Musician's Notebook is the songbook app that allows you to keep track of every song you play, right in your pocket, to quickly enter, edit, transpose and hear chord progressions and to always have them to hand. Never say 'I used to know that song...' again!
Everything about the app is aimed at streamlining the process so you don't have to resort to using scraps of paper. Use the dedicated 'chords' keyboard to easily tap in chord progressions and song structures, grab songs from the web with a couple of clicks and quickly edit them to be the way you think they should be.
Hear what you are doing while you are doing it... how many times have you written down a chord only to discover it's not quite right? With Musician's Notebook you'll hear it straight away and can quickly put it right, before you play it at a gig!
Transpose a chord or a whole song with a single tap, see the notes of each chord as you tap, program a rhythm for each song using one of 5 drumkits, see the tempo with a visual metronome... an app to help you learn, write, rehearse, remember, share and gig.
Songs are stored as plain text, with no special formats, Musicians' Notebook looks for chords in the text and presents chords as buttons you can play. Since it is just text you can grab songs from anywhere, edit them anywhere or in the app itself. Write a song in Musicians' Notebook and send it as an email or IM to a bandmember or accompanist... they can load it and hear the chords straight away in their Musicians' Notebook.
Edit song text: When you 'add a song' you start off in text edit mode. Here you have a custom keyboard for entering chords, text and labels. When you enter a root note such as 'F#' the keyboard automatically sets itself up for you to enter a chord symbol, such as 'maj7'. To finish editing the text click the 'pen' icon to toggle to the standard song view.
Enter flats from the keyboard: There is a button at the top left of the keyboard that will toggle between sharps and flats.
Undo changes: If you make a change you do not like you can tap 'Revert to saved' from the menu.
Save a song/ go back to the songs list page: There is no need to 'save'. All your changes are saved automatically. To go back the the songs list: (Android) Tap the device's back button. (iOS) Tap the back button the the top left of the screen OR swipe in quickly from the left edge of the screen.
Hear the notes of a chord: You'll hear the notes of a chord when you type or when you tap the chord in the standard song view. (Android) You can change these features in settings from the main menu on the songs list page. For example you can set up to arpegiate the chords to hear the individual notes more clearly.
Edit a chord in the standard song view (Android): Long press a chord button and select edit. You can then change the root, accidental (' ', '#' or 'b'), chord symbol and optional bass note.
Notebook thinks 'A' or 'Am' is a chord, but it is a lyric. How do I fix that? : (Android) In the standard song view long press the bogus chord and select 'not a chord'. Notebook will change the case so the text no longer looks like a chord. (iOS) Edit the text, for example use lower case for the 'A'.
See more of the song: In the standard song view you can pinch to zoom in or out and swipe to scroll.
Fit song to screen width (iOS): Double tap a word or a space in the song view.
Change the default text sizes (Android): In settings (menu, songs page) you can independently set the size of text the chord symbols and other text on the standard song view. For example if it is more important for you to see chords than lyrics you can set the song text to be small allowing the chords to stand out.
Transpose a song: You can transpose up or down in semitone steps using the up or down arrow buttons on the title bar. You can also transpose by a number of semitones by selecting transpose from the menu (Android). Remember that all changes are saved automatically.
Pitch shift the audio (Android): If you are playing with a capo or a transposed instrument you can shift the Notebook audio to match. Select 'Pitch shift / capo' from the menu on a song page. This setting is saved with the song.
Get songs out of Notebook: When viewing a single song you can export the song as text using 'Share song text' from the menu. This uses standard sharing mechanisms that allows you to send the text to other apps such as you email app or bluetooth export. NOTE: the rhythm pattern is not exported.
Get songs into Notebook: A song can also be sent to Notebook using the standard sharing mechanisms. Select Musicians Notebook as the target when you share text, or a web page from another app. (Android) Notebook will ask you for a title and create a new song using the text. (iOS) When you next visit the main songs list in Notebook you will be shown the import screen where you can complete the import.
Start a drum pattern/ metronome (Android): In song mode, select 'Start/stop rhythm' from the menu'.
Edit the drum beat/ or tempo (Android): In song mode, select 'Edit rhythm' from the menu'. The rhythm pattern will be saved with the song. For more information on editing drum patterns see the documentation for Drum n Drummer which is a fully fledged drum machine app using the same drum pattern editor.
Add a drum strike (Android): In the rhythm editor, tap on an empty position to add a drum strike, red for loud, amber for medium and green for quiet.
Remove a drum strike (Android): In the rhythm editor, tap on the green segment.
Save rhythm changes (Android): Changes are saved automatically, just press your back button to return to the song. The rhythm will keep playing!
remove_number_of_songs_limit: This removes the limit on the number of songs that can be stored simultaneously in the Notebook. It also removes a restriction on the absolute number of songs that can be created.
remove_adverts: Removes the banner adverts.
pro_features: This enables additional features. Note that it does not remove the number of songs limit or remove adverts, those are separate purchases. The additional features at this point are: