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Sheet Music - When you Sing & Play - What's Your Solution?


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Set List Maker was $12.99

 

Golly. I need to get into mobile app development.

Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3

Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H

Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9

Roland: VR-09, RD-800

 

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Really????? I was thinking just the opposite....

 

A good quality software developer would be worth about $100/ hour. My guess is that it would take a minimum of 1,000 hours (6 months of full time effort) to develop, market and support, before you make even $1.

 

With $100,000 of time invested, you then need to sell only 7,000+ copies to break even, which doesn't include Apple's cut. I don't think they are getting rich.

Yamaha S90XS, Studiologic VMk-161 Organ

Small/powerful (i7, 32GB, M.2 SSD) PC controlled by 10" Touch Screen

Cantabile, Ravenscroft 275, Keyscape, OPX-II, Omnisphere 2, VB3, Chris Hein Horns, etc.

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Given that I've worked as a software developer for my entire career....I think I have a pretty good handle on what the job entails.

 

Your cost estimates for a one-person startup are completely unreasonable. Working for yourself for less than $200K/yr is not exactly uncommon.

Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3

Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H

Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9

Roland: VR-09, RD-800

 

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If I am singing and playing a pop song, I prefer to have the whole thing memorised. I think it is far better to risk getting a few words wrong than to have your eyes glued to a chart.

 

But if I need a chord chart (which I often do for jazz), I might have a few "cue" words written on it. I make my chord charts in ireal pro, so there is no space for more than the odd few words. As others have said, they are more frequently the ones at the beginning of a verse, but if there is any other place where I am likely to get muddled, I can just write in a word or two to remind me.

 

 

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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  • 2 months later...
Just memorize the song! Make a CD if you need to, and burn it into your brain... When you can YouTube a different version of the same song by the same group and notice their variations, you got it.

 

Sometimes, if there is someone else singing a song in a different key than usual, if I start the song, I just write the key with a pen on my copy of the set list. Not very fancy, but it works every time as long as you have ink in the pen.

 

If I don't intro the song, I just listen to the first note played and immediately go into that key. Sure beats writing them all down.

The set list will be modified depending on the crowd anyway...we have so many songs (as I'm sure you all do), we rarely get a request that we can't play. The biggest problem on an old song, or a new one we haven't yet played, is to just get through the intro and then things will be fine.

 

Sure, if we are bringing back a song that we haven't played in, say, 3 to 6+ months, we run through the necessary areas once or twice as needed at practice. Usually this is in intros and occasionally endings.

 

Our biggest gig problem is the lead singer not getting the timing issues right. The second biggest is the drummer generally not starting it right.

 

Paul

 

This

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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> I don't think they are getting rich.

 

Maybe if you make a game or get bought out.

 

There was the developer that said that he could write the app in one afternoon. Congratulations to him.

Korg Kronos, Roland RD-88, Korg Kross, JP8000, MS2000, Sequential Pro One, Micromoog, Yamaha VL1, author of unrealBook for iPad.

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My honest reply is that I agree with "memorize the song." I only sing a handful of tunes but I still manage to forget lyrics like mad...while I can remember music from many songs without effort. Different brain areas I guess.

 

Anyway, the more I try to help myself out the worse it gets. Ipad, or paper, relying on the crutches meant I was too quick to try to look over at it--not to mention when the paper would blow away (and my eyesight is worse now in my 40s!) We are talking songs I've sung for almost 30 years, and I still had to write out at least the beginnings of sentences. Now I'm taking a more "zen" approach :) The lyrics are in my head, I just have to let it flow (which is pretty much how the playing part works). Lately this has worked great, I just make myself feel confident and don't try so hard, and the words have flowed out (mostly) correctly :-) I do run through them mentally between sets but I just tell myself--in Al Franken SNL fashion--that I'm capable and I can do it with confidence LOL :)

 

...our singer is also ready to come in with harmonies, even where there aren't any, to give me a boost...

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I use Fakebook Pro (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skrivarna.fakebook.android) for both my bass and keys gigs. To be honest I'm not much of a singer, but I keep lyrics for some background vocals in the app. The great thing with Fakebook is that it allows mixing and matching PDFs and e.g. chordpro files (with lyrics) and the chord charts (incl chordpro) is transposable.

 

And speaking about what a developer might make -- Fakebook seems like a steal at less than $3...

 

Rock bottom bass

Fakebook Pro Sheet Music Reader - at every gig!

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I recently downloaded the set list maker app and am quite impressed with what you get for $12.99. I am using it mainly to organize my set lists and the program changes for my keyboards. Much easier, quicker, and less chance of error from doing everything by hand the way I used to. Worth every penny imho.
Nord Lead A1, Nord Electro 5d, Yamaha S70xs, QSC K10s
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That's way too much for "Piano Man". The problem you're going to run into is that you will be tempted into reading from the tablet. This immediately translates into two things:

 

1 - audience interaction is gone

2 - mic technique suffers

 

I'll add that I when I read, sing, and play that I have the additional problem that the microphone blocks my view!

 

IMO, your chart for Piano Man should look something like

 

Key: C - chorus Am - solo Am blues

 

V1: It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday

V2: He says Son, can you play me a memory

 

V3: Now John at the bar is a friend of mine

V4: He said Bill I believe this is killing me

 

V5: Now Paul is a real estate novelist

V6: And the waitress is practicing politics

 

Solo

 

V7: It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday

V8: And the piano it sounds like a carnival

 

If you need more than that, you don't know the song, and should consider learning it better before performing it.

Fixed in the quote. (sorry it was eating me up inside) ;)

 

~ vonnor

Gear:

Hardware: Nord Stage3, Korg Kronos 2, Novation Summit

Software: Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 3 and assorted VST plug-ins.

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Captain U: Have you looked into the Show Notes function that's baked into Cantabile 3?

Analog - Yes I had done a little bit or work with Cantabile's show notes. While I absolutely love C3 it can't beat a dedicated "Set List" program. I use BandHelper.com, which is the online (Networked) version of Setlist Maker. It is friggin awesome. Especially when sharing across multiple member in a band. Everytime I upload a change everybody's system gets the update. Brilliant.

Yamaha S90XS, Studiologic VMk-161 Organ

Small/powerful (i7, 32GB, M.2 SSD) PC controlled by 10" Touch Screen

Cantabile, Ravenscroft 275, Keyscape, OPX-II, Omnisphere 2, VB3, Chris Hein Horns, etc.

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Most of my projects all I need is a song list with the patch numbers. I use Excel and have a column for the song name and a column for the patch number. For my Floyd tribute I also note which sample pad numbers I need if there are sound effects in the song. On a couple tunes I have troublesome sections mapped out with the changes and counts, but that's only 1 or 2 of them.

 

This 80's thing I picked up, learning almost 40 songs in a couple weeks, there is little chance of me having them all memorized before the show. They gave me a binder with probably 80 pages of lead sheets with the vocals and chord changes, but I've migrated that to my own format in Excel where I list out things like

intro- G F C C 2x

verse- G Em D A 4x

etc etc.

 

I put everything in order for the sets and saved it as a pdf. I plan on bringing my laptop and setting it up next to my boards so I can have it for reference. I'll also have hard copies in case of any kind of computer glitch. It's about 10 pages total.

 

Live: Korg Kronos 2 88, Nord Electro 5d Nord Lead A1

Toys: Roland FA08, Novation Ultranova, Moog LP, Roland SP-404SX, Roland JX10,Emu MK6

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