The Student Room Group

Should I get an ipad for uni (as a music student)?

I'm planning on studying music at Oxford next year and having been thinking about getting a second hand iPad to use for readings/notes/sheet music. I know I'll be analysing a lot of scores and texts as well as playing sheet music, so this feels like a good alternative to constantly having to print things. I already have a laptop so don't know whether it is excessive to have both.

Can any uni students offer some insight into this? Does it have to be an ipad or can it be another type of tablet?
Reply 1
Hi,
iPads are great if you have an existing Apple product, since it integrates seamlessly e.g. copying from your phone and pasting onto your iPad, moving things from one to the other (as long as you're logged in on the same Apple ID)
I'm biased towards Apple tech in general, but a lot of reviewers do recommend the iPad more. It is typically more expensive than other tablets, but its UI and features make it an enjoyable item.
I saw someone calculate that they saved the cost of an Apple Pencil (2nd Generation I believe) in a single semester from the printing credit they would've had to have paid.
It's an investment item. Of course, it'll be painful to make the purchase, but it'll add up over time and has multiple purposes, not just solely educational.

I highly recommend 🙂 Happy to ask more questions if you have any!
@qwerties is a current Oxford music student, I believe. They may have some insight into this!
Reply 3
Hey! I’ve just finished my first year on the oxf music course. I did so with the help of an iPad and MacBook, but would say that my MacBook took on a lot more of the workload, mainly as the actual course itself is more academic, thus requiring more essays and typed documents that ended up being easier when done on a laptop.

The times where my iPad did help loads was in modules like SCART (compositional techniques) where I could directly write on a stave and notate, or when annotating scores for analysis. However, for annotating readings, I would just do them on my laptop with the cursor, so I would imagine that there would be easy alternatives for both those modules where I used my iPad. Sibelius for compositional techniques, and analysis with laptop trackpad and plain old keyboard.

When performing, I stuck to copies of scores, as that was just what I was used to. However, I have heard good things about apps on iPad that let you scan scores and annotate them easily and page turn too. The faculty library also has loads of scores you can loan.

I would say you could definitely survive the degree, or at least first year without an iPad. However, it definitely makes life easier, so if you do have the resources to, I would say to go for it, as music is quite a tactile subject which could benefit from touchscreens and apple pencils!

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