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Easy-pageturn sheet music

Offset pages to allow easy turning
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When playing a musical instrument, one major source of difficulty is turning pages. Although various methods have been suggested for using LCD dispays, automatic page turners, these methods are perhaps excessive. Oftentimes a performer can have a hand free for a moment to flip a page, but grabbing just one page can be a problem. But not with easy-turn sheet music.

An easy-turn sheet music edition would be much like any other except that the fold in the back would be slightly offset on different pages, such that each leaf was slightly wider than the following one. For a piece of music printed on two 8.5"x11" sheets of paper folded in the middle (eight 5.5"x8.5" pages), the page 8,1,2,7 sheet would have the fold 5 11/16" from the page 1-2 edge, while the page 6,3,4,5 sheet would have the fold 5 9/16" from the page 3-4 edge. Thus, theaves would vary in width from the 1-2 leaf at 5 11/16" to the 7-8 leaf at 5 5/15".

Having the pages offset in this fashion shouldn't add significantly to the cost of printing, but would make page turns much more convenient.

supercat, Jan 23 2004

e-ink Music Stand http://www.eink.com...ase_MusicStand.html
Doesn't appear to be on the market, but apparently companies are working on it.. [MechE, Apr 03 2012]

Index book http://www.mojolond...ok_a4_portfolio.htm
Maybe something like this. [angel, Apr 04 2012]

[link]






       Nice. The only other way to do it would be to have each right hand page fitted with a plastic corner which enables it to bend out at right angles and be grabbed easily by whoever is most dextrous on the stand.
hazel, Jan 23 2004
  

       I'm amazed they haven't made a foot-pedal yet that turns the page for you.
phundug, Jan 23 2004
  

       On his Christmas special recently, Harry Connick Jr.'s big band all had flat LCD screens in front of them instead of paper sheet music. I presume someone off camera was electronically turning the "pages" for everyone. It was the first time I had seen something like that.
krelnik, Jan 23 2004
  

       that's just showing off [krel]
hazel, Jan 23 2004
  

       What, the songs get longer? I'll have to be turning pages? On top of counting, reading, playing and pushing pedals? Oh my, what have I gotten myself in to?   

       I had a halfbaked idea about this that I never posted. For piano. It involved a conveyor belt with a sticky (temporary adhesive like post-it notes) surface and a set of pedals to control the movement of the belt and hence the affixed pages of sheet music. I figured it to be as wide as the piano and could therefore store as much music as would fit across the width of the piano twice. Would only be able to work with individual sheet, single sided pages.   

       This idea is better.
half, Jan 23 2004
  

       I like your idea better, but then, I'm probably distantly related to Rube Goldberg.
normzone, Jan 23 2004
  

       How about having music sheet in a roll instead? Coupled with a roll reader which would go at a matching pace to the tempo of the piece? Like a film roll in a camera, like.
JeanLuc159, Apr 02 2012
  

       [JeanLuc159] Getting everyone to standardize on a roll format might be difficult. On the other hand, the prevalence and low cost of e-ink screens would suggest that the time might be coming for publisher to sell an e-ink music stand. Such a device could allow for automatic page turns (synchronized with the director), synchronized annotations, and other advantages for performers, while allowing the publisher to ensure that groups actually buy enough music for their performers (as opposed to making photocopies).
supercat, Apr 03 2012
  

       Perhaps a head-mounted arm that uses suction (switched on by mouth) to turn the pages.
Cedar Park, Apr 05 2012
  
      
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