StevenI have recently gotten back into playing piano and I’m am always on the lookout for ways the iPad or other tech can improve practice. I’ve used a few apps that let you find music others have uploaded, but you have to turn the page and it can be a little annoying.
I found an app that has a unique way of turning the digital page. Winking. Yes, you wink your right eye at your iPad to turn the page, and if you wink your left eye, it will go back to the previous page. Amazing.
Let’s get to the app (it’s free, by the way).
Piascore
When looking at the Piascore website, it hasn’t been updated since 2019, but the last iOS update was March 2024, so I’m glad to see they’re still updating this app. I won’t get into all the details of this app, but I’ll highlight the ones I use the most.
To get music into Piascore, you can download directly in the app, purchase via the store, import from Dropbox, Google, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Box or WebDAV, take pictures of sheet music you have, or create a blank staff to write your own. I wish you could import more than one at a time, but having this option for free is nice.
This will add music to the All Scores section. If you’re planning on playing live, you can create setlists and rearrange the song order.
While viewing a song, you can use your finger or Apple Pencil to make notations and notes. I know this seems like a common sense feature you’d have for a music app, but you’d be surprised at how many apps don’t let you do this!
Now my favorite feature of all: Face gesture page turning. I use the wink to turn pages because for some reason, I can’t move my jaw/mouth in a way it recognizes it (plus winking doesn’t look as goofy). I do like how the app disables the feature for 2 seconds after a page is turned so you’re not turning multiple pages at once if your gesture is misread.
If you’ve been looking for a good, free iPad app to use for sheet music, I suggest giving Piascore a look. If you want the pro features, it is a one-time cost of $5.99, which is a fantastic price to support these developers.