Notation Pad-Sheet Music Score Reviews

Love NotationPadSheetMusicScore. I was watching a vlog on the top songwriting apps and this was suggested as #10. I understand music theory and song progression through learning to playing and playing the violin for so long, but I’ve never created my own music. I’m teaching myself to write music and songs based on my experiential knowledge. NotationPadSheetMusicScore is amazing for people who can sight read and play an instrument by ear because it so easy to put a note on the page, play it and build on it to make the sound or song as you hear it in your mind. The written notes are placed along a score and helps to remove the necessity of constantly having an instrument available. It’s so easy to use from editing, deleting, adding, saving. It’s so great. Check it out. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth the purchase. It’s not going to create a whole song with the ability to introduce multiple instruments or effects available in a mixing studio. But it’s perfect for creating sheet music verbatim or using it to build the skeleton of a song that you may choose to upload into another program to add Sound FX, vocals, drum beats, etc. I love it. Check it out. I hope I’ve described NotationPadSheetMusicScore in enough detail on how it’s benefited me in order to know whether it’s a great fit for you.

I am a sophomore in high school that likes to create music from scratch... I don’t have any expensive monthly computer music subscription that is hard to use or expensive... All I have to make music with is a tiny 4 year old iPhone SE... I found NotationPadSheetMusicScore and after I little whole of searching I was about to give up... I downloaded it and found how easy this was to use and how well it put chords and multiple parts together... I have stretched NotationPadSheetMusicScore out to its limits with its max of 8 parts along with chords and this second line feature that allows you to put two parts on one line... NotationPadSheetMusicScore almost perfectly read out the music and can handle a simple duo or solo to even homemade symphonies... NotationPadSheetMusicScore is definitely worth the money but it has a couple of issues with sound defects and some chords that are supposed to work like octave down G chord (key of B flat) on Trombone is very out of tune... along with other chords on specific instruments... And some of the instruments can’t handle fast moving parts... (contrabass is one) But I’ve found NotationPadSheetMusicScore very useful and user friendly and I give it 5 big ones.

I don’t want to get into the payment details about this but it’s technically worth it. NotationPadSheetMusicScore is pretty good for when you are not actually able to play/write music at the moment. There are some problems like no swing functionalities and the fact that triplets at the end of the measure and possible unless you change the time signature. The biggest and worst problem are the instruments, look they’re okay but WAY out of tune. Harmony is not possible with two different instruments. I play saxophones and other reed instruments so I can say this about brass. Reed instruments are pretty bad. Saxophones are way to high, the highest note for alto is C but it is generally F sharp on an actual saxophone. Tenor sax is just out of tune completely. Barisax is way to high. Sopranosax is the best one. Clarinets are just way to quite. I mean other than that, it’s a pretty good app. The key board, guitars, basses, percussion, etc sounds pretty well. Although the string instruments always do the start of the note. This makes string instrument kind of robotic. Other than these things, it’s definitely worth it.

I really like being able to use my iPad to put down & listen to what I’m hearing in my head. The problem I’m having is that it’s not easy to edit the score. Stability is a problem, as Sometimes an action works fine but the same action may not work the next time & instead will mess up that measure. I have questions like: How do I add lyrics? Why do some notes become grayed out so I can’t make changes later? The support is almost non-existent (no answers in the Q&A; nothing on the developer website; the video tutorial goes too fast & has no audio to help vision impaired users). I can’t even find any answers on Google. It takes a long time to do a simple part because I’m pretty much on my own trying to figure things out that should otherwise be easy.

UPDATE: thanks for answering some of my questions. I have other questions. Is there a way to select/copy/paste measures so I don’t have to re-enter all of those notes again? Why are some sounds (like pan flute) volume so low? I shouldn’t have to lower all the other sounds way down just to hear it/

I absolutely love NotationPadSheetMusicScore! I needed an app that would allow me to compose pieces while also allowing me to hear it for my Music Theory Class since I don’t really have a laptop yet and, so far, it’s been absolutely wonderful. The only reason I’m giving it 4/5 Stars is because I have trouble removing notes when I want to tweak something in, say, the first measure but I already have the first sheet of music done. To get rid of that one note, I could get rid of it but it takes forever for that little “x” to come up (maybe it’s because of my big fingers). Another reason why I can’t give it five stars is because I still haven’t tried out the feature that would let me send my homework to my teacher so, fingers crossed that it works. As for the paid stuff, to be honest, I feel like it’s worth the money since most programs like this are about the same amount anyway. All in all, great app and I can’t wait to see how the developers improve it even more ❤️

NotationPadSheetMusicScore is pretty cool. The free version is great, and I bet that’s exactly what some of you are wondering. You can use pretty much any staff elements and there is a button that you can push that will put a line on the screen that guides you through the notes. Why the missing star? The adds about becoming a paying member are far more annoying and have a secret way of getting out that took me a while to discover: above the sign up, 7.99 a month, there is a sentence in smaller print that says, “or continue with free version”. That is where you click, on the words. If you are bad at noticing obvious things like me and you get the free version (which I would suggest), you’ll be glad you saw this. Also, to the developer, sorry for the previous, harsh review. Enjoy making some music!

NotationPadSheetMusicScore works, once you figure it out, but it's far too weird for the $8/week (!) subscription price. It applies very rigid rules: no chord on a rest; no redundant accidentals; etc. Jazz is often written with no key signature, using accidentals for every note, and may use a "reminder" natural on the same note in the next bar. And jazz chord changes are usually on the first or 3rd beat, even if the melody bar begins with a rest. You cannot apply these conventions in NotationPadSheetMusicScore . The chord symbols are microscopic. Half the icons are actually app store links to other apps by the author; not likely to try them after this experience. I finally figured out how to delete a chord symbol, by selecting it and using the controls to change it to null. Similarly, you can edit a note duration by selecting a different duration in the menu, then selecting the note with the cursor. Of course, there's no internal documentation, just this really fast, silent video, so it's difficult to know how to do things.

Can’t even do something as little as change the tempo in the free version. I hit tempo and got a full screen pop-up begging me to start a free trial of the pro version (which, of course automatically turns to a $6.99/week subscription after). There’s no X or way to get rid of that screen unless you start the free trial. Even if you close NotationPadSheetMusicScore and reopen it it goes straight to that screen so you can’t even test things out. I’ll never support this business model where it’s made to appears like there’s a free version (which is expected to be limited in functionality), but it turns out to be *completely crippled* version that pushes you towards a subscription, and even the most basic functions are behind a paywall. I wish Apple would do a better job at screening this crap. Might be a good app. I’ll never know because I’m not supporting this bait-and-switch business model.

I am not a professional musician, so I am only using the very basic feature of NotationPadSheetMusicScore, and so far it seems to be working the way it should. However, I need some help, but I can’t find a link where I can ask the developer, so I am going to ask here, and hopefully the developer will answer me. I transcribed a song to the notation pad, but half way through it, I realized that I should have started one octave higher. Is there a way I can move all the notes that I put down on the pad to one octave higher, without deleting all of it and do it again from scratch? Also, is there an easier way to ask questions than through the review, in case I have more questions down the road? Thank you very much.

After a bit of getting used to, and some glitches involving getting kicked out of NotationPadSheetMusicScore when opening a copy of a previously created score (which seems to have cleared itself up), this is fun and mostly easy to use. The cut and paste with window feature is a bit of a pain, and I would really appreciate being able to add lyrics and determine chords, and I'll be looking for an app that does that. I'd like to be able to pick where to start playback, but it's nice to be able to save to a .pdf or .png file. You will have to upgrade in order to add instrument families, vary tempo, and key signatures (instead of having to add accidentals to notes), so I've spent about $15 total. But this has saved me a ton of time over having to write out a manuscript longhand. I don't have PC access right now, so being able to do it on my phone is a kick in the pants.

So. I got NotationPadSheetMusicScore after literally WEEKS of searching for an app that would let me write lyrics with my music. And I came across this one, and it said that it was great for writing lyrics. I got it and played around with it for a long time, but I could not find anywhere to put lyrics in, and I wasn’t getting much time to look with the “UPDATE TO UNLIMITED” screen popping up in my face EVERY FIVE SECONDS with no way to remove it. Seriously? Maybe I don’t want to pay the $20 for the pro version, okay!?! I’m okay with ads, but this was just annoying. I got NotationPadSheetMusicScore because it said it was good with lyrics, and yet there was nowhere to put lyrics in once I got there. Does someone know how to put lyrics into NotationPadSheetMusicScore because I certainly don’t, and the tutorial was no help whatsoever. If there isn’t a way to put lyrics, at least please say so in NotationPadSheetMusicScore description. Thank you, and have a nice day.

I got this to help me take my music writing to a professional level. It’s quite glitchy and frustrating. When you go to edit, you have to know immediately after you’ve made the error or change your mind. It’s supposed to be easy, but it doesn’t reliably do the actions your expecting to do. It could be intuitive if it consistently worked. I was hoping that if I hovered over the icons it would tell me what action I was dealing with. I can’t write lyrics or vocals on this program, unless I’ve missed that. The tutorials are very basic. Not at all what I needed to help me with the more advanced and detailed work in need to perform.
I’m sure this is fine for amateurs, or very basic work, but it isn’t anything like what I’m used to with Finale.

It’s really helpful for my composition work, but there are a lot of seemingly simple features that it lacks that could make it a lot better. For example, I can’t copy and paste measures between sheets of music (and copying/pasting in the SAME song is a real pain.)
You can delete notes and rests, but you can’t delete accents, dynamics, repeats, or anything like that. You just have to remove the entire measure. That’s really irritating. Everything it can do really isn’t worth $10... for $10, I would expect more easy-of-use user interface design. It’s pretty simplistic, for the most part. It’s really dumb that adding a key signature to the sheet music isn’t featured in the “free” part of NotationPadSheetMusicScore .
But yeah, I wouldn’t really recommend this to a friend unless they were in great need for a simple music composition software.

I just downloaded NotationPadSheetMusicScore because I needed a portable program to easily write sheet music. I decided to try it out. It works really well; much better than the computer program I use, but I'm a little disappointed about one thing.

I tried to change the key signature, but it said I needed to buy the extras pack to do so. I read the details, and it seems other things that I would like to use also require the purchase. I don't think it seems fair that I need to pay to change the key signature and tempo, change the clef, and add a pickup bar. I'm not giving NotationPadSheetMusicScore up just yet and I will buy the purchase as soon as I can, but I just thought I'd share my opinion.

My main question: Why DO you need to pay for those things, anyway?

And one more thing: I've noticed that there isn't an option for certain sound effects that can be played on other instruments, either. Do you think you could add those in a different update? If so, I'd appreciate it.

I downloaded NotationPadSheetMusicScore in order to arrange music for my choir, and I was very impressed by the options available to me. After a couple of days I purchased the $7.99 A WEEK package in order to have more musical liberties, and it was worth the $16 to be able to use those features for 2 weeks. Once I was done arranging the piece, I was VERY disappointed to learn I had spent $16 for TWO WEEKS of a service only to have it print with a notation pad watermark. I can simply buy a copy of music off of any website for $3-$7 and it will have nothing but a small note in fine print to indicate the service it came from. It is unacceptable to make your customers pay a ridiculous amount of money each week only to leave them with marked copies of music that THEY composed. I recommend finding a different app for a musical outlet.

As far as a notation program, you are better off using a computer, but I really love using NotationPadSheetMusicScore when I don't have access to a computer. It has every basic feature needed. Overall, It is more of a 4 star app, but since its the best of its kind on the AppStore it deserves 5.

It would be amazing if there was an online forum or way to contact the developers in case you have any questions.

Question for devs: I was writing a song and somehow got some notes to turn up grey which would allow me to write another voicing with a different rhythm. How do I enable and disable this feature?

As far as the premium features of NotationPadSheetMusicScore are concerned I cannot speak to the quality. The reason for this is that I wanted to try NotationPadSheetMusicScore first before I did. So I created my first project and went to set the key and found that ‘feature’ paywalled. Further when the screen popped up telling me to pay for the feature there was no option to simply return to the previous screen. I had to close NotationPadSheetMusicScore completely to get back to my project. After trying to do what I think of as basic functions for a couple minutes I found that they had paywalled everything needed to scribe anything other than Mary had a little lamb. The price is absurd for an app where you don’t even get to opportunity to test drive the before needing to upgrade. Atrocious.

NotationPadSheetMusicScore is pretty much made so that you need to have the paid version—which is outrageously expensive (7 days free and then $7 a week) for anyone who isn't using NotationPadSheetMusicScore for business purposes. Without premium there are so many features that aren’t included, you can’t change: key signature, BPM, time signature, instrument etc. Furthermore, every time I open NotationPadSheetMusicScore , a huge ad forcing me to pay for the premium version pops up, and I cannot get rid of it unless I press “upgrade” and cancel my purchase. It’d be easier to just write letters in my notes app.

In conclusion, the free version of NotationPadSheetMusicScore is completely useless and worthless for anyone who wants to write longer and more complicated compositions, and the paid version is way too expensive in my opinion.

I don’t know if this is a bug in the Notation app, or what. But, it’s nearly impossible to alter the notes one has written. At most, one occasionally go a step or two backwards. But, beyond that, it’s not at all clear how one would alter a more complex structure one has composed. It’s also not at all clear how one would insert rests before the notes one has already written. The lack of any user manual makes figuring out how to do such things quite daunting. A detailed user manual would be a very welcome addition to the Notation Program — an addition that is sorely needed if one is to be capable of utilizing the program to its full potential. I’m hoping to hear from the author of the program as to how to carry out the functions I’m having a problem with.

This might actually be a decent app. But I wouldn’t know. Because the only thing that I got NotationPadSheetMusicScore for was writing in percussion clef. So I bought all the god forsaken extras (ten bucks just to EDIT TEMPO?!) and all of the percussion instruments because I *assumed* there would be a kit option. Even though it wasn’t listed as “kit” or anything, I put my faith in the “synth drums” instrument, because a lot of synths that have a drums setting can do almost anything I would possibly need.

Then I found out that “synth drums” is literally just one tom pitched up and down.
It’s literally just a piano with some slight attack to it. It serves as nothing but an insult to (highly) paying customers.

Sigh. All I know is that Noteflight better get it together and release a mobile app or I’m going to continue being a sad little girl.

Please introduce at least a basic drum kit. For real, look at Noteflight’s drum notation software and take some notes. If you add FX cymbals (china, splash, bells, swishes, etc.) I will literally leave Noteflight entirely behind and use NotationPadSheetMusicScore exclusively. All I need is a decent kit. Can we get a percussion clef, please?