Best musical notation apps for an iPad

[Strays Dave]

 

I recently bought a new iPad Pro 11 inch along with an Apple Pencil 2. I bought it expressly for notating music. I've been trying Komp first.

 

It appears to me these apps fall short when used for notating music for a piano score (the grand staff). All the promo photos show orchestral scores with single lines of notation. For example, with Komp I've had difficulty notating chords with 3 or 4 notes in the right hand. After 2 notes, the app is resistant to adding more notes in a chord. Also in Komp, I found no notation for eighth note triplets.

 

Is anyone using a iPad notation app that they're satisfied with ?

 

 

 

 

[Threadslayer]

Clonk

[Dnsmo]

Clonk

Perhaps I missed it, but I don't see anything in that thread that mentions iOS.

 

I just started using Notion on my iPad Pro. And I know there is an iOS version of MuseScore.

[Strays Dave]

Clonk

Perhaps I missed it, but I don't see anything in that thread that mentions iOS.

 

I just started using Notion on my iPad Pro. And I know there is an iOS version of MuseScore.

 

I also saw that thread. I looked for and found no reference to iOS nor handwriting notation. That's why I posted this thread. I don't care about MIDI playback, although all the software(s) seem to focus on that. All I really want is to be able to notate by hand AND have digital editing - copy, cut and paste - capabilities.

 

But I don't care about having all the orchestral instrument sounds and orchestral scores. I only want to notate piano scores. Everything I've tried in the past falls short when doing multiple notes on a single staff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RobPlaysKeys]

I was going to suggest Komp, but I guess you mentioned it doesn't do what you want to do.

 

Maybe you might want to check out Symphony Pro.

[Strays Dave]

 

I found one called Notation Pro. 7 days free then $7.99 per week. Are they kidding me ?

 

I think I'll try Symphony Pro next.

[Kawai James]

Dave, have you already tried Kawai's "Touch Notation" app?

 

 

Cheers,

James

x

[The Real MC]

I found one called Notation Pro. 7 days free then $7.99 per week. Are they kidding me ?

 

Over $415 a year.

[Jonathan Hughes]

I'm curious about this "Notation Pro" app. I've googled and haven't found anything. Is that its actual name?

[psionic11]

I just started using Notion on my iPad Pro.

 

+1

 

It's basic, but it does do grand staff and has basic instruments to hear your creations. There's a desktop version as well, but not sure if the platform is actively supported.

[Strays Dave]

I'm curious about this "Notation Pro" app. I've googled and haven't found anything. Is that its actual name?

 

It seems to be called Notation Pad. When I open it up it seems to display a screen trying to sell the Pro version (I took a phone photo linked below).

 

There must be some difficulty programming apps to notate piano music with multiple "voices" (think Bach 4 part Chorales as an example) with differing rhythms. They all seem do proudly display orchestral styled scores showing multiple staves with single lines. It's almost like piano scoring is the elephant in the room that they quietly ignore.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HTBJPEY6vXqV7UBjlI38kfXd96falecM

[Jonathan Hughes]

Thanks! That price is RIDICULOUS!

[Guven Ilter]

I'm using Notion with an Ipad Pro 10.7" and an Apple Pencil (the original one), and quite happy with it. It gets a while to get used to, and has some quirks when entering notes, ties and rests (you have to do them in a certain order), but the result is good.

[AnotherScott]

I'm looking for suggestions for a simple iPad notation app... It only has to be able to do a treble staff plus chords above. MIDI input a plus, but not essential. Has to output a PDF I can email to the Mac and print from there. The trickiest thing might be that I want over-sized notation, i.e. the staves should be more "beginner" sized.

 

I'm open to Mac apps too, though I'm assuming a touch-based iPad app should be faster to use than a mouse-and-keyboard based thing.

 

Thoughts?

[J_tour]

It appears to me these apps fall short when used for notating music for a piano score (the grand staff). All the promo photos show orchestral scores with single lines of notation. For example, with Komp I've had difficulty notating chords with 3 or 4 notes in the right hand. After 2 notes, the app is resistant to adding more notes in a chord. Also in Komp, I found no notation for eighth note triplets.

 

Good observation. I only use MuseScore for my rudimentary occasional use (puzzling out some old-school polyphonic music, really), but even when I had access to boxes running Sibelius or Finale, I found it enormously frustrating to have the default engraving style try to cluster notes (or voices, if you prefer) together which I wanted complete control over (the whole point of my use), while still using the grand staff.

 

And, no, I know about LilyPond engraving using text mark-up based on LaTex, but absolutely not. Not worth spending a million hours painstakingly entering notes which could be scrawled on some staff paper in a few minutes.

 

SLIGHTLY OT but I find, as usual, in such cases to use pencil and paper.

 

To that end I've been exploring technical pencils (called "lead holders" or sometimes "clutch pencils") in the 2mm size.

 

I'm curious for people who write music, rather than type it, if they have preferences for lead softness. I like B, but as high as 4B or even 6B works somewhat OK.

 

Nice dark lines, much less messy-looking than a pen IMHO, and more importantly, less pressure is needed for me to apply to the page.

[analogman1]

Scott, check out Notion for the iPad. It's pretty nice...

Also, NoteFlight (it's an online one, you can create a free acount forst to trey it out).

[Strays Dave]

 

Good observation. I only use MuseScore for my rudimentary occasional use (puzzling out some old-school polyphonic music, really), but even when I had access to boxes running Sibelius or Finale, I found it enormously frustrating to have the default engraving style try to cluster notes (or voices, if you prefer) together which I wanted complete control over (the whole point of my use), while still using the grand staff.

 

And, no, I know about LilyPond engraving using text mark-up based on LaTex, but absolutely not. Not worth spending a million hours painstakingly entering notes which could be scrawled on some staff paper in a few minutes.

 

SLIGHTLY OT but I find, as usual, in such cases to use pencil and paper.

 

To that end I've been exploring technical pencils (called "lead holders" or sometimes "clutch pencils") in the 2mm size.

 

I'm curious for people who write music, rather than type it, if they have preferences for lead softness. I like B, but as high as 4B or even 6B works somewhat OK.

 

Nice dark lines, much less messy-looking than a pen IMHO, and more importantly, less pressure is needed for me to apply to the page.

 

I'm the original poster. I use pencil and paper. I like it fine for the early stages, doing what I call "sketching". But sometimes I'll write/compose something that I want to insert into something I've previously written/notated. With paper and pencil, I'm stuck having to recopy everything by hand. I want the copy/paste capability to avoid so much hand copying.

 

BTW, I for my iPad Pro, I purchased Symphony Pro 5. The cost was $30 ($15 for the original app, plus $15 for the add-on handwriting recognition). So far I like it, but I have that learning curve thing to do - I have to spend a good bit of time to work learning it.