An LCD display, mounted so as to be readable in the same manner as music on a music stand, with a means of flipping pages or scrolling at appropriate times.
If the hardware isn't too expensive, such devices could be especially useful to music-rental companies, as they could ship the devices with music pre-installed and be assured that nobody would copy it (a photocopier isn't going to work on a backlit LCD screen).-- supercat, Mar 09 2002 (?) It's fresh from the oven http://patft.uspto....648&RS=PN/6,348,648This has been baked by (of all people!) Harry Connick, Jr. [dana_renay, Mar 11 2002] Hmm. //be assured that nobody would copy it All media are copiable. You just need different techiques. Other complaints - musicians like to scribble notes on the music. Not so easy on a scrolling LCD. Also, the hardware to render bar after bar of hemi-demi-semi quavers in a conductor's score, of a piece played pretissimo would probably not be as cheap as you might hope. And, how would the LCD manage ritardando or schneller?(Somewhat of an idea assasination supercat, sorry. I liked your "Ctrl-alt-del-del- del-del-del idea" - but this one misses the mark.)-- mcscotland, Mar 09 2002 mcs: LCD's are becoming increasingly cheap. Astoundingly so. As for annotations, with a suitable interface those could be done even better than with pencil and paper.
Perhaps slightly ahead of its time, but I think this could be made to work.-- supercat, Mar 09 2002 I think this is a geat idea. My son plays tumpet, and has to stop to turn over the pages, what is the problem with an auto page turner? Without the technical stuff. He doesn't scibble notes on his music sheets.-- arora, Mar 09 2002 If he plays tumpet, he can also play conet, flugel hon, fench hon and baitone.-- thumbwax, Mar 09 2002 Annotation, in "ink" over electronic docs, is in use today and will only get better. I miss mcscotland's point about why such a display system wouldn't work for ornamentation. All that stuff, Schnellers, Pratrillers, Naschlag turns . . . all of it is just ink on a score. The tempo stuff is as well. The display just takes the place of paper. With storage costs what they are these days I'm guessing that storing a 200 page conductors score electronically is dramatically cheaper than printing it.
Isn't that "baitoven," TW?-- bristolz, Mar 09 2002 Bristolz - what I mean is the scroll speed would have to change as the tempo directions are interpreted by the conductor. So you would need to add an interface to the LCD that is aware of what the conductor is doing with his hands (unless you added some sort of "scroll now" switch to it, which defeats the purpose).-- mcscotland, Mar 09 2002 Ah, yes. I do see what you mean. Perhaps the baton could have a transducer in it that sent out a wiggle-speed signal and . . . or perhaps not. In any case, the conductor could have a foot switch to change to the next page in the score.-- bristolz, Mar 10 2002 Put a pedal at the base. Have the page 'turn' when the musician taps it.
Great idea, by the way.
Might it be cheaper if a 'fixed display' LCD were used? By 'fixed display' I'm refering to the LCDs like you find on digital watches and calculators. All the displayable symbols are built in and simply have to be turned on. Might be expensive to develop...-- phoenix, Mar 10 2002 It's been done, sorta. See my link.-- dana_renay, Mar 11 2002 Don't know how I missed the other HB version of this. This should be [mfd] as redundant I guess. Oh well...-- supercat, Mar 11 2002 PeterSealey - I actually saw this on a TV news blurb before I went out and found the patent. As I understand it, this is something that Mr. Connick is currently using (at least that's how the news item made it appear). Anyhow, it's a great idea no matter who thought of it first.-- dana_renay, Mar 12 2002 random, halfbakery