I would have been glad to use a tablet that had the ability to receive a network and a somehow synchronized click track, and certainly included (new-in-the-package) a wireless set of earbuds
, but no, I wouldn't buy that stuff at my own expense. Again: I'm already supplying (and maintaining) the $XX,XXX musical instrument rent-free to the orchestra. That's as much equipment (other than the routine costumes required) of which I feel I should be expected to donate use.
I have played with big bands and quasi orchestras that supplied tablets with music preloaded. I had to have someone show me how to use them, and I was careful to not mess around with them beyond what I was shown how to do (particularly since they were "Apple"). Again: Those were the property of the ensembles, just like any other written music which is expected to be read by musicians for hire. I felt a little uptight, candidly, because I was being so careful to not touch the screens in the wrong places.
Playing the background music to this movie, I felt much more comfortable with the bound book of pages (LOL... which seemed to be just about as thick as an etude book, but not really) that was put together for me by the orchestra's librarian, as that's the librarian's job, and supplying the music is the obligation of the orchestra. Because they are a professional librarian with librarian skills, musical skills, and intuition, they left blank pages in convenient spots and those sorts of things, and I never had to worry about touching a foot pedal incorrectly or touching a screen in the wrong place. I did have to remember to lick my fingers to flip pages (because I'm old, I work in the 3D world, and I have coarse, dry hands).
I don't know how many times this needs to be said, and maybe almost no one ever encounters any full-size actually printing-press-engraved music anymore (though I'm playing off such parts exclusively with two different orchestras - a week apart - in less than a month) but it's simply the most easy to read, and (for the 3rd or 4th time, restated...??) even if it's several decades old.
Hey: I even raise my eyebrows at some of these gadgety tools that other instrument repair people acquire and use, because the things that some of those tools supposedly do are things that I can do with my bare hands in less time than it takes to walk across the room and get that tool off the wall... much less the time that it took to earn the money to buy that tool and to have it shipped to me. I also need to keep reminding myself that I live in a time when people - now: even as old as over forty years of age - weren't required to memorize simple arithmetic computations when in grade school, because they were told to purchase graphing calculators.
