I just wanted to let you know I'm still around, and besides, it was time to update to a spring background. I haven't done any crafty stuff in the last month; for a while I just didn't feel like it, and then I got distracted by my new toy. As an early birthday/ Christmas present (yes, my birthday is in June, what's your point?) my family got me a tablet computer on which to store my sheet music library, using the app MobileSheets. It's a terrific tool, but it is taking some time to get all my music onto it. It only takes a couple minutes per song, but when you have a few hundred songs....
What I really like about it is the ability to organize the music in multiple ways. With paper music, I had long since given up on separating it into different categories, because so many songs would fit into multiple categories. Does Greensleeves go under Folk, or Renaissance, or Christmas? The tune to Be Still My Soul is also the theme from Finlandia, so does it go under Hymns or Classical? You understand the dilemma. So I just had everything alphabetized together, with only the holiday music separate. With this app, I can assign each song to as many different collections as I want, plus everything remains alphabetized together in the main library. I can pull the songs for a particular gig into a setlist, in whatever order I want, and load them all together. I can write all over the music just like I do with paper sheet music (I chose a tablet designed for use with a stylus for exactly that reason). And I also got a foot pedal device that connects to the tablet via Bluetooth to turn the pages-- one pedal for page up and one for page down. I've always wished I could turn the pages with my feet!
The app is designed specifically for sheet music, but I suppose one could use it, or find something similar, to organize tatting patterns. Now that's got me thinking....
Anyway, I'm off to scan some more sheet music. I will be tatting soon, as I have received a commission from my mom.
