App for shared lead sheets... Am I missing something?
I'm in a group of volunteer musicians and have been asked to help re-vamp the way they share lead sheets. Long story short, there are about 2,000 volunteers (~60 musicians) who bring holiday parties and shows to places where they don't get much for the holidays... shelters, homes for kids with disabilities, etc.
Each show has a different group of musicians and set lists. Newcomers rely on tablet-based lead sheets, all PDFs, some of which are pretty bad and need to be re-done. Singers often call keys... players are supposed to be able to transpose, but it would be easier to change keys on their tablets... IOW, the PDFs they currently use aren't ideal.
Since we're re-doing all lead sheets (maybe 100 or so songs) to prep for next year, we thought it might be a good idea to get everyone on a single app.
I was hoping the MuseScore app would be it... MS may be overkill for just lead sheets, but I thought it would do the job. However, I downloaded the latest MS app and it's not what I remembered. I thought I remembered an app that displayed & played .mscz files, but what I downloaded today seems geared to the subscription service... I never got past the screen where you pick your payment plan.
Did I miss something? If not, what else might work well?
Requirements:
- available for Android & iOS
- free for those reading sheets
- hopefully free (or cheap) for those writing the sheets
- playable sheets for those who want to practice with it and/or hear the changes
- (ideally, though I may the only one interested in this) the same app could later be used for section scores (horn charts)
- (ideally) able to include standard notation as well as chords... some songs have very specific riffs or bass parts that may be read by those who can read
- (ideally) can import & export a few formats, e.g. MusicXML
So what do you think and what do you suggest?
Comments
You did, indeed, get into the wrong part of the system. You were on musescore.com and you wanted musescore.org. Read How and where to ask for support
YES - free for those reading sheets
FREE - hopefully free (or cheap) for those writing the sheets
YES - playable sheets for those who want to practice with it and/or hear the changes
YES - (ideally, though I may the only one interested in this) the same app could later be used for section scores (horn charts)
YES - (ideally) able to include standard notation as well as chords... some songs have very specific riffs or bass parts that may be read by those who can read
YES - (ideally) can import & export a few formats, e.g. MusicXML
However ... - "available for Android & iOS"? NO ... or not really
MuseScore Studio (the notation software) is available for Windows, Mac, and several (?) Linux distros.
There is a version of MuseScore for mobile devices but it is display-only: no score modification! I believe that it only displays .PDF versions of the scores) and I believe that the scores must reside on the musescore.com site, where scores with potential copyright issues are not going to be available to anyone but their creator. For example, say you've GOT the copyright to use/play/display a tune. If musescore.com thinks there might be a copyright issue, they'll block it's delivery to others than the file's creator.
It may be possible to work around this requirement to something you can use, but I suspect it won't quite be the tool that you need. I fear that the tool you need may not exist. If not, I'm'a bet that Muse Score Studio will be the closest you can come.
To download and install it, go to the Download page from the list near the top of this page, or click https://musescore.org/en/download.
Good luck!!!
In reply to You did, indeed, get into… by TheHutch
Well, this is awkward since I'm often the one telling others that .com & .org are different sites. But you've answered my question & I appreciate it.
What an exciting project! Best of luck!
You might want to take a look at an app called Newzik: Sheet Music Reader. It checks a lot of the boxes you mentioned. However, I believe it’s only available for iOS. And it’s subscription based, but has a free trial.