I've been using a MusicPad display unit for nearly 6 years and prefer it to printed music, especially when I have the foot pedal hooked up and can use it to turn pages. (I'm a pianist & organist). In fact, I do not buy printed music anymore unless I can't find it in musicpad format. The battery life is good, but I'd be worried after 3 hours that it might shut off. I always plug it into an A/C outlet if I have that choice. In a low-light situation, it is great because I don't need a stand light. I can also store a huge amount of music on a memory stick. There is a function that allows me to browse and search within the collection. When I played in the lobby of the local VA hospital a few years ago, it was real easy to find requests that people would ask for by using the collection feature.
The cost of the units are starting to come down in price, but they still are too high. If one can buy Finale at full cost or Adobe CS Photoshop at full cost, they can afford one of those units. I'm not sure the Kindle type of units (Amazon) would work too well with music. I think they were geared mainly toward text and simple graphics. Someone mentioned that orchestras would need to hook the units up to a network. Other than the simplicity of loading the music into the units prior to rehearsing, why would they need to be part of a network in rehearsal or performance? What's the advantage or reasoning? I've dropped my music pad about 4 feet, onto its side once, no problems. However, if the glass display were to break, it would do the unit in. But, spilling coffee on or having the A/C return suck printed music to who knows where would end up with the same effective result as far as the performer goes - nothing to perform from. James Gilbert _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
