With the advent of easy-to-use, relatively affordable tablet computers (such as iPad and Android tablets), you can carry entire libraries of songs, adding up to thousands of pages, with you without needing suitcases and trolley carts to carry the reams of paper.

But- how do you get started? You have a load of paper music, how do you get it into your tablet? How do you organize all that music? What apps are there for iOS and Android tablets to maintain your music? Are there any accessories besides a tablet that one would need?

These pages focus on using tablets as a tool for reading music, with a focus toward lead sheets typically used by guitar players, or music notation used to sing in a choir. It is out of our scope here to discuss tools and apps that are used to create music, or create music notation (such as MuseScore, which is an all-in-one community for reading, writing, and learning music notation).

All the information listed here is either from my own personal experience, or the experiences of fellow musicians that I personally know. It’s aimed at someone who wants to get started putting their lead sheets and/or music notation on a tablet, and discusses basic concepts and terminology that hopefully will help make the transition relatively easy.