Your methods for lyrics, charts, tab and notation

[erik_nie]

6 hours ago, stoken6 said:

@erik_nie can you enlighten us: what do "s", "is" and "es" after a note-letter mean (on your Bohemian Rhapsody chart)?

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

This is dutch language thing: Bes is the way we pronounce Bb and Cis is C#.  I use small letter for notes or high notes in the chords (to show inversions).
This works for me. To be honest I play most songs by head, but without chords I start to think and black-out.

[erik_nie]

I've created a Apple app from my Pythonista version.
Works great, fast and reliable.
I had some issues with iCloud loading the larger content and was missing the mp3 files during a gig.

See my new tool

If someone is interested in the Pythonista Code, send me a DM and I can mail you the full code

[Delaware Dave]

my brain .....  and no props....  

[EricBarker]

I settled on an app called SongBook Pro on my iPad 11in. The reason is that it does both PDF imports AND full-page text files. About 2/3rds of my charts are some chords here-and-there hastily typed out during rehearsal, and random notes to myself in abc format. Many of the apps out there focus on Sheet Music OR lyrics, but not both easily. SongBookPro does both well, and combined with a quick camera scanner like "TurboScan", is super quick to snap sheet music files too.

 

I have a telescoping iPad stand that I just keep UNDER my keyboard, pretty much out of view. Not only does it not visually intrude, but it forces me not to lot look at it unless I absolutely need to, because really these days, I don't need it much. However it makes a great setlist organizer too.

Other than that, on my NordS3C, I have a Song per song, with the starting key in the name. Before a set, I'll re-arrange the Song list and step through it as we go.

 

[Chummy]

I remember everything on pop/jazz gigs basically.

 

On theater gigs where I have gazillion cues  and 10 key changes per song I use this  to quickly write a chart and some notes:

https://www.chordsheet.com/

You can also transpose a chart to any key with a press of a button !

 

 

[erik_nie]

That's a nice tool to easy write chord charts!
Thanks for the link

[DJkeys]

On 4/7/2023 at 6:35 AM, Delaware Dave said:

my brain .....  and no props....  

This!   I have been in rock bands since I was 12 and never have used cheat sheets of any kind.  Lyrics, chords, changes all must be memorized.  It is really difficult to relate to and entertain an audience while looking back at an iPad for chords or lyrics.  I personally think it looks really unprofessional for a pop or rock band to have music stands, iPads, or any other kind of device other than your instruments.

 

-dj

[erik_nie]

17 hours ago, DJkeys said:

This!   I have been in rock bands since I was 12 and never have used cheat sheets of any kind.  Lyrics, chords, changes all must be memorized.  It is really difficult to relate to and entertain an audience while looking back at an iPad for chords or lyrics.  I personally think it looks really unprofessional for a pop or rock band to have music stands, iPads, or any other kind of device other than your instruments.

 

-dj

If I had weekly gigs I could also remember, but there is too much to remember and sometime a song is not played for 2 months.
Right programs, right key, right chord inversion, right lick, 
After a few bars I quickly get the hang of it, but that's also not professional...

I alway envy people that can play 100's of songs straight away. 
My iPad is directly above my keys and therefor not really distraction the connection with the audience

 

[Jose EB5AGV]

I use chords and lyrics PDFs in ForScore on my Air 2 iPad, put on a really strong K&M support which is on my Spider Pro stand. The stand is almost big enough to hide it from crowd view and it does not distracts me too much. But I need it, perhaps by being a late starter on this, I am mostly unable to learn all the songs. Of course, the more I practice the best I remember them 😅. But being this a hobby for me, I can't devote all the time I would like.

 

Then on my keyboard, which is usually the Montage 6, I setup a Live Set for the gig and on ForScore sheets I put my notes about the Performance to use, if it has a dedicated one, or is a generic one, and also any Scene change during the song. I am not yet using MIDI to control Performance changes, have enough time to do it manually. I also write notes about riffs, licks and any other thing which I may neet during the performance, just using text. I need to update this to show properly notated music.

 

Jose

[Delaware Dave]

9 hours ago, erik_nie said:

If I had weekly gigs I could also remember, but there is too much to remember and sometime a song is not played for 2 months.
 

 

 

If you memorized it you could recall it.  I've been playing in live bands since the early 80's.  I hooked up with a guitar player I played in a band with in 1991 about 3 months ago.  I started playing stuff we did in that band we played, he couldn't remember how to play the songs but I remembered the songs and how to play them.  I haven't played some of those songs since 1991. How did I remember how to still play those songs?  I memorized how to play them back in the day; I'll guarantee you that if I used a cheat sheet of some kind then I wouldn't remember any of it now.  That's how I've always done it and I'm too old to change my learning style now.

[16251]

[CEB]

I’m weird as hell. I don’t remember anything I play. The worst thing I can do is actually think about how a song goes.  I’m screwed if I think.   My hands just play them.  I did that last night playing through the old Steely Dan tune Peg. I actually thought about the intro and poof it was gone. The only thing I know the left hand walks chromatically down from G.  The right just does it’s thing. Came back to it later and I just played it. 

[EricBarker]

It really depends on the band I play in. I almost always start by charting something out, then I look at it less and less until I'm off book. I'm pretty solid with memorizing chords and melodies, but patches and organ registrations less-so. Even if I have songs all setup in my NordStage, there's little things like "turn on the delay" and "00 8800 880" that escape me. I'm not going to program 30 different Rhodes and B3 patches for every song, to some degree I still want to "play" the controls and feel it out for the gig, but sometimes all the minor "starting point" settings are hard to remember. I play in 7 bands, so it's tough to keep track.

 

For my own Originals band, I'm totally off book, unless I just wrote the song the night before. I play in 2 other friends' originals bands. For those, I'm fairly off book except for occasional patch note. For those, I tuck an iPad underneath my board, invisible to the audience. I do play in a Klezmer band and an Irish Contradance band. For those I gotta use charts, because we pull out dozens of songbook tunes, and everyone else is reading too, so it's just part of the style.

I have pretty intense stage presence and audience interaction, so having cheat pad tucked away hasn't seemed to hinder my performance much. I look at videos of my performance, and it wouldn't even make my top-10 points to improve.

[CEB]

I run chart software on a tablet. The software also sends patch changes to the rig if I want it too. I found I don’t really use the charts. Screen got cracked bad at a gig when a vocalist danced into to tablet stand and knocked it over. It took a week to get the screen repaired.  I was worried but I played 3 shows without it just fine.  It’s just a security blanket I guess.   I started to type all those charts once and it was going to be slow so screw that. I write number system charts on large index cards and take a photo of them with the tablet’s camera and assign them as the song’s chart in MobileSheetsPro. 

[MathOfInsects]

Obviously everyone's situation is different. For those who freelance, it's not at all rare to have 100 different songs in a week, between a couple of different original and cover gigs. Often those are one-offs--you'll never play them again, or won't until so long from now that you might as well not. It's not either practical or constructive to memorize all of them, and the time spent trying has no real return to it. In many cases you will do a better job for someone using a bullet-proof chart than you ever would barely hanging on and casting your fate to the wind--or really, casting THEIR fate to the wind, since your mistake is their bad show under their name. In fact, often THEY are the ones giving you charts, for exactly that reason.

I do lots of shows off-book--more off-book than on in fact. But I think those who only memorize probably aren't playing as many different kinds of gigs as those who also use charts. Neither is more right than the other. The only variable is what lets you do the best job for whoever hired you.
 

[CEB]

I always use number system charts because if you change the key the chart is still good without doing additional on the fly mental gymnastics.   I’m fond of the old Roman numeral system where uppercase are majors and lowercase are minors. 

[bfields]

My handwriting isn't up to roman numerals. E.g. I have trouble distinguishing III from IV, because i just can't reliably keep my vertical lines vertical, i guess?

[RABid]

When I started I had an index card for each song with a complete chord breakdown. It did not take long for me to simplify my system. I use a set list and write the basic chord progression for verse and course after the song name. Sometimes I will write "solo =" and the first note, nothing more. That, more than anything, is to help alleviate my stage fright.

 

I've also been known to write a few chords into the name of a patch that I use for a song.

[jeffincltnc]

I make notes when I'm learning a tune or arranging things with a band.

 

For my band that has a setlist planned each time we go out -- the show we are going to do in order - I just have everything scanned into a PDF file and use Adobe Acrobat to change up the order, which is also the same order that I have my patches to power up.  Nothing high tech here.  I just view my show notes in order of song to song in a good old fashioned Adobe Acrobat viewer and swipe my finger to scroll pages.  Same thinking with my keyboards.  I use Nord Sound Manager and just drag and drop the order of my patches in order from start to finish.  Nothing is MIDI or automated, but everything is in order as it needs to be.  I have an older iPad from about 2015 that I just use as a PDF viewer and to make tweaks to Mixing Station if I need to, but isn't really doing any kind of processing as a sound source.  I have a second iPad that I bought last year in 2022 that is newer as a sound source.

 

I have other trios where we just pick from a few hundred songs on the fly and I still have an old school binder in alphabetical order, but I have been too busy or lazy to actually scan that many sheets of paper.

[D. Gauss]

i'll use a sharpie and the back of a paper plate if i need to make a cheater note.  

[EricBarker]

5 hours ago, jeffinpghpa said:

I make notes when I'm learning a tune or arranging things with a band.

 

For my band that has a setlist planned each time we go out -- the show we are going to do in order - I just have everything scanned into a PDF file and use Adobe Acrobat to change up the order, which is also the same order that I have my patches to power up.  Nothing high tech here.  I just view my show notes in order of song to song in a good old fashioned Adobe Acrobat viewer and swipe my finger to scroll pages.  Same thinking with my keyboards.  I use Nord Sound Manager and just drag and drop the order of my patches in order from start to finish.  Nothing is MIDI or automated, but everything is in order as it needs to be.  I have an older iPad from about 2015 that I just use as a PDF viewer and to make tweaks to Mixing Station if I need to, but isn't really doing any kind of processing as a sound source.  I have a second iPad that I bought last year in 2022 that is newer as a sound source.

 

I have other trios where we just pick from a few hundred songs on the fly and I still have an old school binder in alphabetical order, but I have been too busy or lazy to actually scan that many sheets of paper.

 

This is about 95% of how I do it. I just use the TurboScan app on my iPad to snap pictures of charts, arrange them in SongBook Pro, and swap them around every set, along with my Nord Songs.

 

The biggest problem has been folk dance music, which often has medleys. I'm in a Jewish Klezmer band a well as a Celtic Contradance Band. I just realized a nice solution. The "Files" app on the iPad can fuze 2 PDFs into one, and you can even adjust the order of the pages. So now I just keep all my single tunes in a big folder, then can merge them together in rehearsal when someone finally makes a pairing. I'm still a little slow and have to ask the band to "hold on a sec", but it's a workable solution.

 

My wife also has an iPad, I keep SongBookPro on there (I originally used to steal hers before I got my own). She uses those for lyrics too. But I steel it for the shows I use MixingStation on the XR18... then she steels it back and fixes all our levels.

I bought my iPad originally intending to go SoftSynth, but went Nord instead. So the Fancypants iPad Pro is just a glorified sheet music holder.