The release of the iPad Pro 2018 edition presents some truly astonishing hardware that has the potential to replace a lot of what composers, performers, educators, and librarians are doing with notated music. Just don’t throw out your laptops yet.
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News-in-brief: Sibelius First, and two iOS keypad apps
Here’s a quick take on a few developments of late regarding the upcoming free Sibelius First software, and two keypad apps for iOS that offer notation software support: Sibelius KeyPad for Mac and NumPad.
MOLA 2018: Newzik entices orchestras with collaboration, annotation, organization
At the 2018 MOLA conference, I spoke with Aurélia Azoulay, Newzik’s head of marketing and international development and Netta Shahar, their orchestra specialist, to talk about how the app has progressed based on their real-world experience, including collaborations such as those with the l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie.
Using Newzik and MusicXML
The sheet music reader Newzik has an ever-growing list of annotative features designed to make the app more useful in real-world use. Recently I asked Newzik’s product manager, Matan Daskal, about the opportunities, limitations, and the future of Newzik and MusicXML.
Symphony Pro 5 takes several steps toward our mobile notation future [updated]
David MacDonald has our in-depth review of Symphony Pro 5 — the latest offering of the iOS scoring app. The latest version’s marquee feature is handwriting recognition with Apple Pencil support. See how Symphony Pro stacks up in a burgeoning marketplace of tablet-based scoring apps.
News roundup: Dorico, Sibelius, Windows 10, Symphony Pro, Newzik [updated]
Catch up on some news items from the past couple of weeks in the world of music notation software and technology. We’ve got news about Dorico crossgrades, Sibelius updates, Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, a Newzik giveaway and Symphony Pro’s new features.
Komp is a beautiful and ambitious new scoring app for iPad
Komp, the latest music handwriting recognition and scoring app for iPad, is now available after several years of development and a preview at NAMM. David MacDonald has a full review you won’t want to miss.
Paperless composition lessons with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil
Composer and educator David MacDonald describes in detail how he teaches composition using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and why he can’t imaging returning to the dead-tree way of doing things.
2016 holiday shopping guide
Have you been bad or good? We know you’ve been good, and that’s why we’ve assembled this unique holiday shopping guide for 2016 of books, apps, gear and more that you won’t find anywhere else — tailor-made especially for readers of our blog about music notation and technology.
Elaine Gould’s Behind Bars now available for Kindle and iBooks (updated)
Elaine Gould’s venerable music notation reference Behind Bars is now available as an e-book for Kindle, devices running the Kindle app, and Apple’s iBooks for Mac and iOS.