That's one of the first thing I though of when I heard about the ipad. I had figured an app for the iphone that used its mic to follow a piano piece along and "turn" the pages would have been cool but for the tiny screen. Then ipad came along.

How hard would it be to use the mic input to estimate progress through a piece and turn the pages? Of course just using timing to scroll at the right speed would be ok, but having it listen would be much cooler.

Using timing to scroll eliminates the ability for the player to add any speed variations in a piece, which most experienced players would.

It's a fun app for the common folk, but useless to experienced players.

I don't think that's the deal breaker for experienced players. That'd be pretty to solve with a bluetooth foot-pedal. Here are a few of the things that come to mind that pro-level folks would have hang-ups on:

• Typesetting: I don't know what score format they're using, but this can be a big one. There's a big difference between a professionally engraved score and just having the right notes there.

• Annotations: From the conductor, self, whoever.

• Overview: Professionals scan a score looking for key parts. This seems virtually impossible in iPhone format, but would be workable on the iPad.

• Size: Even the iPad is small compared to a performance sheet music page.

I suspect the three big market segments are hobbyists, children and church musicians. There are relatively few professional performers.

It was mentioned elsewhere that the typesetting is done via LilyPond, which is supposed to be excellent.

Just like tex the quality has potential to the very good, but when you stray from the defaults it suddenly takes a lot of tweaking to produce a nice-looking score.

Some really basic audio recognition should enable the software to figure out the current position on the sheet, hence making it useful for experienced players as well.

Do this. Would also be useful for beginners who make mistakes and often need to repeat portions.

really basic? score following is hard.

The audio recognition bit is indeed basic - all you need to figure out is the note and possibly the length of the note.

The following part hard is a bit harder, but not impossible - compare what you have recognized with what you was expecting. If it's not what you expected, look around the last known position and see if you can find the pattern you recognized (while taking repeat signs etc. into consideration).

you don't have to follow it in perfect-realtime, you could totally mimic a human page-turner who flips the page at about the right time.

Nah, not useless -- come on. The speed variations aren't going to be that huge, and the variations will matter even less on an iPad. I can imagine a number of technical solutions to this issue that don't involve any signal processing. It's a valid point insofar as it would need to be addressed for advanced players, but let's not be so quick to dismiss this guy: the app is absolutely beautiful and he's clearly skilled and thoughtful.

I wasn't dismissing it. For 90% of people who would consider this app, it's great! I really just posted this because someone previously said that this could replace sheet music.

The highlighting of the keys is also an amazing feature. I've posted YouTube videos of me playing the piano with the camera angled unintentionally over my shoulder.. and actually used the video to see what keys I was playing and copied what I was doing.

There should definitely be a "no sheetmusic" mode in this app for people who previously copied people's finger position on youtube... for people who have no desire to learn how to read sheet music.

Good luck.

He's not dismissing it, he's giving feedback. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd want to hear if I were launching - how I can make my product better and appeal to more people.

This app really does look like it is a match for the iPad.

I would consider doing this:

A) Make the iphone app free or 1$, get as many users as possible B) Approach whoever owns rights to sheet music, music lessons, etc C) Allow them to sell premium content through your app and you take 50% of the profits

I disagree wholeheartedly. Make money now. Don't leave it on the table. Sell 50,000 (or 100k! or 200k!) copies at $3 or $5, and then approach sheet music copyright holders.

Copy the business model that Tapulous uses for Tap Tap Revenge: I should be able to download a Ben Folds-branded copy of Etude, and then a separate Beethoven app, and then a separate Liszt app. Each one should cost five bucks. And then user should be able to buy EVEN MORE CONTENT via in-app purchases.

Showing content owners that you've already made a million dollars (or whatever) is much more compelling than vague hand-waving about market share and potential of an installed user base.

I get really frustrated with this notion that newly released software should be free, or that monetization potential is always increased by giving something away. Who knows what might happen tomorrow?

Perhaps an app significantly better than Etude will soon be released. Maybe Dan Grover will get bored of working on Etude. It's possible that sheet music copyright holders could even be dumber than music labels, and they'll be unwilling to cut a deal.

There's money to be made, and the best way to make it in the short term is to sell the app.

Incidentally, the very last company I worked at (before realizing I should do my own thing) was Tapulous :)

So you must know Kyle Kinkade, then? He and I have been drinking buddies since we met at MSFT in early '07

I do know Kyle! Cool guy! Luckily, he managed to escape too (and with more tact than I)

That was the model tried by Noteheads back in the day. It failed miserably: http://noteheads.com/

iPad users could just double scale the iPhone app.

Except that the app scrolls the music along one staff. You'd still just get one staff, and it would be gigantic. An iPad version that could show a whole page would be much more useful.

I would personally pay 20$ not to do that for this particular app.

Apple only keeps 30%

Sheet music is truly one killer app for the iPad. I had never thought of it before seeing this app, but even if it's something as simple as scanned .PDFs of your sheet music, imagine not having to carry around backpacks full of books.

I have a lot of jazz fake books that are literally monstrous to carry around.

The iPad's the right size (ever balanced a laptop on its side on a piano's music desk?), and a touchscreen would certainly be convenient for turning pages and annotating scores.

Personally, I'd rather see that app on the Kindle DX, or a device with a similar screen. My eyes suffer enough already from all their computer time.

(If the app were on an Android device such as the Nook, I'd turn the pages with voice commands.)

Devices have already been made and sold that accomplish this -- presumably because the idea is so obvious.

http://www.google.com/search?q=electronic+sheet+music+reader

My keyboardist/drummer friend has one such device.