iPad apps Part 1

I've now had the ipad for a week now, and have been testing out some apps. Here are a few starters.

Because I teach guitar, I wanted to get some apps that let me read sheet music on the iPad, here are two that I found.

1. forScore $4.99/http://www.forscoreapp.com/

 This is a PDF sheet music reader. While it's not free, the price is reasonable. This app allows you open music two ways. First if the file you want is in your Dropbox app, you can view it in Dropbox, and then there is an option to view in forScore. The disadvantage to this is that you have to have wi-fi access for Dropbox. If you want to store the file on your ipad's hard drive, you import the file using iTunes. This is a better way because then the app let's you create set lists of your songs stored in the program. 

This also has a built in metronome, both a visual and audio version. The one thing that drew me to this program is that it said in the description that there was an auto page turn feature. Well, it's not the best or easiest to use. You turn on the metronome and and the page turn feature. What you then have to do is program in the number of measures and how many beats per measure you need. Then you enter the number and go. Even when I set up a two measure intro, it seems like I couldn't count on it to turn right when I needed it. The second drawback was that it didn't didn't save the settings. Each time I turned on the app, I had to start over. 

The manual page turn can be done by swiping the page left to right or touching the right or left side of the ipad. It was very quick. It was almost too quick. Many times I ended up turning two pages instead of one. It turned out to be quite sensitive.

2. PDF Sheet Music Reader $2.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-sheet-music-reader/id370142351?mt=8

This is very comparable to forScore. This is actually the first one I purchased. I does basically the same thing. The reason I then bought forScore is that the page turn feature was very slow or unresponsive. I had to really push and swipe the page to get it to turn. You can also tap the right or left side of the page, but again very slow. 

Now that I have purchased both, and tried both, I think that I will use the forScore more often. Both apps do allow a draw feature on the score, both allow transfers using iTunes, and both have the built in metronomes, but the fact that the forScore page turns are more responsive to me makes all the difference.

I have been using the forScore to look at music that the students are playing as I walk around the room. I have also tried using the metronome as I walk around, and that has been nice because the students can listen to the metronome and stay together as I roam the room checking on students.

Secondly I will use forScore during our concerts. I can download the scores, program in a set list for each class, and carry all the music on the small little iPad, instead of dragging around a 3 ringed binder.

More app reviews to come! Stay tuned!