I’m in the choir at my Orthodox parish. Entire service is sung or chanted. Text is set, but there are many different melodies. Our music binders are big , fat things. They’re tabbed A-z, and each setting is numbered within each section. Director does a guide sheet each week, indicating A5 for the first section, for example. Several older women have had extreme difficulty navigating the binders, but there is also some not wanting to even try. I have been able to fully concentrate for a good while as I’d get asked for almost every bit, which one we should be on.
Director always has her music for a specific Sunday in a PDF she did, on her personal iPad (she’s a music professor at a local college so she’s used to doing this for work). I love my iPad and asked if she would send me the PDF. I did and it’s worked beautifully. Director’s teenaged daughter saw me with my iPad and has begun bringing hers. Director got a cheap Android tablet for $40 from Amazon for the ladies who can’t navigate the binder. It’s been very successful. One of the ladies brought her Android tablet to church today, but we had no time to get the PDF file on it for today’s service. Several choir members contributed to the cost of the $40 tablet, as they could see this was a real need.
More than half of the choir is now bringing their own iPads or Android tablets on Sundays to sing form. Having all the music in one PDF is much less distracting than having to deal with the big binders, although I’m very used to it.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Tybee
