Appmuse

This app is a sleeper, so useful, especially for leadsheets. the only one that I know of that you can write charts with your finger or a stylus and it will show up as perfect notation. NO DRAG AND DROP NOTES, which is tedious. Copying and pasting notes, bars, even whole sections of the song is so easy. It just takes a minute to get used to aligning your paste to the right note. So many things about this app are intuitive. Being able to resize bars and add an extra bar line is very helpful. I do have a few suggestions. The main one is to add a white ink pen color (like in ForScore) so that you can use that as an eraser for any pen markings that you might want to edit. The other suggestion is to be able to set a default font and size for text notes, which they call “musical expression”. Sizable D.S. And coda markings…..Rehearsal marks (A, B, C). Also, a single diagonal (1/4 note) slash for rhythm charts. Show more

Great for writing out your parts. App doesn’t collect your data, the price is reasonable and the learning curve isn’t that hard, especially if you’ve used other notation programs in the past. I still have to get the hang of key signatures and 1st/2nd endings, but I have high hopes, having recently left MS for an Apple iPad product. Show more

No Support for XML-Import.

I think this app had potential to be great. Simple tools and easy to use. The only problem is the developer hasn’t updated this. Wish I could’ve seen how successful this app would have been in the long run. Show more

Very frustrating at times, but over all this app is very well worth the price for all the features it offers. Devs: please keep working on this! It has huge potential if the kinks can be sorted out. PROS: Easy to use Intuitive controls Convenient shortcuts Great playback function Works well with Apple Pencil Very flexible with what and how you write CONS: Gesture recognition is hit-or-miss Unable to format text Unable to erase handwriting In-app videos no longer work after a recent iOS update For those having trouble copying and pasting: you can copy entire measures by double tapping and dragging to select all the measures you want to copy. Then double tap and drag to highlight an equal number of empty measures where you want to paste your notes. The notation will copy exactly without having to move stuff around. Show more

The input is very intuitive, more so than another notation app I bought for iPad. Unfortunately, after paying for it I discovered too many bugs which have not yet been addressed. 1. Copy and paste function is terrible! When copying a bar to another bar it doesn’t put the notes where they were in the copied measure, they get transposed all differently depending on where you touch the screen, so you have to sort of guess where to tap the screen, and if you guessed wrong, which you probably will do most of the time, you have to copy all over again and try to paste in the right spot, which is ridiculous. PLEASE FIX THIS!!! 2. Playback tool is too limited. This should be more like a standard playback tool with rewind and fast-forward controls not just play and stop. Also there should be a way to have it play back in swing like other notation programs can. 3. The sound is buggy. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and the only way to get it back is for me to restart my iPad. I shouldn’t have to do that, the sound should be more robust than that. 4. There are some basic articulation’s and phrase markings which don’t exist in this app, such as marcato, falls, and glissando. I would be happy to write a more positive review if these items could be addressed and if the maker or makers of this software would show more interest in supporting it with more frequent updates as these problems are brought to their attention by users like myself who actually paid for it. Show more

Have been using this app for on the go composing. Very useful once you get comfortable with the input methods. However this needs an update for the new iPad Pros (2018) so the app will display edge to edge. Also with the iPad Pros now supporting midi keyboards, note input via an external midi keyboard would be game changing. Show more

EXPORT FAILS - by any method. What kind of notating software allows one to use an SATB template but not enter lyrics? I’ve paid for the whole package, and no lyrics? Massive shortcoming. Other shortcomings: 1. Cannot search the help utility by keyword. Many sub-level menu items hidden under parent items but not listed in tree form in the table of contents. 2. Cannot export Midi ‘parts’. 3. Cannot export mp3 renderings of Midi. 4. Cannot specify beginning measure number. 5. Copy and paste an expression - THEN BE ABLE TO EDIT THE EXPRESSION, else have to create new every time and unify format, say, if one is creating measure numbers because program lacks item 4 above. 6. Do NOT link song listing to Title property. If I wish to maintain several revisions, I should not have to edit the Title in order to tell the difference between versions. Show more

Great app for putting down musical ideas in standard notation

Tried to input Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and encountered tons of problems. The most irritating were that the app kept crashing upon inputting on page 3, and the inability to have sfz stay on the score after input; it kept disappearing and only one (of about 4) remains on the completed score. Seeing how infrequent this app is updated, looking for another similar app. Show more

The handwriting features don’t work as well as the videos show. It takes multiple tries to get any note to show correctly. The scores are hard to edit, and the gestures to edit things don’t even work. You can’t get a refund on this, so I don’t recommend buying it!!! It does not work well. I was hoping to have an easy tool to compose music, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Show more

I like the quick entry and ease of editing. Much more intuitive than many apps. But the transposition logic is simply wrong. A change from C Major to c minor does not mean shifting all pitches up 3 semi-tones. The tonic is still C! Show more

I use the app to copy notes from paper. For learning and for then importing into Synthesia, for learning.

It’s like the best thing that happened to my iPad after OnSong, Forescore and the new notes app. A simple app by Kawai, a great product. Unlike the Microsoft one this writes everything out straight away when you input it. Tips: - Use spacer tool (three 1/4 notes picture top left) to space out correctly - Set-up the double tap auto zoom to fit a bar more comfortably than the 800%, I have mine to a bar - Take time to play around learn how they want you to input symbols, there aren’t that many! - Backup regularly - Take your time to learn the quirks, there aren’t that many I can’t believe more people aren’t ranting and raving about this, Apple should promote it, for me it feels like it might be close to the new microsoft one but without the $$$ of buying a surface. Show more

The program is really unresponsive. It looks great in the videos but you never get it to recognize a note on the first go. It might take three or six tries before a note is recognized – using either an Apple pen or a finger. When one is trying to enter a bar between two notes, one gets a tie once or twice (after several tries at each) before a bar is finally accepted. These problems occur with the most basic inputs. I'm giving up and going back to Notion – which isn't perfect either but is better than this piece of junk. I guess I'm out my $12 plus whatever I spent on some in-app purchases. Show more

Awesome app I bought it and it really helps me understand with music, my concern the time signature is there another way instead of drawing the time signature.

The idea is great, and Kawai attempted to include many useful symbols. But using both touch directly and an Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro, this app is completely unreliable. It enters the wrong symbol more often than the correct one, or enters no symbol at all despite repeated attempts. Erasing incorrect symbols also often takes multiple tries. Very frustrating. Show more

I haven't been this excited about notation software since I started using Finale v1.0. Yes, it has it's quirks. Yes, it has it's flaws. I really don't care. It's still better (for me) than requiring me to do several different actions for each note, or rely on my not-so-good timing at a keyboard. I can just write it out with my hand and even better, edit it without destroying three erasers and the paper. Kawai's gestures are totally natural. They did a fantastic job designing a notation package that was willing to work with me instead of making me learn how to work with it. My only complaint: (beyond my fat fingers) they haven't hired me to help them make it even better, but I'm not sure that counts. Show more

I've always hated entering music in Finale. If I write out something for the music theory classes I teach, I often prefer to write it out by hand over Finale. In no time, I got to a point with this app, that I can teach music theory concepts while writing out examples real time on this app, while sending it to Apple TV, and then immediately play what we've notated for my students. Show more

If you are musician this little program provides a handy way to sketch ideas and if pressed, to turn out a quick composition, part, or lead sheet. It takes a few minutes to get the basic concept but once you have the general idea it is relatively intuitive. The in app purchases are handy and not terribly expensive. But really the nicest thing about it is that the darn thing actually works once you have it down and that can't be said for some of the other apps out there right now. Show more