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Hi friends.
My wife and I invested in a commercial document scanner as part of the work she does digitizing paper patient files for healthcare providers. When she’s not on-site capturing files, the machine sits in my office/studio. A few months ago it occurred to me that I could scan all my music books and use my iPad Pro with its lovely big screen instead of paper. Well I’m about 90% done and the result is amazing.
I use forScore and SongBook+ and it’s a dream. I have found so many gems I forgot about or that I never encountered previously due to them hiding in some stiff-bound book getting dusty on a shelf. All my music is now categorized and available for instant retrieval. For teaching, it’s fantastic. I’m grateful to have quite a few classical pieces that are in the public domain that I can attach to lesson assignments.
Here are the categories I have set up (alphabetically) on my computer and iPad:
- Christmas
- Classical
- Collections
- Gospel
- Jazz
- Musicals
- Pop
- Rock
- Standards (some of these are in other categories, but I like having them easily browsable for my own convenience)
This may be old news for some of you, but going paperless and using my large-screen tablet for my own use has breathed new life into my guitar experience.
RoliLast edited by rolijen; 06-24-2023 at 11:18 AM.
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06-24-2023 10:40 AM
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I've never been a kindle person, and I've never owned an iPad. I always prefer books. However, this really interests me... being able to access all my music books on one device, instantly. How expensive is that digitizer? Are the cheaper ones any good? I imagine the process is quite time-consuming?
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There are public internet archives of fakebooks and sheet music like this one that will let you download an amazing array of music. Some are university library services. These are all pdf files, and the fake books (Real Books etc) have indices but are not searchable. So you can find tunes in the indices, but you have to know which book(s) contain the tune you want. I have a master index that covers several books. I’ll attach it to a post when I get back to my computer.
A document management system is wonderful if you have access to one. But for most of us, the above is as good as it’s going to get. I have about 30 fakebooks and a few hundred scores on my big tablets for use on gigs when
needed. It’s a great way to have the resources with you. Yes, I know there are errors throughout them, but I correct them with a pdf editing program as I get to them. It beats schlepping a pile of paper.
EDIT: The master index is attached. The download link is below -
MASTERNX.PDF
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I recently found out you can do quite good scans with an ipad. It’s in the ‘notes’ app, you choose the scan document option and it uses the back camera (I put the book on a music stand and simply hold the ipad in front of it). It lets you align the corners, then it kind of squares everything up, and auto-corrects for white balance, contrast etc. You can combine several scanned pages into one pdf. It’s not quite as good as my desktop scanner, but good enough for display of music on a tablet.
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The machine we have is probably overkill—expensive commercial scanner that does 150 images (per minute). For a small job, an inexpensive flatbed scanner would be fine. Or even using your iPhone/Android works great. If you have more than a small number of sheets to scan, I think the sheet feeding scanners built into many all-in-one, home multi-function printer/copier/scanner devices is probably a lot better.
Originally Posted by ruger9
I actually started with an old book of classical exercises (Sor, Carulli, Giuliani, etc,) and used a flatbed scanner. Although it was only 30 pages or so, it took over an hour to capture. And, although very usable, the images are not perfect—not perfectly square, has some shadows, etc. The benefit of a flatbed scanner is that you don’t have to modify your book. You just do your best to lay it/hold it flat on the scanner glass and click ‘Scan’. But, having these pieces at my fingertips for instant recall was such an improvement over rummaging through my shelves and flipping through pages, that I decided to take on the task of digitizing (for my own use) most of my music.
To do this project I invested in a paper stack slicer and a spiral binding machine. We already had a sheet-fed scanner. with that equipment, here are the steps I have used:
1. Unbind—Some books have actual glue bindings, others have comb or spiral binding.
Comb-bound and spiral-bound books are easy—just remove the comb or coil and set it aside while you capture the images of the pages. When you’re done, put the spiral coil or comb back on.
For stiffbound/gluebound books, I removed the binding by slicing off the bound edge of the book. To do this, I had to find a paper stack slicer (guillotine-style cutter that can cut through up to 500 pages). Thanks to Facebook marketplace, I found a well-used but very functional table-top unit for $40.
2. Scan—After the binding is removed and the pages are loose, put the pages into the sheet feeder of the scanner and capture the pages as pdf files. For books, I set the scanner to combine all images into a single pdf file with the name of the particular book or collection. All files were carefully saved in a special sheet music directory/folder on my computer so I could organize them later.
3. Rebind—The next step was to get the books back together by aligning all the pages and re-inserting the combs or spirals. For books where I had sliced off the bound edge, I punched holes and spiral-bound them with the nifty little spiral binding machine I bought from Amazon.
4. Organize—after making all the pdf files, I created folders to organize them using the categories I laid out in the original post. To make it easier to find individual pieces, I made a folder for the entire book and another for the individual pieces. Using my computer, split up the book and saved each individual piece as a named pdf in the ‘pieces’ folder. That way I can open the whole book on my iPad and scroll through the pieces, OR I can call up any individual pieces instantly. No need for a table of contents as a simple search finds any piece instantly.
Although it has been somewhat of a project, it has been pleasant and the result has been well worth the investment in the additional equipment I needed. Although I was fortunate to already have a high-speed scanner, I’m confident that the scanner many of you have on your multifunction printer will work fine as long as it has a sheet feeder.Last edited by rolijen; 06-25-2023 at 10:19 AM.
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I've been meaning to get around to scanning some of the more obscure sheet music I have, all acquired via the internet, but just haven't, so far. I have a scanner that works well enough, in an older inkjet all-in-one that otherwise goes unused. I've kept it solely for scanning abilities, since the ink cartridges it uses are expensive and don't last long, being used up through automatic cleaning. Now cleaning doesn't even work, and the head is completely clogged up, but the scanner works fine. I just can't muster the ambition to get it done. I could feed all the pages through the auto feed, I guess, and end up with a really huge file with everything in it, but I can't see much advantage in that. It takes time and effort to get each song into one file, and all the files into an app in some sort of order. It's possible, but it's more effort than I've been willing to expend. Maybe someday...
In the meantime, I have ~2500 tunes digitized in iRealPro, downloaded with almost no effort, and that's enough to keep me busy for awhile.
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Im not sure how to do it on a PC, but on a Mac, all you do is open the huge file with everything in it, select the pages you want and drag them to where you want them to be and you’ll have an individual file with the selected song in it. Just name it and you’re done. I’ve done all my books this way. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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And it does. We have a $200 Canon that will quickly turn about 50 pages into pdfs by loading them into the top feeder tray. The Canon scanner utility that comes with it is excellent, so I’ve never bothered with 3rd party software. Originally Posted by rolijen
This is how I digitize sheets for the vocalists we back. It’s great for small piles of pages, but scanning a fake book is just not practical this way (or any other, IMO).
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I haven't got around to scanning pages, but I really like having pdf's of music. For one thing, I can display them on a large monitor, which is much easier on my slowly failing eyesight. For another, they're searchable if you name them correctly. And for another, they're much more portable than books and binders.
Nice work-flow there Roli! Congratulations! We call the work to do this 'the digital overhead' you have to do to get to where you want to be.
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It does sound like a project.... I can see where un-binding everything to feed a stack of pages would be far faster. But you destroy the books doing that (unless you somehow re-bind them)... hmm...
I'm going to be thinking on this for awhile. Because I have little doubt that if I had an iPad sitting there, with all my music in it, I would PLAY IT alot more often than I do (because going to the cabinet, deciding what to play, pulling it out, finding the piece, etc.... it's apparently more work that I am willing to do LOL.
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I don’t want to encourage piracy but a lot of music is available on the web as PDF. I can see no wrong in downloading a file when I have already paid for the book. It’s like having someone else do the scanning for you.
If the music is in the public domain, there usually are free PDFs available from various locations.
A lot of music is available for sale as PDF, too.
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nice!
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I use ForScore and an AirTurn bluetooth foot pedal to turn the pages while playing.
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For some historical perspective, the original fake books were 3 hole loose leaf - I still have the first one I got in 1958 or 9 and the next 2 that came out in ‘60 and ‘62 as I recall. The loose leaf books are easy to disassemble and copy. Then they started coming in spiral bind, which was much harder to take apart. Getting the spiral piece out was not so hard, but putting it back was close to impossible without the machine that bound them. Originally Posted by ruger9
Long live pdfs!
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I've done the "compile a bunch of favorites" in 3-ring binders thing; whether I photocopy the pages, purchase and print the sheet music, or remove it from the book it's currently in. And it's not a bad system, except that one binder can quickly turn into 3, then different genres, then "songs to PLAY", "songs to LEARN", "songs to SING"... next thing you know you have a stack of binders. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
The tablet thing is REALLY interesting to me... maybe someday when I have TIME (like when I'm retired), it's something I'll be able to explore.
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I did this too but in the realm of my research materials. I also purchased a heavy duty "book cutter" that can slice the binding off of a book so I can run it through a sheet-feed scanner. Then I punch the book and spiral bind it so I still have the print copy if I need it. For one writing project I'm doing I have all my materials in a Dropbox folder that I can get to from my iPad. When I'm in Israel in the field, it's nice to be able to call up material on a site I'm visiting. Originally Posted by rolijen
I came into the digital documents era kicking and screaming, but now I'm singing and dancing!
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I love the idea of binders. That would be a super simple option to hold the sheets together after scanning. Cutting off the bound edge of my beloved music books really pained me at first. But, spiral binding them afterward makes them much more pleasant to use. I hated all the folding, pressing, using clothes pins on my music stand to hold open these terrible paperback volumes. No more! Spiral bound books lay perfectly flat no matter what page you turn to. They sit on the music stand dutifully without complaining. This benefit and having the digital version is so useful that it made me get over the pain of mutilating my books pretty quickly. Originally Posted by ruger9
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You are talking me into it...LOL Originally Posted by rolijen
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I listen to music in high-res digital format (24bit & wav) and rarely play CDs or vinyl any more, but...
I sort of like the chaotic mess of printed music. My music stands have far too much weight of books/scores - maybe it's just the instant access of the printed music rather than having to click a few times on my pc to find a pdf. I also like the balancing act necessary sometimes to lay out the scores, often challenging if I have another musician trying to share the same score.
My printed music in a kind of order that probably only I understand (but it's really only me that needs to find the music) and yes it could all be much better organized on a pc but I don't know if I want to put in all the time scanning in everything - it took over 2 years to digitize my CD collection and it would probably need a similar timescale to go through every printed thing properly.
I do have stuff that's only in pdf form which is fine, but even some of these I've printed out and stuck the pages together with sellotape in a long opening score.
It's not a techno-phobe thing - I have more than enough large monitors, NAS drives and PCs on W10 & W11 (from a career in IT) but there's something about a printed piece of music that just isn't there on a digital version (- probably it's just the unreadable pencil marks I keep making?)
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I've only digitized small books and notes that were too valuable to potentially lose, or stuff I want to take with me when on vacation/travel for practice, since I usually carry a tablet with me.
I just use the phone with a scanning app to make a pdf out of them. Can't see that working for hundreds of pages though ..
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