kootek music stand light

Best Music Stand Light: Reviews and Experience

You’re probably trying to decide which music stand light to buy if you’ve ended up here. I’ve tried most of the ones out there, and in this article, I’ll provide my experiences and some reviews to help you make a decision.

It turns out there are a lot more factors to consider than it seems at first.

If you don’t care about the details and just want my top pick, here it is: The Kootek 10 LED Stand Light.

Things to Consider

I’ll organize these into three main categories: physical description, light characteristics, and electronics.

Physical Description

Music stand lights can have quite a few physical characteristics. You’ll need to determine the size, weight, clip type, flexibility, and sturdiness.

The size and weight probably aren’t major considerations. Most stand lights are fairly compact and light.

Size should be a consideration if you know you’ll have trouble carrying a light that doesn’t fit in your instrument case or tote bag. But you should keep in mind that the smaller and lighter it is, the less light you’ll probably get out of it.

My first light was chosen entirely on being the smallest, lightest one I could find. I had to replace it almost immediately since I couldn’t read the music at the bottom of the page with the small light.

The most important physical aspect of a music stand light is for it to have a flexible enough neck to position it properly but sturdy enough that it actually stays put once in place.

I had an old one whose neck was too flexible, and it drooped under the weight of the light over the course of the performance. It was an awful experience to keep pushing it back up every few minutes.

The last physical property is the clip. The only thing to pay attention to is that it will actually clip to the type of stand you have.

I use an ordinary wire stand, and so I need a clip that supports the whole light while being on a small surface area.

The super large stand lights meant to clip onto a solid back metal stand often have trouble on the wireframe stands.

Light Characteristics

These days, there are a lot of types of light bulbs. Fortunately, the bulb type will not be something you need to worry about. As far as I know, every single music stand light type is an LED these days.

You will need to decide the brightness and how many bulbs it will have. I’ve seen as few as 1 bulb and as many as 19.

This will mostly be a preference. I’ve found that the one and two bulb (cheapest) option isn’t enough light when it matters. If you only play in well-lit spaces and you merely want a boost, then these are fine.

There’s also such a thing as too much light. If you’re using certain types of really white paper, too bright of a stand light can actually reflect the brightness and be hard to read.

Too much light can also be distracting to other members of the group in really dark areas like a pit orchestra.

For these reasons, I’ve settled on the “bar” of light around 10 bulbs long to be the optimal middle ground. If you really want to splurge, you can get a fancy light with adjustable brightness.

Electronics

I’m using the term electronics here to refer to how the energy works. Some music stand lights use bizarre batteries, some use AAA batteries, some are rechargeable, and some need to plug into a source directly.

At this point, I’m pretty unwilling to get any battery-operated stand light. You just never know how much is left in the battery. This means you should carry extra batteries with you if you really need the light.

Batteries can be expensive, and they’re hard to dispose of properly. These days, the rechargeable music stand lights don’t cost any extra and save you all these headaches.

The one thing is to remember to have it charged.

But let’s face it, we already do this with so many of our devices. I’ve never had trouble remembering. If you’re worried about that type of thing, you might want to consider standard batteries.

Reviews

Here are my three favorite stand lights along with brief reviews for who they would work best for.

Best Music Stand Light

kootek music stand light

The Kootek 10 LED light is excellent. It checks off all of my boxes for what I’m looking for.

It has the brightness to illuminate multiple pages of sheet music at a time. It even has two brightness settings if one is too much or the other too little.

The neck is flexible yet sturdy to get it into place easily. The clip will clip to any type of stand.

The battery is rechargeable.

Despite all this, the price looks like it should be a cheap product, but it’s not cheaply made at all.

Overall, this is an excellent combination, making it the best music stand light overall.

Check prices on Amazon.

Most Customization

LUMIENS Brooklyn music stand light

The LUMIENS Brooklyn has some of the most customization I’ve ever seen. It still has the nice bars of light to get the widest possible illumination.

But now they are split into two bars. This allows you to position them in multiple angles, distances, and directions. You won’t have any shadowy areas that sometimes come up with other lights.

It allows for six different brightness settings, and it can fold into a smaller position than Kootek.

The light is battery powered with 3 AAA or it can be plugged in directly (though this is unlikely to be possible with most performances).

Overall, this is a great option for someone who wants a bit more customization than the Kootek.

Check the price on Amazon.

Best Budget Option

SUTUN stand light

Maybe you’re looking for something cheaper or you just don’t need so much power. In any case, the SUTUN is a perfect budget option.

It has two necks to get the two bulbs into better positioning than just one (I’d never recommend going down to one bulb). The small clip attaches to anything.

It should be possible to throw this into any case with how compactly it folds up.

It is battery operated or plugs in, but you should know that the AAA batteries are not included with this one.

On the other hand, the batteries last much longer than the LUMIENS, because these lights use far less current.

Check prices on Amazon.

Concluding Remarks

You won’t go wrong with any of these three music stand lights. The decision will mostly come down to what your preferences are.

Remember, bigger isn’t always better, and it’s probably not worth sacrificing light quality to go with the smallest and lightest music stand light you can find.