The Dreaded Page Turn!

I was going to talk about the page turn in a simple Facebook post, but when I turned the corner on the second paragraph, I realized that I needed to talk about it more in-depth.

Who would have thought how complicated turning pages can be. However, when music is involved, almost everything is more complicated. So, I’ll go through some ideas to make page turning easier.

The Basics of Page Turns

Okay, someone is saying, “It’s not that complicated.” I’m saying that it can be complicated, but here are the two most basic ways to turn a page while playing music:

1. Stop playing with one hand and turn the page.
2. Get a page turner.

Now I’m going to tell you how you’re taking your life in your hands with each one of those tactics.

1: Only Play with One Hand

You can dog-ear the pages and hope and pray that they turn easily. I get nervous when I play, so this doesn’t work well for me. I grab more than one page, or go to grab the page and the whole book falls on the floor. Not fun.

Another issue is that sometimes you have two-handed notes at the page turn (flute) or part of the piece where it would sound funny if you stopped playing with one hand on the piano. There are solutions for this – memorize before or after the page turn where there is a good spot to turn the page (both my instruments), or on flute play the two-handed notes with a harmonic that’s on one hand so you can use your other hand. I talk about harmonics a little bit here, but that’s a subject that I’ll touch on more in-depth soon.

2: Get a Page Turner

There are great page turners out there. Some page turners need to be trained in with more than one practice session. Some page turners are hopeless and can’t turn at the correct time or in the correct manner, no matter how hard they try. Depending on the day, I can be each one of these, and so can your page turner.

Other Page Turn Options

1. High Tech

The best way to turn pages is the high tech way – have some kind of a tablet and a blue tooth pedal that turns pages. As with all technology, it’s great as long as it works.

I was playing at a gig and one of my fellow musicians had that set-up. It was flawless, but she said she always has a paper copy along because paper doesn’t crash.

2. Cardboard and Bull Clips

This one’s good for if your music is past copyright so you can make copies, or is the download and print kind of music. I hope this picture is blurry enough that I didn’t break copyright!

3. Paperclips

I have a hard time getting a hold of a single page at a time, but if there’s a paperclip, it works as a handle for me to grab. Bonus: they weigh things down.

4. Bending the Binding

This one works well for if you’re allowed to use music in a competition or accompanying. Usually there are strict rules about not copying for page turns, even if the music is out of copyright. It allows you to keep the book open without using weights to hold the pages open.

5. Binding

I like to re-bind things when I have a book that I use heavily, such as a Christmas book or a scale book.

These are both different ways to bind things – stick something in a binder that fell out of its binding, or take it to an office store, have the binding shaved off, and either spiral or comb-bound.

When books lay flat, it’s easier to turn pages. You also don’t have as many problems when you don’t have to worry about your book falling closed or falling to the floor because it snapped closed. As you can see, I use paperclips as handles along with changing the binding.

Conclusion

It’s okay to have a page turn malfunction. Everyone has them, and they’re understandable.

If you can prevent them, do it. It’s unprofessional. I hope these preventions help you as much as they’ve helped me. Do you have any ideas that aren’t on here?