iPad sheet music viewer that can do notation AND text

[EricBarker]

I've had a dilemma over the years. I've shied away from iPads because half the time I use text-based charts, and half the time I use staff notation. The programs I've demo'd seem to mostly only do text-based charts. But I'd love to see one where I could scan in PDF scores on some songs, then flip to ABC notation for another tune. Also, it the program allowed making notes to either of these, maybe with a pen.

 

Any programs like this with all these kinds of features?

[3rdAct]

If I'm understanding you correctly, forScore might be a good option for you. I have it and like using it very much. You can bring in scanned scores or any other pdf (say lyrics and chords type charts). And it allows you to add notes and notations on the screen with an Apple pen.

[ElmerJFudd]

Yep forScore. Also has extensive mark up tools, placement of buttons to jump directly to start repeats, del segnio, coda, etc.

[Reezekeys]

I have For Score. Be ready for a slightly steeper learning curve than you may expect! It does seem to cover pretty much all the bases.

it allows you to add notes and notations on the screen with an Apple pen.

You can also call up the on-screen keyboard and type in text, or paste text from somewhere else. No need for a pen/stylus.

[CowboyNQ]

I"ve been doing this for years.

 

My embarrassingly unsophisticated tool is: PowerPoint!

[EricBarker]

Sounds great, I'll look into it. But my other side of it is, will it allow me to start an empty page and type in stuff like:

 

Emaj7 | F#m | B7 | Emaj7 |

 

I have a long history of typing in charts using pipe characters for measures. I pick a fixed-width font so everything lines up from line-to-line. A lot of this is for originals, so I'll go in and tweak chords as I go. Sometimes I'll even learn a tune in rehearsal if someone calls out a new song. We'll sit around and listen, and I'll type it in while we're listening.

[ElmerJFudd]

forScore focuses mainly on importing, librarian tasks, creating and sharing set lists, editing existing sheets, sharing them with others. There are also a lot of mark up tools - and extras like metronome, tuner, etc. and etc. etc. It does a boatload of stuff. But for making a chord chart or typing lyrics out. I"d probably do that on another app - like Pages which is free on the iPad or any other word processor, export the PDF over to forScore and do any additional marking up there.

[EricBarker]

forScore focuses mainly on importing, librarian tasks, creating and sharing set lists, editing existing sheets, sharing them with others. There are also a lot of mark up tools - and extras like metronome, tuner, etc. and etc. etc. It does a boatload of stuff. But for making a chord chart or typing lyrics out. I"d probably do that on another app - like Pages which is free on the iPad or any other word processor, export the PDF over to forScore and do any additional marking up there.

 

Ooof, that's what I was afraid of. Coming from the laptop side of things, I always had a notepad up in my MainStage project, per song. But since then I've been playing with a lot of bands that have sheet music, but it's often a 50/50 split between text charts and notation, so I was hoping to do everything quickly under one umbrella. Any other possibilities out there? Library tasks aren't as important, I don't play from a lot of online libraries. These bands play mostly obscure folk or originals, not readily available on online libraries. Often passing out sheet music they wrote themselves or from copied old out-of-print books. The other half of the time I'm scrawling in chords on text.

[ElmerJFudd]

Well, the library is your own. Saved locally on the iPad. You can of course back up your charts online and draw them down from services like icloud, Dropbox, Google drive, etc. When I work with other players, they just about all use forScore so they are able to give me their entire libraries, set lists or just a sheet directly over Bluetooth (Apple calls it Airdrop), right there on the spot. If someone gave me paper, I"d take a picture of it/scan it with the iPad camera and add it to my forScore library.

 

That said - I just typed up a chord chart in Pages for iPad. Tapped on Export, Selected PDF, then tapped on Share - where I selected forScore. Boom. I have the sheet in forScore. There is a text tool in forScore itself - you could type onto a blank PDF in a text box, but Pages is a way better text editor.

 

List of commonly used music sheet/chart apps

https://www.codamusictech.com/blogs/news/top-5-favorite-paperless-sheet-music-apps-for-ios

[Reezekeys]

I've had a few occasions where someone Airdropped me a PDF chart 20 seconds before we started playing the song - and an alert box popped up letting me open it immediately in forScore. One time where the tech really made things work for me - smoothly and quickly. I was impressed! And as I mentioned in another thread here some time ago, I was able to map some pads on my keyboard to turn pages and also move quickly from the current chart to the next or previous chart. My one complaint is that the software can be finicky about the tap or swipe motions needed to do those things â these gestures must be "correct" or the page/chart just sits there. Sometimes you need to do a quick page turn as you're playing, and being in a rush it's easy to mess up. Using my controller's pads solved that issue, and of course there are the page-turn pedal units if you don't mind the extra expense.

[EricBarker]

There is a text tool in forScore itself - you could type onto a blank PDF in a text box!

 

Great! That's what I wanted to hear, perfect. I don't care about it being neat, I just need a text editor *IN* the program, because I'm constantly refining and updating charts for original bands during rehearsal, and I don't want to be flipping between pages and my score program every time I make a modification. But yeah, as long as I can make a blank page and fill it with text, I'll be golden.

[Baggypants]

forScore allows you to make mulitple layers of annotations. So you can have different notes for different types of gig.

[Baggypants]

I quite like the stamping tool. You can make your own stamps. I made ones for guitar chord fingerings.

[ChrisDespo]

Setlistmaker is awesome and does pretty much anything I"ve needed to do, including pdf, commenting/marking up a pdf, typing my own chords, notes, lyrics, etc. it even has sample playback and extensive midi control (which I admit I haven"t used a whole lot other than patch changes). The guy that wrote it, Arlo, is very good at answering support questions and gets changes/fixes posted regularly. Highly recommended. (I"m not affiliated in any way) â¦.here"s a link for more info:

 

http://www.setlistmaker.com