split playback on tablet/smartphone/computer for band/orchestra
Dear developers/community,
I hope this request is not old and solved (I did not find anything).
Initial Position:
- I found a nice score on musescore.org for - let's say - a violine, a trombone, a horn, drums, a guitar, bass and of course a singer (this idea can be expanded to a full orchestra).
- I want to benefit from the page-scrolling playback of the notes in musescore and save to print the sheets out.
Target Group:
- Orchestras
- Bands
- Marching Bands
- Optional: Wide spread "Internet-Bands" who are not in the same place
Requirements:
- Every member of the band/orchestra has at least an android smartphone and/or iphone and/or local PC with windows.
- The score shouId not be projected to a wall and the the members of the band/orchestraI don't want to sit with seven or more persons and instruments in front of a small display.
- Everyone should see his desired instrument(s) so that not everyone will see the complete score
- A "masters" starts a count-in
- The microphone of the tablet/smartphone/computer will check, if the player's instrument plays although there is no score for him and signalize if he/she has to mute
- Optional: The microphone of the tablet/smartphone/computer could get the volume of the player and signalize him/her, if he plays too loud or too soft)
- Optional: A "flashing light" should give the pulse and signalize changings (not everyone using musescore is a professional and perhaps has different ideas of allegro, ritardando etc.)
Ideas for implementation:
- You have a dedicated playback app on a device
- All devices are connected together (through a wifi-router / bluetooth / WLAN-Tethering)
--> One member (the "conductor") will be the master (or well the "conductor")
---> He/She will choose a score and load it to his/her device
---> He/She will start an open/closed(password) session
---> The rest of the "band" (slave) connect to the master
---> The score will be downloaded to the slaves
---> The slave can choose by checkbox which instruments he/she wants to be displayed
----> Oprional: this setting can be defined as standard
----> Optional: if the desired instrument is not present a "similar" instrument will be automatically chosen
---> The slave can set his status to "ready"
---> The master sees a) how many slaves are connected b) how many slaves are ready
---> The master starts the count-in when everyone is ready (or he can override and force start)
Conclusion:
It might be a very hard challenge to realize this, but I think in times of paperless offices and social networks this might be a very useful feature to use musescore even in a (semi-)professional way to manage bands or even orchestras.
I hope I did not bother you with my feature-request.
Kind regards from Germany,
Patrick B.
Comments
Hm,
OK, after two days no response or discussion...
so, let me guess that...
a) I am the only one who ever thought about this idea and it is overwhelming all others so no one has somthing to add :D
b) it is already implemented and everybody just thinks "why is he posting this?"
c) my post is invisible
d) no one needs such a feture
or e) this is the wrong place to post it and it should better be posted in ...(?)
Can someone give me a hint, please?
Thank you very much
Patrick B.
I think that the silence is explained by the fact that the original developers (sensibly) hang on to the rule that MuseScore is first and foremost a notation prgramme. It has improved in major ways since version 1.3, and the page and stave layout in 2.0.2 is now extremely good "by default".
Requests for other features like better playback - or your request to support rehearsal parts - are often put aside for later. Dom't forget that the whole project rests on the shoulders of a few skilled people, and on the work of volunteers too.
But thank you for your interesting idea. There is a commercial company (Neoscores) which has tried to implement almost exactly what you describe. It's really not an easy task, as you can read in their blogs at blog.neoscores.com.
HTH
Dan
Speaking for myself, I simply didn't really understand the original idea. A shorter summary might help.
I *think* the idea is that there would be several devices all running the mobile app and all linked together, with one being the master, and when the master loads a score, all linked devices automatically load that same score. And the master is also automatically notified when all the slave devices have selected a specific part.
If that understanding is correct, then to me, that seems like it would be enormous amount of implementation work for a very small benefit. i mean, right now all of that is possible except for the "automatically" part: the conductor simply says the name of the piece aloud, and waits until everyone's eyes are on him or asks " is everyone ready" before counting off. Is there some other aspect to this I am missing?
In reply to Speaking for myself, I simply by Marc Sabatella
EDIT: Sorry, this was the wrong "reply"-Button
Thanks for the answers.
So, at least it's not invisible :)
@DanielR
Thanks for the hint. I just visited the page and registered to see what the features are.
On the main page you can indeed see an orchester playing with multimedia instead of sheets.
But - it's a web-app (so at least you will have to load it before playind and then bed that you don't close your browser :D ) or you need mobile internet (most people have, but not all). Further I cannot find the funtion like you need for an orchestra to synchroniusly start all devices. But they are even building up the page and perhaps it will be inplemented within the next months.
Perhaps it would be worth to visit them...it's "only" 160km away.
You also mention that it is a composing tool. That's right and it's a great tool. I learned to hate Magix-software and other stuff following. It's a pleasure to work with musescore.
But there is also the app. And this is designed to play the scores not to arrange.
Let's face it - I don't think that someone uses the app and the incredible sound of his/her smartphone to listen to music in midi-style (my samsung sounds terrible doing this). So the main function is bringing the score to a mobile display.
@Marc Sabatella
Sorry that I wrote a novel...I really have a problem in keeping things short.
But yes, you got it right: It's like the old games (e.g. command & conquer) where one player starts the game, choses the map and the rest joins. When everyone gave the "Ready" signal the game starts loading.
Why is there a benefit to this way?
1) Now, I am an infrastructure IT-man. When we come to the point that more than one human being has to interact to start a procedure (e.g. automated installation of pcs) it will fail, just because of the pebcac-variable (problem exists between chair and computer).
So, if you have at least 7 persons and you have to sync them manually it will be hard to do this.
2) Most of the score in the database (of the songs I already listened to) do not count in. I am playing the trombone and I am a bloddy beginner. I need time to bring my slide to the correct beginning-position, put my lips correctly on the mouthpiece and then find the correct part. I agree - that's my problem. If I would practice more I would not have these problems. But my girlfriend and other players have a similar problem. And practically - in the music scool - we have to start a score several times when playing together just because sometime I start too early/late, sometimes she starts too early/late, sometime another one starts too early/late (and we are ony three playing at the same time).
3) I am planning to realize a (semi-professional) band/orchestra (and perhaps it will only be a dream for a long time). My plans are just to put some monitors in the room for the players without a mobile device. I on the other hand have my own device only with my beloved trombone 1-part. In this scenario I would have to start nearly simultanous my own device an the winows-based-musescores on the displays. That's nearly impossible ( I tried it with two musescore-instances and my smartphone).
4) Imagine you need a correction of a score right when you try to play it (e.g. someone did a mistake in writing down the violine or put the wrong pulse or the wrong dynamics). So, you would have to change it in the score, upload it and all the other guys would have to download it again. Not with the master-slave-solution
Yes, it is a lot's of work but the benefits are great. Suddenly the software would not only be for composing but also to manage large amounts of players. I think if you would have such a software for a large ensemble it might be an enrichment for the players and the audience (you can arrange playlists depending on the mood of the audience, you can easily without internet bring in your new created score, be the master for one time and everyone has it and can start playing).
Sorry again for all of the text :D
Greetings from Germany
Patrick