What Apps you're using to structure your practice?
Let me know what apps or other little helpers you are using to structure or improve your practice!
My collection includes:
I use this to scan and import all my scores and have them ready on my iPad. It significantly improved the health of my back 
But I also like to organize lists with pieces I am currently working on or materials for teaching. The possibility to have several layers of annotations is excellent to use individual layers for students or to have a blank page when it comes to making a new annotated score for a live stream! I use forScore together with a Bluetooth pageturner, the "PageFlip Firefly".
An easy-to-use metronome is indispensable for everyday practice, and ProMetronome has been with me since my first smartphone days. I am sure there are alternatives with the same feature set, but I like the ease of use and the possibility to highlight specific beats in a bar. A great help was the ability to display polyrhythms visually, but you need the paid version for that (which I generally use for all my apps, I don't want to be blasted by ads when I am practicing).
Stay focused, be present. I use this as a practice timer. It shows you the number of sessions as little trees and is an excellent gamified way to have more focus sessions with your instrument!
What Apps or helpers do you use? Let me know!
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A useful thread - thank you. I also use Forscore and enjoy the benefits. But how do other people transfer pieces from their own paper scores onto Forscore? I have been using a little App called JotNot Pro. It cost hardly anything and is extremely simple: it uses the camera on an ordinary phone to upload the file to DropBox: ForScore then downloads it into the system from Dropbox. But my copy of JotNot has suddenly stopped working. It just gives a false error message and freezes every time I try to transfer a score to Dropbox. I've tried the usual things - uninstalling & reinstalling, restarting the phone - nothing works. I'd be very grateful for any suggestions from anyone as to possible solutions or other, perhaps better, ways of transferring music from physical scores to ForScore. Many thanks.
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John Erskine forScore has a built-in scanner which I regularly use to import printed sore into the app!
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Martin Thank you: I'll look into that!
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John Erskine I either take pictures with my phone, or better, scan with my printer and save the scan to a USB drive. I think most printers will create PDF files by default when you scan to USB. Save that PDF to your cloud storage if needed (for example, if you’re using an iPad) and then these can easily be imported into forscore.
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David Wilson You can scan from within ForScore now, too
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I don’t use apps for my practice, I just do it and carry things in my head. I like the feel of real paper pages and I think you can see more on a page at a bigger size that on a screen - but maybe I’m wrong on that? But thanks for the tips for pro metronome, especially the polyrhythm element and I can see the attraction of forest. Really nice idea and I know it will be very attractive to lots of people! But does the tree become the focus of attention rather than the music? Just wondering
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I just discovered Imslp.org, where we can download pdfs of sheet music. It is incredibly useful, for many editions are available. This makes it possible to consider various fingerings and other annotations. Is Forscore a good app for converting the pdfs into a swipable file on my iPad? I purchased a PageFlip Firefly and am ready to put all of this together.
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Jenny Harrison You have a little typo in your address-you must mean imslp.org/, and it is terrific!
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Jenny, Yes that pdf option should work just fine. And yes, imslp is a great resource!
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Great question! I love IMSLP and ForScore on my iPad, and my basic timer on my phone. I also make practice recordings to help me figure out the millions of mistake I make! What I need to do better, though, is nail down my objectives for each practice session.
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I set the timer on my iPhone to make myself think I’m only going to play for 10 minutes. This gets me playing started playing when I don’t feel like it but after 10 minutes I don’t feel like stopping. Sometimes just getting started is the hardest part so I fool myself…
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imslp.org, musescore, MusicNotes, and my beloved Virtual SheetMusic.com (not in the order listed).
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Forscore (for organizing and displaying my scores), musescore (for writing exercises), imslp, instrumentative (for planning, logging and tracking practice)
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I read someone is using a "diary" to keep track of their practice. Is this something you would suggest? I
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I use an app called "Now Then" to keep track of my practice time. It's designed as a task timer, so not specifically for music. You can define tasks, and group them into folders. Each piece I am working on is a task, and when I start practicing something I tap that task and it keeps track of the time.
It's a good way to keep track of the current pieces I am working on. When I am done with a piece, I move it into an "Archive" folder (if I am really done with it) or a "Resting" folder if I plan to pick it up again later.
You can see charts and totals and so forth. I don't obsess over the times, but it is nice to see at a glance how much I practiced today.
The app has not been updated in a long time - still works though. There may be newer, better ones out there for keeping track of hours worked. I don't like the apps that are too obtrusive. Simple is better. Start the app, tap the task button, and practice...
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I've been using forScore for score management/annotation for years. For like the past year I've had issues with more-complex-scores in my library getting corrupted. Recently it's gotten worse, I now lose things like page cropping *and* the layers get mashed. Their support guy has been nice.... but it's still a problem and I never know how many backups I need to keep to avoid my library becoming a mess, lately even backups don't work. Is there anyone else with these kinds of issues? Scanning responses to this thread it doesn't look like anyone uses anything else? Another concern is how using an app on an iPad showing mostly white screens chugs through battery. I'm intrigued by Kindle Scribe type solutions if anyone has tried those for music.
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I use mainly imslp to download and play using the scores on the imslp app itself, and l recently started to use Tonic, for tracking my practice. If you like stats, it shows your daily practice time on a graph and calculates a daily average each week, and you can practice in private or in "public", where other members can listen in.
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Natalie Peh Thank you for recommending Tonic, Natalie! I love when we get to “visit” each other’s practice rooms. And I like tracking how much time I - and other students - spend practicing the pieces I am working on. I certainly practice a lot LESS than I thought!
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Gail Starr glad you are enjoying the Tonic app, it's got amazing functions. I love tracking my practice but sometimes forget to list the piece I am practising ;) there's a challenge on Tonic starting in a few hours so there will many more people practising on the app this week!
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Natalie Peh I think the challenge will encourage ME to practice more, too!
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Gail Starr and me too :)
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I enjoy the Tonara app as it's designed for practicing to keep myself organized. PDFs, web links, videos, and audio can be attached. I also enjoy the practice leaderboard. It tracks your time as well.
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Amber I’ll have to try this!
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I’m trialling Modacity at the moment - it looks promising. I particularly like the ability to create a practice list, with the ability to add notes for each piece, such as what elements to work on that week. My aim is to improve my focus when practicing rather than just “playing”.
