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a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 3:29 pm
by lynndavidnewton
This question is not about Finale, but if there is any group I have access to on the Internet who might know such a thing, this would be a good place to start.
I'd like to have a drawing app for my phone or tablet (no interest in having it on a computer) in which I can select simple blank music staves as a background on a note and be able to write (draw freehand) on them (i.e. sketch music) and then (if I want) print it or at least save it in a form where the music lines show.
It amounts to having a simple music notebook in electronic form of the type that numerous composers of old used to carry with them on walks, pausing for a few seconds to sketch out a few notes of melody or a harmonic progression as the muse struck them.
I'm certain it would not be difficult. An ordinary note-taking or drawing app would work as long as music paper could be selected as background and that background be preserved when the file is saved.
My Samsung Android tablet and phone already have a powerful and useful built-in note-taking pad (Samsung Notes) where you can add either type or draw (write, which I do often), even mixing them, and insert external graphics. On top of it, they share between my two devices so what I see on one I see on the other, which is extremely useful.
Surely I'm not the first person to want such a thing and surely something like that already exists, but various searches have failed unearth anything useful. Does anyone here have a clue about this or where else to ask?
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 4:26 pm
by Peter Thomsen
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 7:10 pm
by miker
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 10:51 pm
by lynndavidnewton
Thanks for the suggestions so far. NotateMe and StaffPad are both interesting.
Unfortunately, it appears that both cost money, both do way more than I want, and I'd be willing to bet they do it badly.
I don't want or need something that converts my scribblings to standard music notation.
All I want is to be able to scratch out a few bars of a tune or a chord progression and be able to save it.
I can read my own notation just fine and don't need it to be converted to some other form
that will probably include mistakes.
The whole idea is quite simple: You're out for a run and something musical comes to mind.
You'd like to remember it, maybe work on it later.
You pull up short, whip out your phone and stylus and scribble the idea down, save it, and you're done.
When you get home you can pull it up and convert it to anything you want: probably to paper, or maybe directly
to electronic form by means of a DAW.
The only problem is what do I write down the original on? I don't want to carry a music notebook and pencil.
I want to do it on my phone.
But that requires an ordinary graphics program that supports music staves as background that I can write over.
That would seem to be a simple thing, but propose that to a software engineer and you'll get something
that will write it in eight colors and translate your notes to Klingon. (I was a software engineer for 30 years,
so I know how they think.)
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:30 am
by miker
So all you want is staff paper on your iPad? I downloaded a couple images into Files. If I would need it, I would open it Files, open the annotation window, and notate away.
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:14 pm
by mknoll
And you can customize and download blank music paper layouts at blanksheetmusic.net
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:37 pm
by ttw
Based on the original question, I checked through some reviews and found Maestro for Android. It's free. I could write a bit of piano stuff.
The only problem I had was that my S-Pen would "see" its own controls "through" those of Maestro. I fixed it by disabling some of S-Pen's features (which I didn't use.)
My only design complaint is that the piano grand staff's staves are separated by more than two staffsworth of space. There may be a way to adjust this.
I'm still waiting for "Finale Notepad for Android."
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 9:44 pm
by miker
ttw wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:37 pm
I'm still waiting for "Finale Notepad for Android."
Your breath, do not hold.
—Yoda
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2023 2:00 pm
by siyagomes
lynndavidnewton wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 3:29 pm
This question is not about Finale, but if there is any group I have access to on the Internet who might know such a thing, this would be a good place to start.
I'd like to have a drawing app for my phone or tablet (no interest in having it on a computer) in which I can select simple blank music staves as a background on a note and be able to write (draw freehand) on them (i.e. sketch music) and then (if I want) print it or at least save it in a form where the music lines show.
It amounts to having a simple music notebook in electronic form of the type that numerous composers of old used to carry with them on walks, pausing for a few seconds to sketch out a few notes of melody or a harmonic progression as the muse struck them.
I'm certain it would not be difficult. An ordinary note-taking or drawing app would work as long as music paper could be selected as background and that background be preserved when the file is saved.
My Samsung Android tablet and phone already have a powerful and useful built-in note-taking pad (Samsung Notes) where you can add either type or draw (write, which I do often), even mixing them, and insert external graphics. On top of it, they share between my two devices so what I see on one I see on the other, which is extremely useful.
Surely I'm not the first person to want such a thing and surely something like that already exists, but various searches have failed unearth anything useful. Does anyone here have a clue about this or where else to ask?
FM whatsapp download
You can achieve this by using a versatile note-taking app like Notion or Evernote, which allows custom backgrounds. Simply set a blank music staff image as the background and sketch your music on top.
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2023 12:34 am
by ttw
I did use Maestro but I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted. I decided to buy "Music Writer" for Android. It's about $15 per year (I think) and it's not too bad The only thing both miss (or I haven't found yet) is the capability to edit within a measure, particularly the first few beats. I tend to work by continual modification of the score (like I program). I suppose it could be called developing variation had that not been co-opted for a more useful purpose.
Re: a music app for writing music by hand
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2023 11:03 am
by BuonTempi
lynndavidnewton wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 10:51 pm
I don't want or need something that converts my scribblings to standard music notation.
All I want is to be able to scratch out a few bars of a tune or a chord progression and be able to save it.
I can read my own notation just fine and don't need it to be converted to some other form
that will probably include mistakes.
If you'll forgive me, I think you're doing yourself a disservice by not considering any of the many notation apps that are designed for exactly this kind of thing. It's akin to drawing letters freehand instead of typing!
Loads of people do swear by NotateMe and StaffPad for exactly this kind of thing, before importing to 'desktop notation', so perhaps worth trying before dismissing them out of hand. There are many others where you would just tap the pitch and duration, as in Finale's entry -- like MuseScore, which has an Android version. With that sort of method, any mistakes are likely to be your own, rather than the software's!
A Music notation app would likely export to XML, which you could then bring into Finale; whereas with a drawing, you've got to type it in again.