Crossing "new" technology and saxophone playing?

[Tequilero]

Hey!

I'm a bit of a tech junkie.

Played sax daily from age 7-15, mostly 70% alto, 20 % tenor, 10% baritone
started again age 28-ish, very rarely, 50-50 alto tenor
Moved to Spain in the past couple years, only took my alto
Realized i wanted to jam outside with hippies and other free spirits, realized alto is still to big for my lifestyle and carry around
Just bought my first Soprano (curved) off the yard sale.
I've always only known how to play with notes, I know to learn how to jam I'm going to have to learn some more
scales.
I have bad memory, tried taking my notes and alto out to the park to play. As we all know loose sheet music doesnt work in an outdoor environment.,

TECHNOLOGY
So since I thought it would be a while before Im gonna know scales I thought I would have to find a way to take notes with me.
As a tech geek I've been trying to figure out what 12-13 inch tablets are fore
then it dawned on me - large 12-13 inch tablets are for musicians to read sheet music on the go!
and not worry about lighting or wind when playing outside! did research. There are only 1000€+ sheet music tablets made for concert hall pianists.

Idea 1
How about a kickstarter for a 13-15" affordable tablet for musicians to mainly read sheet music and comes bundled with a bluetooth pedal (or wireless bluetooth button you could put anywhere) to change pages. price range 100-200 eur/dol
Optional leg stand to put on ground or clip with arm so you could attach the tablet to the sax


heres a 13" tablet for 130€ new Tablet Spectrum Optimux XR 13,3" IPS Quad Core 2Gb+32Gb. Tablet: GAME.es
its doable. For musicians I would just shed some fancy features and put more into screen res and battery life maybe.

General question and advice I need (durability of a saxophone and how much weight can be clipped to it) is this accessories, electronics, couldnt really find a forum topic for this

So here's my idea at least to start
For learning scales and having notes on the go, I was thinking I only need my cellphone clipped to my sax with something like this. Weight and the saxophone being bent shouldnt be an issue, right?

but thats just to maybe have a couple notes, a scales worth, not a whole sheet

But what if I actually want to take a tablet and clip it onto my sax
Im a big guy, so having extra weight on the sax is not a big deal for me, like i said, i've played baritone.
But in the mail im getting a curved soprano.

Any reccomended max weight i should ever clip onto the cone of a soprano, what about alto, tenor etc?`is there maybe a better idea for what im planning?
Im thinking 12-13 inch tablet might be too big to start, so i might try with a 10" tablet, since the soprano is so small, I think the 13inch tablet could be bigger than the sax lol.
Example - 12.2 inch Samsung galaxy note pro is 750 grams

Do you know of people doing this or something similar?
Do you think I'm onto something business wise? All the technology exists, I just think the tech hasn't been packaged, designed and sold properly to musicians on a budget. what do you think?

Yes im crazy, im not the traditional guy, i do always do things differently than the rest, so don't try to dissuade me from being me 😀 I live in the future, not the past
in the future, tablets are not gonna weight nothing (so they will be clipped onto every instrument), and/or you might have your notes a google glass type device. Normal sheet/paper notes are going to be like faxes

 

[QWales]

When I first started playing, about 7 years ago there was a local guitarist who would just plonk his iPad on a music stand and use it instead of sheet music. A standard tablet is only a little smaller than an A4 sheet and you can just swipe for the next page.

You can also plug the output into an amp to play backing from something like iReal B which will scroll through the chords for you once you have learnt your scales.

 

[Dibbs]

It would best to have a kindle type screen so that you can see it in bright sunlight.

 

[saxyjt]

For me the best would be an e-paper page linked to a smart phone. You can do whatever you want with the smartphone and display whatever you need on the e-paper in a way that makes it eye friendly!

It would best to have a kindle type screen so that you can see it in bright sunlight.

I thought about that too when I was at a Kindle booth at a books show in Paris a few months ago, but they don't have large screen kindle.

Coupling a smart phone to e-paper would offer the best of both worlds. Could be fairly cheap too, I guess. 😳

 

[Tequilero]

What I quickly looked into large e-readers 10 inch plus, they quickly go over the price of this simple 130€ tablet I linked to.
Kindles are only made upto 7 inch (ereaders)
why would I go for an e-reader when a tablet is more versatile? yes, lighting and battery life cons, but i would get more general usage off a normal android tablet. (value for money) instead of having an ereader and a normal android tablet separate.
Large screen e-readers dont really exist, even 10 inch seem hard to find? and seem quite expensive. 7 inch e-readers are the only one in mass production.
Yes, large screeen e-readers do exist, but they are for concert hall pianists and cost more like 1000€ not what i'm looking for.

I'm also not looking for a note stand to put a tablet on 😀 i wanna take this to the next level. For my current use i really want to clip a phone or tablet to my saxophone. there are practical reasons

Make a real product out of this and package it and sell it to marching bands? do they still just use tiny notes/stands (and memory) attached to their instruments?

For my personal use, I mostly play after the sunniest hours of the day outisde, or out of direct sunlight, so sun taking away visibility of my screen isnt my biggest issue.

 

[Targa]

One thing to consider, can you run faster carrying your sax than the thief carrying your phone?

 

[Tequilero]

i could also consider ocean levels rising and Armageddon, worry about everything and not do anything in life. im a entrepreneur risk taker, i dont worry about every random thing that could go wrong. im pretty fat, i probably couldn't catch him in any case, but if i land a hit, he's leaving in an ambulance

 

[spike]

When I started all I had woz ears and a brain, I've still got'em and they're still workin' and they don't need bat-trees, well not yet anyway. 😉

 

[Tequilero]

thats why i specifically said i live in the future not in the past. some people still prefer to send faxes instead of emails or written letters or call people on a dial up rotary phone than a cell phone. there will always be people who like to do things the old way and might even fight to keep it that way but its never going to happen, you cant fight the future unless armageddon comes and sends us back to stone age but until then, i will embrace our techno toys. and if i embrace the right one at the right time and make a company and business out of it before other people do i might have a successful business one day! this is all me in a nutshell. 😀 even when im playin the sax im like "how am i gonna make a business out of this"

 

[Targa]

You'd like this:
The Joy of Techs | Dave Channel

 

[nigeld]

@Tequilero - If you are hoping for encouragement to pursue a new high-technology idea then I don't think that a forum whose members have an average age of 103 is the best place to ask!

Why are you announcing your intention in a public forum? If you have a great idea then you should just do it, not tell your competitors about it. And if you are not sure it's a great idea, then don't bother.

I agree that paper music is old technology and screens are the future. For what it's worth, my personal inclination would be to start with the functionality and user interface for the device rather than the hardware. In a couple of years there will be 100 music reading programs for iPad and Android. How will your product stand out? For example, how will the user get the music into the device without the hassle I have to endure to get music onto my iPad? What will be unique about your product? Low cost is not a sustainable competitive advantage.

I am not keen on the idea of attaching the reader to the sax - even if the reader is light enough, it will flap about and be a nuisance. I would personally prefer a music stand. But if you really want to attach music to a saxophone, then the lyre holder seems to me to be the obvious place to put it. If it is too heavy for the lyre holder, then it is too heavy. I would not fancy fixing a great big clamp onto the bell of my sax, however much the manufacturer assures me it will be OK.

 

[Vetinari]

Probably make the user look a real pratt but how about using a virtual reality head set as the display unit. This would also help those not keen to play in front of an audience because the player will not be able to see them.

 

[jazzdoh]

Welcome to the forum.
I'm old fashioned i do happen to like the music stand and sheet music but sometimes i have used my phone on the music stand to put up a chord sheet via irealb pro but i wouldn't like to clip a tablet onto the bell of my saxes mainly due if it slipped or fell out of its holder it could damage the sax and possible the tablet too.

 

[spike]

I live in the present - And as a working sax player I use technological aids but I'm not wholly dependent on them. Either I can do the job or I can't. Technological aids are all very well, and I don't deny their benefits. If you can't do the job then you don't get the gig. How can you possibly live in the future ? Tomorrow never comes. It's always now and now and now and now ! ! ! and there aint nuffin you can do about it muffin. Rock on man, Blow yer rocks off! 😉 Maybe I need some black cat bones and alligator teeth, a Creole woman with the devil in her eyes, the rhythm of the Bayou, the sighs and the cries . . . . Oh **** my akku just ran out . . .

 

[QWales]

Probably make the user look a real pratt but how about using a virtual reality head set as the display unit. This would also help those not keen to play in front of an audience because the player will not be able to see them.

Google Glass would have been perfect for this but I think Google's heads up dreams were shattered

 

[SaxoFREAK]

Welcome to the Cafe, wow what an intro, my dissertation was shorter lol

 

[kevgermany]

The novelty here is clipping the e-reader to the sax, as has been done for years with sheet music. Bringing this to fruition will be tricky given size/weight/readability considerations. If you go with the standard lyre position, a smaller, phone sized reader would be practical. For me you just need to make a holder and download the software.

 

[Vetinari]

One thing to remember, tech may be the future, but the sax will always be a dinosaur, it would not be a proper sax if it wasn't. It will always be a bit of wood stuck on the end of a metal tube,

 

[saxyjt]

It will always be a bit of wood stuck on the end of a metal tube

That won't change the basic nature of the sax, but we already use synthetic reeds and I wouldn't be surprised to see other 'plastic' horns in the future...

 

[QWales]

It won't be long before flexi roll up screens will be readily available and you can have something like a portable projector like pull up screen at the front of your sax that has virtually no weight and can fit just like a sheet on a lyre