One of the main points that emerged was that setting up sheet music for the screen requires quite a different mindset from music printed on paper. A common reservation is that the screen size is too small. It turns out however that the space available can be used in quite a different way than we’re traditionally used to. We can now read novels on a screen the size of a business card, as John Gruber once pointed out. Screens clearly need to be thought of in a different way.
Since page turns can now be made so easily, especially when using a bluetooth foot pedal as Heather does, one doesn’t have to fit as much music on a screen at a particular time. In fact with some of the incredibly detailed music that Heather performs it turns out to be an advantage to have only a few bars on the screen at a time – zoomed in to a size that makes the fine details legible. With apps like forScore it’s also possible to make annotations that can be shown or hidden as needed.
Heather Roche shows how to make the most of a small space
The screen's backlighting adds to the clarity of the notation in addition to being both pratical and attractive in performance situations. The small size of the device also means that there is less between the performer and the audience, allowing for better contact. There is also something wonderfully effortless about playing through a large complex score without having to struggle with an equally large pile of paper, especially when the music itslelf opens up for extreme subtleties in sound where turning pages can disturb the sound picture.
Heather has written a fine blog post on how she goes about preparing music for use on her iPad and the procedures in getting large scores reformatted for a small screen. It's well worth checking out: http://heatherroche.net/2013/06/08/why-ipad/