What Screens Size for Displaying Music?

By Gordon Cameron 29 Aug, 2017 2 Comments

We are often asked about what “size” of screen on tablets or all-in-one PCs is best for displaying music. When talking about screens there are really 4 things to consider:

  • Size
  • Aspect Ratio
  • Resolution
  • Pixels per inch

In this short article I am going to look at each of these, particularly in relation to displaying sheet music. So to get us started here is a diagram showing the relative sizes of the screen on a number of common devices.

Size

For some historical reason screen sizes are still measured in inches – possibly because of the influence of the USA in technology and it’s use of imperial units.

I am reminded of my visits to a timber supplier where I asked for “two meters of two by inch white pine” – we really need to get our imperial and metric units sorted out!

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Updated Blog Post – Review of Page Turners

By Gordon Cameron 15 Aug, 2017 3 Comments

Back in December last year I wrote “A Review of Page Turners – Not the Human Variety“. Since then there have been a couple of new pedals launched and one is no longer being manufactured. This is an update to that article.

So if you are thinking of moving to electronic music display or are already a user, I thought a review of the current crop of (non-human) page turners might be helpful.  I am only reviewing ones I have personal experience of and the opinions expressed in this blog post are mine. These pedals all work really well with Power Music and most other music display apps.  If you have other experiences with page turners please feel free to post a comment.

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“Praise in the Park” – with no paper!

By Gordon Cameron 2 Aug, 2017 2 Comments

Every year the churches in our town enjoy “Praise in the Park” at the end of a mission week held by the JAM (Jesus and Me) Club in East Kilbride.

Here’s how Power Music made the event so much less stressful for the worship musicians leading the praise.

The event is held in the beautiful James Hamilton Heritage Park in East Kilbride.

During the week a large marquee tent is used for the children’s activities (they need a tent because it is Scotland!) and on the Sunday we have an evening worship service.

My job was to organise the “techie” side of things – PA, words projection etc.  The PA was surprisingly easy to get setup and initially I said to Brenda, who was organising the music, “Do you just want to use paper?”. “Definitely not…” was the response.

We use Power Music in the church but that is a permanent Read more...

Synchronised Page Turning with Windows PCs

By Gordon Cameron 30 May, 2017 4 Comments

Questions about synchronised page turning in Power Music are something that pop-up from time to time on our Support Desk or in the Cambron Forum.

Of course if you are using the Power Music App or Power Music Reader on iPads then this feature is built into iOS and setting it up in Power Music is a trivial matter – see this Support Article

However, setting up synchronised page turning on Windows PCs is not a trivial matter. We don’t implement it in Power Music Professional but I decided to give myself a challenge recently when a user asked the question again. And guess what?  I succeeded! Read the rest of this blog if you are interested in how I did it – but be warned you need to be a bit “techie” and it’s not really a solution I would recommend people to use.

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Guest Blog – Richard Teare – Gospel Bell

By Gordon Cameron 26 May, 2017 Leave a comment

Here at Cambron we are always interested to hear from our Power Music users and last year we ran a series of blogs entitled “Musician of the Month” see the Featured Musician page on our website. The musicians included a harpists, two organists, an Austrian party band, a big band conductor and several worship leaders – quite a mix!

I would like to introduce to you another featured musician Richard Teare – here’s his story…

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Windows 10 Hints and Tips for Performing Musicians.

By Gordon Cameron 7 Apr, 2017 1 Comment

As more and more musicians are using digital music display for performing, it is vitally important that nothing untoward happens on-screen during performance. The last thing you want to happen is for a message to pop up on screen saying “Restarting. Installing updates in 10, 9, 8… seconds”. AARRGGHHH!!!

In this article I will be looking at ways to avoid this type of scenario when running Windows 10 and also some general hints and tips.

Microsoft have been very “helpful” in the latest versions of their operating systems by “forcing” the installation of updates, so trying to avoid the situation where users fail to install critical updates or virus definitions and as a result have major issues with their PC. Microsoft also use ways of extending battery life, in particularly on tablet PCs by blanking the screen or putting the PC to sleep after a period of inactivity, both of which are definitely not desirable when performing.

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What is Power Music Store?

By Brenda Cameron 29 Mar, 2017 2 Comments

Power Music Store is an online shop where users of Power Music can purchase “virtual” songbooks in Power Music format. You can access all the songs that you purchase using Power Music Box – our unique cloud storage system. See this previous blog  “What is Power Music Box?” for more info about the Box.

What is the advantage of this type of store?

When you buy music from other stores you either buy a physical book or a PDF or similar for printing. This is fine if you want to use paper. Alternatively you can import these to Power Music by scanning or PDF import and then add the relevant information on authors, categories, copyright etc.
Power Music Store means we have done the work for you in preparing the content and all you have to do is press a button to get all the content and indexing you need in the software on your iPad, PC or Mac.


Each songbook is a collection of “Songs”. Songs in a songbook will contain some or all from the following, where applicable:

  • Sheet music
  • Chord sheet
  • Lyrics
  • Authors
  • Categories
  • Performance notes
  • Copyright information
  • Tempo
  • Melody line
  • Bible references
  • CCLI number

This means they are ready for you to use in the software for practice and performance, and easy to find using the above information.
So how does this work?
First you need an account in Read more...

New feature requests that are already in Power Music!

By Brenda Cameron 21 Feb, 2017 3 Comments

In our recent survey we asked how best to describe your usage of Power Music and what features you would like to see in future updates to Power Music. We were overwhelmed by the positive comments and by the number of situations in which Power Music is used. From church worship bands to Morris dancing bands – it is good to see it so widely used. A big thank you to all who took part.

We were also really impressed by the detailed responses from you about what features should be added to the new versions of Power Music coming out this year.

It turns out that quite a number of the requested new features are already in Power Music! So the purpose of this article is to explain where these features are and how to use them.

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Marathon organ recital – Kevin Bowyer plays Sorabji’s Second Organ Symphony – lasting 8.5 hours

By Gordon Cameron 20 Feb, 2017 Leave a comment

On February 10th, the University of Iowa Organ Department hosted an amazing feat of organ playing by Kevin Bowyer of Glasgow University. Kevin played the entire Sorabji’s Second Organ Symphony as the inaugural performance on the university’s new Klais organ. Kevin played using Power Music from Cambron Software and said afterwards – “Power Music performed flawlessly throughout, as I knew it would.”

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Chord Sheets for Worship Songs from WeAreWorship.com

By Gordon Cameron 21 Dec, 2016 2 Comments

One of the most common questions we get asked on our support desk and at exhibitions is “What is a good source of worship song chord sheets?”

There are many websites out there that let you download chord sheets, but people tell us that quite often there are errors in the lyrics and the chords used are not the original ones. Also it is important that the websites pay royalties to the copyright holders of the songs you download – not all websites do!!

Recently we worked with Integrity Music Ltd, AKA WeAreWorship to create a free songbook of chord sheets that we were giving away at Mission Worship 2016. Integrity Music let you download chord sheets from their website WeAreWorship.com. All you need to do is open a free account with them. I have created a short tutorial video on importing chord sheets from WeAreWorship.

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