apps — Personal — Hugh Sung

Newzik Updates

I wanted to update everybody on a response that I got from the co-founder of Newzik, the sheet music reader app for iOS that I’ve been very impressed with recently. When I posted my five recommendations for improving the app, Aurelia, the co-founder, got back to me and said that at least two of the things that I had suggested were already part of Newzik. How cool is that? And I'm sure she's going to have her team look at some of my other suggestions. But I wanted to update everybody because I think these things that they already have (that I didn't know were there) are real game changers. I'm very impressed at how they implemented them.

Hugh SungFebruary 14, 2020newzik, digitalsheetmusic, musictech, appsComment

5 Suggestions for Newzik

I've been having an opportunity to do more of a deep dive into Newzik, the sheet music reading app that I've done a few videos on, and now that I'm using it as a daily app just to see what it's like, I'm really finding myself enjoying this. Especially as I've said before, my favorite thing is being able to mark the music and turn pages hands-free with my AirTurn without interruption. That is a game changer for me. That one feature makes this app so worthwhile, just in terms of my productivity and the speed at which I can write notes in rehearsal. But I do have a couple of things that I'm noticing that I wish the developers could improve on, and so I thought it'd be fun to make this quick video of five things that I would like to see as improvements for Newzik.

Hugh SungFebruary 12, 2020apps, newzik, digitalsheetmusic, musictechComment

How to get Amazon Echo to play downloaded songs

Now of course in this day and age we don't have CD players, so it’s a little strange to still have a music service with that name. To be honest, these days I am absolutely in love with my Amazon Echo and I have several Echo units all around my home. My main one is an Echo Show, which is on my kitchen counter, and I use that to play music whenever I want to hear something, usually from a streaming service like Amazon Music.

So I thought, wait a minute, there must be a way to get these files that I've just purchased and downloaded onto my MacBook computer and ask my Amazon Echo to play them for me. I did a little bit of research, and I found a really interesting service called My Pod, which you can find at mypodapp.com. You can link your Amazon account with this free service, upload your music to a Google Drive folder, share that folder link, and then you simply ask your Echo device to play that song. So I'm going to walk you through the steps to set My Pod up with your songs and your Amazon Echo device.

Hugh SungFebruary 9, 2020apps, musictech, recordingsComment

How To Run 2 iPad Apps At Once (And Why You'd Want To)

Inspired by my interview with Newzik co-founder Aurélia Azoulay-Guetta, I’ve been trying to put this sheet music reading app through its paces. As I said in the interview, the ability for me to be able to mark up the music with my Apple Pen while turning pages hands-free with my AirTurn is an absolute game-changer, making my rehearsals so much more efficient! But as I was rehearsing with my Philadelphia Orchestra friends for a Sound All Around concert for little kids, I found myself resorting to paper copies of the script to keep track of all the musical cues next to my iPad Pro displaying the sheet music. That’s when an “aha” moment struck me: what if I could ask the Newzik developers to come up with a way to show two different PDF files on a single iPad screen? One PDF could be the written script, the other PDF would be the sheet music. What a great feature that would be for musicians working off of a detailed theatrical cue sheet!

Then during the bus ride home from the rehearsal, I realized that i was a total idiot!! The latest iPad OS already provides a fantastic new feature for opening two different apps at the same time!! Problem solved - thank you, Apple!!

Hugh SungFebruary 7, 2020apps, digitalsheetmusic, orchestras, concert, newzikComment