Our New Gear has Arrived-and it Works!

New gear I hear you say? Yes, we have new equipment to assist us in presenting to you a fully functional gigging string quartet able to play requests and perform outside during the windiest of conditions without stands blowing over and washing pegs pingging off. Our folders of music do not fall off the stands any more at the lightest of breezes because we have now gone fully digital. Yes! Our entire repertoire ( well almost, I have still more to scan in) is now pdf'd and in digital form on four quality tablets, mounted on tablet stands and linked by Bluetooth to four colour coded footpedals which turn to the next page in the playlist.

It has taken quite literally weeks of work, scanning in music, sorting into pdf's and uploading to a very good app that presents the music in a library on each tablet. The app is called Music Reader and it works brilliantly.

Over ten years of playing together we had amassed a huge library of wonderful tunes. These were alphabetically stored in ten folders for each instrument. The bags were too heavy to lift (Dave our viola player had no problem and we used him as a donkey at times!) and after we all fell ill with Covid after playing at a wedding I decided we all needed cheering up and I spent all the quartet funds ( it felt good) and put in many hours to set us all up digitally.

If you play in a string quartet, or an orchestra and are thinking of going digital, then go for it. We have had no regrets and love the simplicity of it. Music Reader is fun to use and easy to naviagate. It does cost to use but cheaper than 40 folders and all the printing costs. No more heavy bags of music, plus stands, pegs and sunglasses, now just one light bag with foot pedal, tablet and tablet stand inside. Have fun!