I'm an instrumentalist wanting to do some singing of jazz standards and would like to find something like the iReal Pro but with lyrics. Is there such a thing?
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I'm an instrumentalist wanting to do some singing of jazz standards and would like to find something like the iReal Pro but with lyrics. Is there such a thing?
If you're looking for lead sheets with lyrics (ie fake books), have a look at The Standards Real Book (Sher Publishing), and two fake books by Hal Leonard: The Ultimate Fake Book and The Ultimate Broadway Fake Book. Chord charts for most of these songs can be downloaded from the iReal Pro forum.
Have you made any progress?
I found some lyric-only books on Amazon recently, not specifically all jazz standards, but many in them:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lyric-Book.../dp/0634025651
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lyrics...3530625&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Loved-Lyr.../dp/048629725X
http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Book-...D85XAXP3ACNDC6
(and others ones in the same series)
——
The comments below relate to anyone having a tablet.
You could make your own lyric collection and add into an app. As far as I know there are no apps with built-in jazz lyrics (in the way iReal Pro provides chord playlists from the forum). If you find an app that does do this, let us know as there will be others who would be interested.
However here are some ideas if you have to build your own. I have had to compile lyrics and advise others about doing this manually. You probably know some of this, but others reading this thread might benefit also.
Search for lyrics
1
if you download a lyrics app, check for one that has a search facility built-in, which will find the lyrics and import.
2
musiXmatch might be useful (I do not know exactly what it does, but looks interesting)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/musi...448278467?mt=8
3
Soundhound (and similar apps) can display lyrics, although could prevent you from copy/paste or emailing.
4
YouTube music videos sometimes show lyrics
5
lyrics can be stored within MP3 (and other format) song files, so check
6
Some lyrics apps understand guitar chord and lyrics (ChordPro format etc.) if they are useful in this form. There are many chord/lyric sites.
7
some scan apps can run OCR from the photo it takes, meaning it will find the text and convert to real text to paste as lyrics—useful if you have a lyrics book.
Prizmo does this reasonably well from my limited use of it (there are others)
8
some lyrics sites do not allow you to select the text (for copy and paste), but there are others that do.
Possible lyrics apps
SongBook ChordPro
http://linkesoft.com/songbook/
supports various devices and computers (which is good if you need your lyrics on more than one)
OnSong
http://onsongapp.com
iOS only (currently)
Check the lyrics app will resize the text if useful to you (with text all the same size or the complete lyrics for each song visible at once). Some have a timer so gradually moves the text upwards as you sing the song—useful if there are many lyrics and/or large font needed.
If it is ChordPro format, you may be able to hide the chords if not needed (or transpose them).
Also you could use a PDF reader
forScore app (there are others) is one of the most popular and it is designed for musicians (set lists, different categories, genres etc.) Being an instrumentalist, you could also use this for melody, notation, chord scale information, practice exercises etc.
An app designed for musicians and singers will give you specific features you will find useful. Check it has set lists, genre, different bands, search and organisation features (some songs in one list, others in another), audio file import (from iReal Pro) for each song. Metronome, pitch tone are sometimes useful.
Multitasking
it is possible to display your lyrics while iReal Pro is playing in the background (or you can render the audio (wav or aac) for each track within iReal Pro, then attach it to your lyrics page for that song if the app allows you to.)
This thread is on multitasking:
http://www.irealb.com/forums/showthr...g-using-Player
(and run a search here at the forum, you might find other useful information)
What I did
In the end, I used my computer using a couple of lyrics sites making it quick to select the text then copy and paste. I set up a Dropbox folder and had my lyrics app sync with it. I pasted into a text document, saved it to the folder. For the next songs, I replaced the text in that document and used Save As, with the appropriate new song title; and so on. I also added the Key in the file name. Depending on the app, the key could be added as metadata—presumably for searching or as a category, not sure if this is particularly useful for anything :) but this can take some time in the app to do this manually. My preparation was for singers needing to call out the Key as they tapped the song title for its lyrics, so having it in the file name (which was how the song index was constructed) was the easiest.
Using the computer was faster than I could have done with my iPad and a lyric app search. A sync imported all the songs. I was able to add new songs over time or make changes then sync to update—and it functioned as a backup.
Yipes! I guess I misinterpreted the question, although I do recommend the three books I mentioned above. As iRP can't do everything I need, I supplement it on solo piano gigs with a binder of lead sheets, organized for my playlist. I had not heard of forScore (thanks dflat) but if I were to use it instead of a binder, I'd probably need a second iPad on the gig so I could see both; I think that switching between apps on a gig would be cumbersome and time-consuming. Amazing how iRP, originally a practice tool, has become so important for live performance.
We do not know yet :) I think your post is related. Because of the process I went through, I thought others might find it useful to know what I had discovered, so outlined it in here as a general guide.Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith88
It's good to have your thoughts Keith88. I hope others will add to this thread.