By Khalida Sarwari
Proof of the world becoming more and more digitized can be seen by glancing around at any coffee shop, classroom, office or airport; just about everyone has their nose buried in a smartphone or tablet.
Gone are the days of lugging around files, books, notebooks and newspapers, all of which have been replaced by nifty mobile apps and devices. So when Zheng Lin saw his teenage daughter return from school every day bogged down by the weight of her music books, he had a “eureka” moment.
The Saratoga resident started working on an app that sounds like a music student’s dream come true: a digital sheet music binder to replace traditional paper sheet music books–in other words, an e-book reader for music. The idea is, no more bulky books or wasted paper, said Lin.
Lin is calling the app MusicLive, and he’s in Shanghai, China, working with developers to launch it over the next few weeks. Once the app is available, both music students and professionals will be able to use it to load thousands of songs and even download new material on the fly. The app features a built-in collaborative tool that allows users to connect with their friends via social networks and share their music with them directly. There’s also a way for users to annotate their music with text, symbols, drawings and even leave a voice comment.
To make all of this work, however, and make MusicLive a practical replacement for real books, Lin realized the screen size of the device the app is loaded onto has to be big enough to be read from a normal distance. So he’s now working with a tablet manufacturer to design and develop a tablet that can allow MusicLive to be used to its full potential.
“Our aim is for people to use it during practice and performance sessions,” he said. “We believe a letter-size screen is imperative for this to be practical.”
Lin’s daughter, Sheryl, who served as his muse and collaborator throughout the process, said she finds the app useful and looks forward to seeing it used widely.
“I guess it’d be pretty cool if one day you might see an orchestra conductor” using MusicLive, she said.
It was in Sheryl’s junior year at Saratoga High a few years ago that Lin first hatched the idea for MusicLive. She was taking piano lessons and was involved in the school orchestra, so music books contributed to at least half of the weight in her school bag. Noticing her struggle, Lin set out to experiment with PDF reader-type solutions but quickly ran into problems, he said. He soon realized that the concept he was envisioning had to be worked from the ground up and it had to be a lightweight, paperless and cloud-backed product.
As for Sheryl, she has since graduated from high school and is minoring in music at USC. The 17-year-old uses the app on a weekly basis as part of her piano and viola lessons, although it hasn’t yet replaced all of her sheet music, she said.
“I didn’t bring a pencil today, so that was really nice. You don’t have to worry about, ‘Oh did I put [the sheet music] in the folder or not?’ It’s just there all in one place,” she said. “There’s a lot of different things you can do with it.”
Lin has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $120,000 for the launch. To find the page, visit Kickstarter.com and search for “MusicLive.”
Link: No more lugging around a sheet music binder if Zheng Lin has his way
