2012 News Milestone No. 3

Brussels Philharmonic Sheds Paper and Pencil
for Samsung’s Tablet and Stylus
The music industry in November signaled its readiness to test whether digital hardware and software is a viable replacement for the sheet music that orchestra musicians, composers, conductors, and music librarians rely upon. Under scrutiny is an entire gamut of issues related to the real-time needs of a hundred virtuosos performing at a high level of synchrony.

Impact: The Brussels Philharmonic, founded in 2002 is decdicated to musicians early in their careers, much like the New York Symphony in the U.S. Relatively young and digitally savvy, the players seem ideal for what amounts to a lab test while the world watches. The flexibility of the open-source “neoScores” software, installed on the GALAXY Note 10.1 tablets, will test publishers’ copyright concerns. And the  announcement marks a new volley in the Android-Apple wars—the iPad is popular among pianists and chamber musicians.

What’s the status now, what awaits: The greater orchestra world will be asking: Can the stylus and tablet beat pencil and paper for rehearsal annotations on the fly? Improve the logistics of pageturning in performance with finger or foot taps? Match century-old traditions of library storage and preservation? Assure toughness of the hardware on tour, glitch-free software in the concert hall? Techie musicians have a lot of questions.

The biggest hurdle may be that 10-inch screen—large by Kindle standards, but a lot smaller than the typical double-page paper spread. A composer in theSibelius.com forum parries, “Gurrelieder on a handkerchief!” Brussels’s riposte awaits.

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