I am a year 13 student studying product design and for my A2 coursework i am re-designing the musicstand. I have chosen the musicstand as my topic area beacuse I am a keen musician myself and have been playing flute,piano and keyboard for 10 years. Throughout this time I have come across various problems whilst using music stands, such as difficulty in page turning, transportation, storage, being damaged easily, and in particular it has occured to me that the design of the music stand hasnt changed a great deal over recent years, and I feel that it's about time it was. I am also thinking about using new electronic technologies such as LCD screens, image projection etc as I think this can be successfully introduced into the design of this product.

As part of my research I need opinions and suggestions from members of the public who are musicians and use music stands on a regular basis whether its for personal practise within the home, at school, gigs or within music studios etc. Any information I could collect from you would be very appreciated as it would help me a great deal. If you do have any suggestions or opinions on existing music stands, or any features you would like to see on music stands then please reply to this post.

Beth

Nice topic!

I like the idea of a TFT or similar panel. Problem there would be contrast in bright conditions.. If your project is theoretical (as opposed to actually building a prototype) you might look into the electronic ink and electronic paper projects which various Japanese manufacturers have been working on....

Some kind of non-hand control for turning the pages could come into play here as well. Nothing worse if conducting or even playing an instrument that turning is a right pain. Foot control?

Some kind of "memory" would also be good a la expensive German cars which remember the seat/mirror positions etc. of each driver. You could set up the stand once and get it to remember the exact height, angle etc. Setting up again later would be a breeze at the touch of a button...

Good luck! Its about time music stands were re-designed. The ones we have to use in schools are either too high, too low or too wobbly! It would be fantastic if there was some way of making page turning easier too which didn't cause either the music or the stand to fall. Maybe I'm just used to antique music stands!

Wobbly , broken music stands....rings a bell.


I have a nice black conductors stand

Lucky you! What are you going to conduct?

Sounds like a great idea.

Page turns are a killer, I would like to be able to do it with my feet if possible!

I don't think image projection is so good though. I can't read from overhead projectors etc. Maybe some kind of monitor?

I hate music stands which feel easy to tip over. However, I would dislike any alternative where it was hard to quickly scribble on the music in a few bars rest.

Check out: http://www.estand.com/products.html

Yes there are a couple of electronic versions. And some software you can load to your lap top and then use the lap top on the music stand. I've wondered about this, would be good to do page turns with a foot button, and have all your music stored electronically.

With the traditional ones, they never seem quite wide enough, some device to keep your music open at the right page would be good (but you still need to be able to turn quickly, I have used little magnets for this)

And what about an integral pencil holder!

Oh and light on the top

and somewhere to hold a water bottle! right pain having to reach down for it in a rectial, especially if one is wearing a low cut top!

Great idea to improve on music stands!

I've used very few stands that don't fold up and bite you suddenly - or kick you in the back when you're not looking!

You might think of including some means of holding a coloured transparent sheet to fit over the music, which would help some dyslexic players who find they can read more accurately from a coloured sheet than from black on white.

Hoe about having the top as a sort of monitor (with adjustable contrast etc) into whick you can plug in a flash drive storing all your music which then appears on the screen, and the foot pedal could be like a mouse, which you click and the next page of music appears on the screen: a bit like a power point slide show.

I think that would be a brilliant idea!

Hey guys thnx for all the feedback my topic is gettin, uv got sum great ideas and il definatley luk into all of them. Keep the great suggestions coming!!! thnk you!

I find for many of my tall pupils the stands they have to use at school simply don't go high enough. A music stand that would go really high would be great.

Mine reaches a top F when I catch my fingers in it

Cheers

Katyjay

Definately one that doesn't catch your fingers.

I'll always applaud new ideas. Many will be discarded but once in a while something crops up that's a winner.

Not sure about music stands - for all their faults they're portable and durable. Anything electronic could be a problem.

- It would have to be rugged. If portable it could be knocked over like a folding stand.
- If battery-powered, it will be heavy and need recharging every so-many hours, if mains powered you run into potential difficulties with installations, full electrical compatibility across the world would come at extra cost.
- the screen would have to be large to present a useful page unless we change our habits to seeing just a few bars at a time.
- the cost would have to be weighed against its usable life and issues of backward compatibility (unless you want to repeat-buy the same music) would need sorting out up front. Not a great problem. A DVD-r system would last 25+ years.
- considering the market, the development cost would be high.
- publishers would have to produce scores in a uniform format.

Technical advances may alleviate these problems so if you can come up with a new display system it might be a winner.

On the plus side, a flash-card read-in system could be a definite advatage.

This is functionally like the electronic book.

If this seems anti- it's worth thinking about the downside now so you can design around problems.

Mmm. Electronic music stands would be fun, for one end of the market, but what you really need to design is a good, cheap normal music stand that folds and unfolds easily - just think about all those children and schools that could buy those, a real money spinner.

If you want to argue your way out of an electrical one then you could always use the old argument that computer screens damage people's eyes. So many people when forced to read things of a computer screen print them out before they will read them anyway: I know people who print out email before they read it . Maybe people don't want this yet and I doubt that the budget or the time would be there to make an electronic one in an A2 project. The eye problems and the fact that many people need glasses to read music before needing them for anything else suggest to me that you could easily argue against an electronic one in your project if you don't have the time/resources to make one, without resorting to the argument that it's beyond the scope of your project.

This is exactly why electronic ink and electronic paper are the way forward. Forget LCDs, TFTs etc. Bendable electronic paper is the future!

(note: I am not advocating bendable electronic toilet paper, that would be plain silly )

Oooohh Electronic origami its the future

I've had a really tall one for years. I had a very tall flute pupil (probably about 180cm) and definitely didn't want to let him sit down just because I didn't have a tall enough stand. Someone told me within the last couple of years that they had found a source, but I'm afraid I can't even remember who it was. They did say they had to order it specially. I'm about 165cm and I can make my stand high enough for the music rest to be above my head! The legs go wide enough for it to be pretty stable, but the down side of that is that it's heavier than average and doesn't fold very small.

Good hunting!

I've also had one lacerate my leg when I was carrying it without folding it up first. In general I've often thought that they are strongly related to deckchairs.

Yes I agree, The first time I tried to put one up I think I made a clothes horse

Blimey I guess somebody had to think of that - an Estand connected to your laptop - the mind boggles! You could download anything at all, and how about a foot pedal for scrolling down - wow!!! Then you could get the stand to play the music and you could go off home, lol.

Violinia

Music stands that you can put up to a decent height without them becoming totally unstable would be REALLY useful for tall people like me!

unless you tap your foot a lot - could be interesting! The problem I have with this idea is it'll centre even more production in the far east with people like sony lording it over us all. Practically every electronic and many non-electronic items in my place were made in some far-eastern place and I feel like a slave to this lot most of the time. They will foist any old junk on us in the guise of "must have" gadgetry. They have indeed come up with a few turkeys and people buy the stuff.

It's all right to keep downloading things and keeping them electronic but if you need a score somewhere less convenient.......I'm picturing myself with an electronic music-stand erected in the bath where I often read. Uh, no thank you. I might get a shock where it hurts!

Ok then. I shall invent one for you that hooks over the beam of the rehearsal hall. AND...it can't get knocked over...

Maybe not. If you were too vigorous with page turning it might come clattering down and land in the sadwiches.

How about a stand that features Artificial Intelligence to listen to the music you're playing and turns the page for you at the appropriate point (or shows the next screen of music on its TFT screen). Effectively doing the job of a page-turner, though it wouldn't be able to carry your music onstage for you!

Alternatively, some sort of system where you e.g. nod your head and it does the same. Research in gesture recognition technology at this level of sophistication exists at the moment.

I suspect both of these would be rather more expensive than your standard fold-up metal music stand!

How tall does one need to be to experience trouble with music stands? I can't recall any major issues and I'm far from tiny....

In one of the schools I teach in, there was an utter dearth of stands. One of them had a screw missing so it could only reach a height of about a foot, the other was terminally bent and contorted out of all recognition (is it a bird, is it a plane?). I gently asked the HoM to get some more stands so I could run a little string group and he obliged, proudly showing me about 8 new stands at the beginning of a new term last year.

Within a week they were down to 6, and a month later I could only find 2. The rest had disappeared, presumed dead, or fatally injured lying under a pile of PA equipment at the back of a cupboard somewhere in the dark recesses of the school. I gave up, and now take one of my own, which three of them have to share. Nobody is allowed to touch it - EVER - on pain of death. And I mean it.

The other school I teach in has invested in the Yahama guitar teaching thing, where Yahama give the school a whole lot of spanking new expensive stands of the built-to-withstand a tempest variety. Give or take the odd missing screw, these stands have survived the 2 years I've taught in this school, which is bordering on the miraculous.

Long live Yamaha and/or built-like-a-tank music stands.

Violinia

We recently had some money to buy music stands for the med school's orchestra....the meeting on which ones to order descended into chaos, but many good ideas (if somewhat fantastical) we heard. The ultimate music stand has to be: Portable, lightweight, sturdy and steady on it's feet. It should be able to hold music of all shapes and sizes, as well as a light. A foot pedal attached to an automatic page turner would help. A built-in tuner was suggested by one of the violinists! A bar-counter so we don't get lost could also be provided.

no comment!

with something as simple utility as a music-stand i would loathe to rely on other agencies at rarefied technical levels to keep it working, like electricity suppliers, soft/hardware people, service engineers and always with the thought that it might clap out on me at the least convenint time. nope, the old metal one will do me then i can use it anywhere anytime.

Built-like-a-tank stands are the way forward in schools!


Probably depends what you play. When I'm playing flute, if the music is too low I either have to squint down at it (not helpful) or play bent over slightly, neither of which is helpful, also doesn't encourage me to have my chin at the best sort of angle. (I prefer the music to be higher rather than lower when playing violin or viola too. Maybe it's just me)

I like to have the bottom of the music not much lower than shoulder height, or I simply find that I either can't read it or my posture's all out of whack. So ideally ledge where the music sits should be able to go up to maybe 5 foot and BE STABLE, which is the bit that doesn't usually happen.

I CAN play when the music is on the piano stand, but it's not exactly optimum playing position...

I'm about 5'8 or 9.

My current solution is a tabletop stand on top of my upright piano, which is both more steady and higher than any other stand we found in the shop.

I think it was in response to the large amount of abuse they got from the trumpets in the last musical's rehearsal! All in jest

Sturdy and stable, oh yes, please, please, pleeeeeze!

We live in a small and over-stuffed house. Stands get pushed over in wrestling matches or even innocent pastimes like attempting to get through a doorway, and then people put heavy instrument cases or even CARTONS OF BOOKS on top of the open but fallen stand...

Even when relatively new, they don't open and close at the touch of a hand (except in the middle of practice, of course), and if they are left out at the end of each session, they are easy prey for passing wrestlers, and certainly not sturdy enough to hold a 50-page folder of orchestra music.

I'd appreciate a sturdy stand that could be erected in seconds flat, and while you're at it, you could make the top part detachable so that a tired musician could tote it to the nearest table and continue practicing while seated.