MuseScore: sheet music Reviews

by DebNCatz

MuseScore has lost features that I used. The functions that are there don’t work correctly most of the time. I have contacted the company and have not received satisfactory answers. I paid for Pro so I would have access to advanced features on MuseScore which allowed me to transpose the music and export PDFs of the music transposed and by single part if needed. I can no longer do that. The company has stated they are considering restoring those features, however, I can no longer use MuseScore as I intended to. As MuseScore is no longer of use to me, I stated I would pay for the months that I used, and requested a refund for the balance of that year. They have refused to refund my money or any portion of my purchase. They told me that I need to use a PC instead. That is not why purchased Pro which include MuseScore . I would like to use MuseScore the way it functioned in the past, if it does that in the near future I may change my rating, but for now serious disappointment in MuseScore and the company’s response.

by Annonymous😏

Before this update MuseScore was AMAZING and I loved it to death. I’m an advanced pianist and I use MuseScore every day. I take it on the go wherever there’s a piano. This means there usually wasn’t WiFi available so I downloaded the music to my songbook (thanks to the $2.99 one time purchase which is very efficient and blessed 10/10). I would proudly say I used this app whenever someone asked where I got my sheet music. It was amazing and was my favorite app.
I’m sorry, but this new update is worse than ever, the format is intimidating and bland and now you guys are just pulling even more money from people’s pockets. The notes are automatically zoomed out and tiny and it’s gonna be annoying to keep zooming in on the notes every time I open a piece of music. The quality itself just downgraded so badly I feel like I’m using iOS 6 and I’m taken back to the era of iPhone 4’s.
I can’t download music to my songbook without the subscription- worse yet, more than half the songs downloaded to my songbook disappeared.
6.99 subscription every month? Come on, you’re kidding yourselves. I know you need to make some profit but subscriptions draw people away. Monthly or annual payments?
What a shame.
Please take it back to the previous system and formatting.
It was PERFECT and was working GREAT before. There was absolutely no need to update this.
Otherwise, I’m very upset and disappointed with MuseScore I once adored.
Please take this into consideration and fix it.

by Lisacolus

I have never written a review on an App or a company before. This company has terrible customer service. Please be very weary when every response that you receive is from “Paula Abdul”- I think everyone here has talked to Paula. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was unable to cancel my subscription within the time frame. In fact, I canceled it a few hours after the deadline, thinking most companies would see I never used the product and it was not what I was looking for. Instead, the company wanted to up sell me on a PRO account and said they would offer me a 40% refund. Ok, I get it. It was a free trial and I canceled 2 hours too late. But the company response was awful. I’m trying to locate what country they are in to file a further complaint, but no one has responded. In fact, I really wish I had read all the reviews about this company before I even opted into the trial. Review after review indicates how awfully they treat customers. I tried to write a review on FB about them, but guess what, you can’t write reviews about them. Hence, why I’m here, writing my first ever review on a company. Seriously consider not doing business with this company- they do not care for their consumers. Or file a complaint and you might get to talk to Paula as we all have....

by Spenjwilli

Since the this app Songbook app was retired and replaced with MuseScore—which, as I understand it, new users actually have to pay a consistent fee to use—I’ve almost never been able to functionally listen to scores on my phone.
When I download a this app file, it’s a gamble as to whether it’ll stay in my Songbook or just display an indefinite loading screen. If I manage to get past that, sometimes scores will just crash while playing, often on their very first page, even if they’re very simple scores.
Then, somehow, if I get lucky enough to be able to play an entire score, I have to grapple with extremely finicky and unclear controls. If I want to skip back to a specific measure, I’m left struggling with the unresponsive page-turning mechanic and have to try multiple times until MuseScore will let me select my desired measure. Of course, that’s all assuming the UI is even showing up around the score in the first place; I think you’re supposed to tap to bring it up and tap again to see only the score, but it’s more like it decides at random.

If you’re going to establish a subscription service for your app, put out a quality product. At the very least, it should
have maintained the already mediocre quality of the old Songbook app. Instead, the drop in quality is beyond baffling. Please invest in hiring legitimate app developers, and maybe a this app subscription would finally be worth recommending.

by Mrudhd

The way it displays music is “classic” one page page turning, making many songs impossible to play... it wouldnt be that hard to make it scroll instead of just change. They did respond to this but they just mentioned the inconvenient practice mode where there is no option to show more than one part of the piece at once, despite the large area of white space which would fit perfectly. If you want to see more than one part, which any serious player would, you have to use the impossible to play page turning. ALSO, the “practice mode” for some reason makes the measures wider, so you cant reasonably get more than 4 measures on screen. If these people played instruments, they would know you have to read far farther in advanced then that. Finally, the search doesn’t even work, it repeats the same couple dozen uploads over and over and once you get past those it forcible pushes you back up to the top of the search

by QGFD9M

I downloaded MuseScore because I was curious about the song selection. I was having difficulty navigating it and I agreed to sign up for a 7-day free trial. I had a great deal of difficulty trying to print any of the music so I gave up and canceled my trial the exact same day I had signed up for it. Come to find out, there was a $30 charge visible on my PayPal account from this website. I have confirmation screenshots that I had canceled my trial the exact same day and after emailing customer support about this issue, I received a response to look over their terms of service which doesn’t help my issue at all. There was an advertised free trial and I was charged just for trying to use it. This feels like a scam. If you’re interested in checking MuseScore out, I highly recommend checking whether you’ve been charged during your trial period. I’m glad I trusted my gut enough to take screenshots after starting my trial and for doing so again after I canceled the trial. Make sure to cover as many of your bases as you can and avoid MuseScore at all costs.

by Proxene

MuseScore was once excellent and I would have given it 5 stars, but it has been updated recently and introduced a “Pro” feature for $50 a year. What were once free features available to all (things like offline viewing, auto scrolling the sheet during playback etc) are now locked behind the Pro subscription as well as now serving ads to free users. I would have happily paid money for MuseScore in its previous state (I can’t remember if it was paid or not originally - I have used it for a while now), but I cannot support the decision to lock absolutely basic quality of life features behind a yearly $50 subscription. I am giving it 2 stars, since it does work quite well, but I would have easily given it 5 if it were not for this predatory monetization practice. In its current form I cannot recommend it to anyone. Find a different sheet music app to give your money to.

by Jake Iowa

I started using MuseScore so that I could use Finale files on my Mac Book Pro and my iPad after the creators of Finale Notepad threw Mac devices under the steam calliope. For a while, it worked well on my Mac and I could post my music to the online server and then access them on my iPad. Now, it seems clumsier, and I can see only five of my songs at any one time on my iPad, unless I upgrade to “this app Pro.” I seem to remember paying for MuseScore in the first place, so I am certainly unhappy to be asked to pay again. When I have contacted “support,” my questions always seem to be misunderstood and are not adequately answered. After about five tries when I asked why I could see only five songs on my iPad, I finally was told 1) I needed to pay yet again; and 2) there might be a fix for this problem in January. I am afraid to click the update button. So I would have given MuseScore at least four stars, mainly because of nearly non-existent instructions. Now, it gets no more than two, and since it has limited usefulness to me, that’s a generous gift.

by Major_General_San

MuseScore is amazing where transcribers, song writers, and general musicians can share their work and provide others the opportunity of learning something they can’t anywhere else. I especially love to reference MuseScore for A Cappella because of the amazing transcribers found on this platform. There are major downsides, simply with the way it functions. Some features work one day, but either completely don’t work or crash MuseScore another day. For instance, the option to listen to individual parts was somewhat functional, but then its button changed to “transpose” and I thought that was a pro feature. The individual part selector is something I relied on as a free feature as a chorus member. Sometimes when trying to listen to individual staves or parts, it will still play the other parts, and I would have to back out of the music and go back in just for it to work. Sometimes when listening to the song as a whole, the bar that indicates where you are in the song is ahead of behind of the audio, making it challenging or confusing to follow along. Again, the concept of MuseScore is like no other and revolutionizes the music world, but it’s coming up short with its lack of reliability in functionality.

by Jackspedicey05

I really like MuseScore. The UI isn’t confusing, you just type in the song, and you can even adjust results based on what instrument you play, but this is where the problem lies. In one of the newer updates, they added the ability to choose what type of instrument you could search for. (i.e. Under Trombone you would find Bass Trombone, and under Trumpet, you would find Piccolo) But the problem is they didn’t add all types of instruments, so I can only pick a Bass Trombone when I don’t play that kind of trombone, I play a Straight Tenor Trombone, but since Bass Trombone is the only option they have, I can only search for music pieces that use a Bass Trombone, so now I can practically never use MuseScore since I’ll be searching for results with an instrument I don’t play. If they fix this issue, MuseScore would be a go to app for playing music, but for now, I can’t even use it.

by Dusiastic

So this would be a 4 star, but there’s one thing that I think would make MuseScore a whole lot better. That thing is, to be able to make score sheets in MuseScore , or at least have an app that solely focuses on the ability to make score sheets that pairs with MuseScore, as in you could upload scores you make in the supposed sister app from MuseScore. And I haven’t exactly come across some of the issues other users have had with MuseScore, except for when I try to open score sheets that are very long, so for instance medleys which tend to be over 10 or 20 minutes long. Every time I try to open a very long score sheet on MuseScore , it freezes and I can’t do anything except for close MuseScore and relaunch it. Meanwhile, the website has little to no problem opening the same exact score, and just to be clear I use a laptop that is over 2 or 3 years old, it’s a Dell and is not exactly great, and I use google chrome as my default browser. Other than that I don’t have any real problems with MuseScore , and if you could conjure up something that allows users to make score sheets on their mobile device and upload from MuseScore when on the go, that would be quite a make up for the mentioned “issues” that users comment on that I can’t seem to find or come across.

by DarthVaderIsLukesFather

Recently, this app has changed its site entirely and requires a PRO subscription to download and print almost all music created by writers or translators. Before, it was a simple site where people could share music as a recreation and people would download them, and this app would make money through advertisement. I may be biased and understand funds, but I believe the choice of ‘PRO’ mode isn’t a wise one.

The reason this app was such a popular site in the first place is because it was free, could be easily navigated, and was the software for creating music was highly polished. Creators are supposed to get the ‘benefit’ from pro mode, as their content can’t be downloaded without permission. Still, people who are trying to make money out of sheet music shouldn’t be uploading on a site like this app anyways!

You should be charging users for using the creation software, not the browsers if you aren’t already. The ‘PRO’ mode can still be easily bypassed, so there’s no point in upgrading anyways.

by 123456789??????

I’ve had MuseScore for 3-4 years at this point, and I mostly very happy with the changes made over that time; however a couple questionable feature decisions immediately come to mind. About 1-2 years ago you used to be able to speed up a song as well as slow it down, it was a feature I used often, and still miss to this day. And just a couple days ago (the reason I am writing this review) I noticed that the newest update removed the sort by new functionality. This was a great way for me to check I there was a new song from a game or album I liked and removes exposure from newer arrangers. These decisions take MuseScore from a 5 star to a 3, and I hope they add them back, or at the very least give a reasonable explanation as to why they did remove them.

by NomisBalderk

If MuseScore actually worked, I would love it! I play the piano and the trumpet and MuseScore has a ton of awesome songs to play. The day I downloaded it, everything was great, I found some really great music, learned some cool things, and just overall had a great time. But since then, MuseScore has just been horrible. The interface covers up a whole line of music, and if you try to remove the interface it works sometimes, other times it doesn’t work and often it will misunderstand and turn the page. However, If you try to turn the page, most of the time it won’t do anything or it will toggle the interface. The problem is, there aren’t any controls for the functions you want, you just have to tap, swipe, or pound on the screen until it does what you want it to.

Oh yeah, also, often if you turn the page it does the little page turn animation but doesn’t actually turn the page. Then no matter how many times you try to turn the page, it just stays as the same page of music (or it toggles the interface and you scream at your phone and you post a lengthy-one star review about how much you hate this app)

by GuyWithAKid

This is a nice app and has a variety of different music sheets of all genres, and the website even has private chatting. However, there has been an increase of trolls and flamewars in the comment section that is taking up everyone’s feed. I was banned from my account, and I emailed the this app staff asking why. They said I spammed. I did not spam. I followed up saying I never spammed, at least give me proof. They didn’t. They were just like “well we looked at the score and you violated this part of the terms of service because you spammed”. I was so aggravated. All my friends I ever made could only be contacted using this app, and now I lost them all. The mean people who are always cussing and reporting innocent people for no reason at all are not being banned. I never did anything wrong. This is unfair. At least give proof after banning someone. You said you always look at the problem carefully and decide whether it’s really necessary or not to ban someone. You didn’t.

by CXL Fishie

After Support: Now that support has contacted me, I feel much better. For some reason the pro version I purchased liked to a different this app account I used to use. I’m currently trying to figure out if I can move it to my active account. I still recommend using the computer version of this app when possible since it is more put together than the mobile version, but the mobile version is convenient if you need to access your songs in the go.

Before Support: I’ll change my review when I (1) get the pro version I paid for or (2) get a refund. I’m emailing support later to see if they can help me, but as of right now, they scammed me out of 6.99. Just use the website; you can use every feature free there.

by Kingcharml

Hello, I pay for the subscription to your app and have been happy because I can find many of the songs I want to learn on your app. I only have one main question. Can I download pdf versions of my songs onto a tablet, kindle, or iPad and scroll each page as I play on my keyboard? This would offer a customer like me a few vital benefits, such as the limit of money I spend to print several pages per each piece, eliminate the space I need to keep track of all my hard copy songs, easier searching when I want to play a song I haven’t practiced recently, and a much easier time flipping through pages of the song while I play. As always the library of songs offered for me is the primary benefit and more is wonderful. I love current popular music, I occasionally download classical music on the piano. I don’t play any woodwind instrument so I take my guitar sheet music from other apps. Any suggestions on electronically updating my sheet music practice I’d appreciated.

by SaltyArmageddon

I just downloaded MuseScore yesterday and I am in love. I have used this app from my laptop, but it’s very hard to play the music off of that since I play the piano. I love being able to just play the music right off of my phone. My favorite thing about MuseScore though is the practice feature. It’s great being able to hear the song as you play along with it that way you can know how well you’re doing. It’s also nice that they give you the option to turn off and adjust the volume for the individual instruments and the metronome. I also love that there are a multitude of composers and arrangers on here who put out a lot of very high quality scores. This makes it even more enjoyable. My only complaint is that sometimes it can be a little slow and takes up a lot of battery. I also wish that I could get the pro features for free, but I would never expect for that to happen.

by The_Lemon_27

I’m one of those people who’s never written a review for anything, and I was never going to. But this app’s app changed at some point in a monumental way: where it used to be kind of clunky and hard to use because you couldn’t easily search for songs, or look at your favorites, you can do both of those things now! You can actually search for sheet music by genre and you can look through your favorites for easy access to the songs you like! I used to use the website instead because MuseScore was almost useless in how slow it was without these changes, but now that it has these necessary features it’s way easier to use than the website, which is what an app’s all about! MuseScore had a great turnaround with the newer updates, when most other apps would just stagnate in mediocre-ness. 👏🏼

by Bubbymg

Muse score is basically the best app I've ever used to find music for different instruments. The ability to find music for different instruments makes it easy to put together little bands that can play together. The transposing button is awesome so you can change it to whatever key you want! The play button allows you to listen to how the score is supposed to be played giving you a place to start and sort of your own little teacher. You also have the option to print off scores, it's a little confusing, but worth the struggle. And the ability to write your own scores is awesome! They have an application that you can write music on and share with everyone!All in all, an awesome platform for writing and finding music!

by Scalebrine4pres

this app has some of the worst business practices I’ve ever seen. I signed up for a one week trial with this app to test it. It was pretty good but I decided I don’t need to go PRO. So I canceled my subscription through the Apple app. Well... they never got the notification and decided to charge my paypal account that I used to set up my account. It wasn’t the monthly rate that they billed me for they went straight to the annual rate!
Tried to contact them and they said they don’t refund according to their “policy.” Website doesn’t have a phone number just an email and when you try to respond back to their email they don’t. Try to contact their PayPal account they won’t get back with you. Tell your problem on the forum and ask to get a hold of customer service some rude guy named JoJo Schmidt responds.
If I could give MuseScore 0 stars I would. As for MuseScore itself, it never worked always said I timed out. WORST COMPANY AROUND! SCAMMERS that aren’t there for customers just the money.

by Rem41387

Really want to love MuseScore. At first download it worked pretty good but since has been the buggiest app I’ve ever used. There is always some issue: the sudden app crash upon the click of any sheet music or function, erratic controls when you flip the sheet music page or try to drag the repetition slides, screen doesn’t flip orientation with turn of device, constantly logs out of account, and right now when I open MuseScore can’t even click anything because there is a small box centered on the page (a buggy splash page?) that can’t be closed out so MuseScore is completely unusable. I could probably list a dozen other functional issues that have occurred over the last 6 months of using MuseScore . When MuseScore does work, I truly enjoy it and hope the developers can work through these issues. I will happily return if so but unfortunately until then MuseScore too maddening to use.

by Jace Henderson

I always listened to scores on my browser rather than the actual app because the browser has the actual sound of the piano the score has instead of the mediocre sounding one in MuseScore itself. The browser version has been bugging out lately, the track keeps playing forwards when I click to replay a measure while it replays the measures visually so the measure highlighted isn’t what’s actually being played, and about a minute or so into a score the audio cracks loudly and the song restarts while the highlighted measures continue on. Because of that I can’t listen to scores on my browser because it’s severely bugged at the moment and using MuseScore works but the piano sounds horrible. Sound means a lot to somebody like me. It would be nice if you could add the default piano sound rather than the apps current one that sounds nothing like the scores.

by HeyItsNami

The service that this app offers is fantastic: a way to easily compose music and share it. The companion app, however, is rough around the edges and borderline unusable at points. UI/usability glitches include: menus that come back after you dismiss them; music pages changing erratically; irrelevant results throughout the search menu; internet searches showing up and blocking out the My Favorites tab; menu areas not extending to the edges of the screen; the inconsistency when hiding UI elements while looking at a piece of music; every song you’ve favorited being forgotten about; occasional account logouts you didn’t ask for; etc.
The core function of MuseScore is still present with a lot of time spent navigating, but sweeping renovations are needed to make it feel clean and friendly. I hope more development goes into making this a more seamless user experience.

by Jen.exe's Review

When I first downloaded MuseScore I obviously had to read the reviews to see how good it was. I read the first one I came across. It stated mistakes and good things about MuseScore , then I read a reply from the people who made MuseScore. It said that they had fixed these problems. So I was using MuseScore and it showed my favorite songs that I wanted to play on the piano. I had saved those songs in my favorite list, I went back to one of those songs to learn it. There wasn’t a problem there, until I wanted to listen to the audio. The button was just now working, so I figured that it just had to restart the application. When I went back in after restarting it, it wasn’t in my favorites list and when I went to search it up again it said there wasn’t any results.

I hope these problems can be fixed, so I can use MuseScore again. Thank you.

by ImbeciIe

it USUALLY works but every once in a while MuseScore says “you don’t have anything in your favorites” blah blah blah when i do have stuff there. idk if it’s my wifi, or MuseScore , but either way it’s getting tiring. another thing, is that a couple days ago there was this small rectangle in the middle of my screen, and i couldn’t even use MuseScore because it was frozen or something,, other people had this problem too. i loveee the concept of MuseScore , and i always find the best songs to play when i’m bored or during rehearsal breaks. i also use it for a duet and/or violin 2 when i don’t have someone to play with. it would be 5 stars if there wasn’t a bug or something wrong with MuseScore almost every time i use it. whenever you have a problem with this app, i recommend MuseScore “Flat” it’s basically the same thing.

by LittleDude😇👿🤓

I love MuseScore. I think it’s great and all but I am having a problem with turning the page or sometimes when I am trying to repeat a measure, it does it in a totally wrong place. Don’t get me wrong this is the best app for music I have ever found! Also I have a few suggestions. 1. Maybe allow people who are making the sheet music, to put numbers on for certain instruments like the piano. 2. I don’t know if you could do this but hopefully you can, allow the people who
make the sheets to include a video so that others know the correct fingering if they need more than just numbers. If it weren’t for these problems I would DEFINITELY give MuseScore 5 stars.