I’ve long been a fan of reading music off actual real paper but the more I started seeing musicians bring iPads to gigs the more curious I became. Eventually, I joined the dark side and it’s been a revelation.
This post will highlight my method of creating charts quickly and for free (after the initial outlay for notation software). You can keep the music forever in the cloud and never have to worry about losing it or having to write it out again. Dropbox offer a free account and Google Drive give you 20GB of storage for free.
My main worry was whether the iPad would start sending emails mid gig or decide to power down. I then calmed down and realised these things don’t actually happen.
My first gig with this setup was an outdoor event in Athens next to the sea and reading paper charts would have been a disaster in the blustery conditions.
I was converted after that and use my iPad lots now. Not all the time – it’s sometimes still easier to jot out a chart and there are many situations that you will be given physical charts to read.
The worries I had about reliability have – so far – not surfaced but, if you’re really not convinced, it can’t hurt to print the charts out as back up until you’re confident with your setup.
Required Tools
Google Docs, Dropbox or Google Drive, Guitar Pro 6/Finale (or your preferred notation software)
iPad (you can buy a cheap refurbished one)
iPad holder (also need a mic stand to attach that to or just put the iPad on a music stand. The iPad holder method looks slicker)
forScore – this seems to be the software most pros are using (in London anyway…)
Musical Skills
The ability to improvise over chord symbols. Since we will be reading chord symbols, you need to be able to know what the symbols mean as well as how to construct a bass line from them (*link to 7 arpeggios from C major vid*). I often won’t play the exact bass line if I am only seeing chord symbols. I’ll make something up that fits and that is often fine. If I need to play a specific line that’s where I take a screenshot of the notation and add that (more on this below…).
Why would you need a chart?
- You have a last minute gig
- You don’t have time to learn the music inside out
- You want the flexibility of hundreds of tunes to choose from
- You can send charts to other members of the band (it’s actually possible for one member of the band to send charts to each iPad-owning band mate from their iPad)
I create two types of charts. One like this for just chords…
….and one like this for chords plus notes on a stave for specific lines/endings etc. (Check out Serves Me Right To Suffer – great bass playing!). Download the chart and play along…
Simple Chord Chart
- Open a new Google Doc.
- Listen to the song and write out the arrangement.
- Add any instructions that will help you (like my highlighted green for the chords the second time round).
- Format the doc till you are happy with the layout.
- Go to File then Download as PDF and then upload to DropBox or Google Drive.
- Open ForScore and import the chart from your connected account.
Chord Chart with Notation
For this I will use Guitar Pro 6 or Finale (use your favourite notation software) to notate any specific lines.
- Follow the steps above with the following addition…
- Use your notation software to quickly notate the section(s) you need.
- Add in screenshots of the notation you require (Shift-Command-4 on a Mac, Snipping Tool on a PC)
- Play around with sizing until you are happy. I try to minimise page turns and make it easy if I do need to turn.
Once you get this process down it takes no time at all and you build up a library of charts which can then be organised into specific set lists in forScore. I have a ‘Charts’ folder in DropBox with folders for the different bands/artists I may be playing for and that is where I will save my individual chart PDFs.
One of the coolest things about having charts on gigs is that, if you know how to read them properly, you don’t have to spend hours and hours rehearsing or practising the tunes. You just set your charts up and you’re away.
TIP: On the gig make sure you turn your iPad on to Airplane mode and set the screen to not automatically shut off (Settings > General > Auto-Lock. Set Auto-Lock to “Never”. ). Also make sure you have uploaded your charts to Dropbox (or Google Drive) and then from there to forScore ahead of the gig.
I’m interested in whether you read music. Let me know in the comments below if you ever encounter situations where you need to read music.
Hi Dan, many thanks for your 5/7 lessons. I’ve got so many light bulb moments from it feels like I’m plugged into the national Grid!!
Specifically for reading music, I wish I’d learned long ago. Since returning to bass after a few years lay off, this area of playing has been, sadly missing, like you stated it’s been like looking in from outside. Through the years I’ve managed to blag my way through, not ideal. I’ve started to teach myself by to read music notation by relating the notes on the Stave to chord sequences, writing them out into bars, and organising that into the song structure, chorus-verse-outdo etc. To test it out I’ve covered the tab sections up, and transcribed the music, so far good, so your Music Reading course will give it all boost.
Thank you so much!!
Kind regards.
Bryn
My pleasure, Bryn! Just keep things consistent with reading practice and you’ll find that things come together surprisingly quickly…
Hi Dan, in reply to your comment I made in August. Well four months have passed since I took your advice, and started to learn music. It feels like, after all those years of playing using tabs and winging it with ‘feel’ to get the rhythm and groove, like I’ve finally got out of the infant class straight into university. Tabs…thing of the past. They do serve a purpose, and do get you going, but once inspired by lessons on your channel, ‘doing’ musicality and bass playing properly is, well awesome. In these few short months my bass playing has truly improved to new heights. I can now sight read, transpose, and write out chord charts. I find that with now having a better understanding of the spaces/timing between the notes I was finding that I seemed to have loads of time on my hands so to speak. An example is the Commodores “Brick House” a great funky Motown song. I’ve improvised the main riff, and totally changed the “…take it down now” section to a funky hammer on-pull off bend on the C before returning to the A to begin again on the next bar of the breakdown. A little pretentious, who I’m I to alter a Commodore Motown classic, but I was experimenting on how I could put my newly acquired musical knowledge to use, instead of just learning tracks.
So many many thanks Dan, I’m truly indebted to you. I thought no- one could teach and inspire an old bass player to learn something new.
Thank you
Keep grooving and keep teaching
Thanks, Bryn. Keep it up!