Is Forscore Pro Worth It?

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Since I downloaded Forscore Pro a few weeks ago for my last video and blog post, I thought now would be a great time to go over the features and answer the question, is Forscore Pro worth it?

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Forscore vs. Forscore Pro

Forscore is an iOS-only sheet music reading app. It’s one of, if not the most popular sheet music reading app used by all kinds of musicians.

Forscore is regularly a $19.99 one-time purchase app. You buy it in the App Store, and you’ll have it forever! However, Forscore also offers a Pro subscription that gives you access to extra features. The subscription is $9.99 annually, or you can try it for a month like I am for $2.99.

Forscore

Forscore offers so many great features within the app, just with the one-time purchase. You can add as many scores into your library as your iPad will hold, and you can make as many annotations as you’d like. You can turn pages by tapping the screen, using a Bluetooth pedal, or even using AirPods Pro.

I’ve been using Forscore for almost four years, and have never felt like I needed to add on the Pro subscription.

Forscore Pro

Forscore Pro is not an extra app; the subscription just adds extra features into the app you already have. Features include extra stamps, face gestures, and Apple Pencil hover menus, in addition to others.

Let’s dive into the Forscore Pro features!

Pop Up Menus

The first feature Forscore Pro offers is pop up menus. You can tap and drag on many icons throughout the app to bring up small menus to access what you’re looking for just a little bit faster.

Pop Up Menus in the Top Bar:

Main menu (scores)
- Go back, now playing, import
Bookmarks
- Add bookmark, flag page
Setlists
- Next score, previous score, edit
Search
- Shows the last five scores you’ve opened
Metronome
- Audible, visible, both, off
Settings
- Settings, backup, sync, crop, dashboard

Pop Up Menus in Annotation Mode:

Stamps, Shapes, Pens, Eraser
- Change the size
Select Tool
- Freeform, rectangle
Layers
- Select any layer

Face Gestures

I personally love using a Bluetooth pedal to turn my pages in Forscore, but I know that some musicians don’t like them, and others can’t use them. The regular version of Forscore lets you connect a pedal, tap the screen, or use AirPods Pro to turn the page. Forscore Pro adds face gestures: by either turning your head, moving your mouth, or winking, you can turn your pages!

Unfortunately none of the gestures work very well for me. I had the most luck with mouth movement, but it’s not always super reliable. Personally, I would feel very nervous using the gestures during a performance, unless I were to practice them more and figure out a way to get it to work reliably.

By using the head turns, you can turn your head to the right to move forward, or turn to the left to move backwards. For all of these gestures, you can reverse the movements. Mouth movements lets you turn the page by moving your mouth to the right or left, and winking is also very similar: wink your right eye to turn forward, or wink your left eye to turn back.

The head turns worked maybe 50% of the time for me; the mouth movements about 75%, and I could hardly get the winking to work at all! Personally, I’m horrible at winking, so I got my fiancé to try it: He couldn’t get it to work, but I actually did get it to turn a few times!

If you’re interested in learning more about Face Gestures, check out my full review here!

Apple Pencil Hover Menus

On newer iPads that offer Apple Pencil hover options, Forscore Pro will let you use this feature to access pen choices, edit your annotations, and choose a few other annotation-related options.

Unfortunately, since my iPad Pro is from 2020 and doesn’t support Apple Pencil hover, I couldn’t test out this feature.

Profiles

Another Forscore Pro feature is the ability to create multiple profiles. I originally thought creating multiple profiles would be helpful for those looking to better organize their scores, but it turns out that no matter what profile you use in the app, you’ll always have access to the same score library. So the only differences between profiles are settings and gestures.

Having multiple profiles can be helpful if you want to use different gestures and settings for practicing vs. performing, or if you share an iPad with someone else, and they prefer different settings from you.

Stamps

Forscore Pro gives you access to more stamps that you can annotate with. The screenshots above show you the stamps that are exclusive to the Forscore Pro subscription.

Layer Copy and Paste

Another Pro-only annotation feature is the ability to copy and paste all the annotations from one page to another.

Navigate to the layers, then tap and hold the layer you’d like to copy. Press copy, then go to the page and layer you’d like to paste it to. Tap and hold on the layer, and then press paste.

I could see this feature being useful if you have a scanned score with lots of black or shadows that are fairly consistent on all pages. You could “white out” the black, and then copy and paste that to any other page where it’s needed.

It also might be helpful if you have a general note at the top or side of the page that you’d like to see on all pages of the score.

App Icons

The final Forscore Pro feature is access to alternate app icons for your Home Screen.

Go to Settings > App Icons to see what you can choose from. Select what you’d like, and it should update on your Home Screen!

Personally, I don’t feel that I need any of the features available in Forscore Pro, so I don’t plan to renew my subscription. I’ve loved the regular version of Forscore the last four years, and don’t feel like any of the pro features are necessary for me.

If you need face gestures, or love using stamps or want the added convenience of Apple Pencil hover and pop up menus, the Forscore Pro subscription will probably be great for you! The $9.99 annual price really isn’t that bad if you like the features!

If you have any questions about Forscore Pro, please ask me soon so I can find the answer before my subscription runs out at the end of the month! I’m happy to make reels answering questions, or even a longer YouTube video if needed.

Have you tried Forscore Pro? What are your thoughts? Let me know down below!