhasset. Folding base and solid desk. I don't know what kind of price you could find, especially with stand light included. You don't want a wire stand if you'll be doing any outdoor playing. It takes a solid desk to support wind clips or some other means of making sure your music isn't Gone with the Wind! And a wire stand won't support the kind of music folder most big bands use.
The lights must be small, battery-powered, and actually help readability.
I would really urge you to rethink this requirement, and to figure the cost of constantly replacing batteries against the rather minimal cost of putting together a simple wiring extension network with components from Home Depot. Most of the battery-operated lights I've seen are designed for reading a book, not for illuminating 2 pages of music, and don't have a wide enough light pattern to do the job. There is a battery light specifically made for musicians, and it probably does the job really well, using a rechargeable battery pack, but each light costs well over $100! A battery-operated light will probably also have a bulb that's not exactly standard and replaceable at Walmart in a quick emergency.
The illustration at Musicians Friend doesn't show any wiring on this light, but they don't show any wiring on all the piano lights they have, either. You'll just have to call and ask. You might want to go ahead and order one set so you can evaluate stability, ease of setup and takedown, weight, and quality of the light.
Carl Dershem wrote:
And I vaguely recall seeing band fronts for saxes at either Giardinelli or WW/BW a while back, though I can't seem to find them now. They can be good for displaying the name of the band, and a lot of sax players are used to them.
Only one caveat here. For us older folks who wear bi- or tri-focals, it's awfully hard to read off those low stands because the bottom segments of our glasses are optimized for reading at about 10 inches, not 30 or 36 inches. Yes, you can have music glasses made, but then you're asking your musicians to put out a couple of hundred dollars extra.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
