MusicPad App First Impressions: Music Whiteboard and Composition Notebook
Today I’m testing out the MusicPad app for iOS. This app markets itself as a notepad for your music. Let’s see what it does!
Watch the Video
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MusicPad App First Impressions
If you’d like to see how this app works, be sure to watch the video! Here are my first impressions after trying out the app:
Free Features and Limitations
The free account features of this app are fairly limited. You can use Apple’s built-in annotation features to write music on the staff paper within the app. There aren’t very many special or music-specific features, like stamps or stickers. You really have to write whatever you want yourself.
I didn’t try the paid version, but I see there are some extra features available!
Limitations in the Free Version
On the free version, you can only export your score as a .musicpad file. Exporting as a pdf is limited to the paid version.
There are other limitations as well, like the number of pages and copy/paste features.
Who is this app good for?
I see this app (at least the free version) as a music whiteboard. Good for writing simple music, but not quite robust enough to really compose on it.
If I were a composer (which I’m certainly not), I would want an app that utilizes the iPad’s great handwriting features but also has the capability to transform handwritten sheet music to notated (digitally engraved) music that I could then edit or send.
My Preferred Alternative
Considering the MusicPad app as a musical whiteboard, there’s a different app I’d recommend instead: Goodnotes!
So, when I bought Goodnotes in 2020, it cost $7.99. It now costs a whopping $29.99!!!! Unfortunately I didn’t realize this when I filmed the video.
I do love Goodnotes and I think it’s a great notebook app for the iPad. It has great annotation/writing features, and creating notebooks and folders is so intuitive to me.
I use Goodnotes all the time in lessons as a music whiteboard. I use a staff paper template, so each new page I add in my Lessons Notebook is staff paper and I can easily write out musical examples as I teach.
The pen features just make this app so much more versatile than MusicPad, and it can be used as a regular notebook or planner on your iPad.
Of course, these apps have different intentions behind them, so one or the other (or neither!) might be better for you depending on what you’re looking for.
Are there any other composition apps you’d like me to try? Let me know either here or on the Youtube video!
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