Scrolling Sheet Music on iPhone? Try forScore’s Reflow Feature
A quick guide to using the Reflow Forscore iPhone feature for better sheet music readability.
Have you ever tried Forscore’s iPhone app? It has a really cool feature called Reflow, which separates your sheet music line by line, and, in landscape mode, scrolls through your music as if it’s all one very long line of music.
This feature is a must-have if you anticipate playing music off a phone screen. It really optimizes the small space!
Want to know how it works? Keep reading!
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How to Find Reflow in the Forscore iPhone App
Reflow can be found in the settings wheel that appears just to the left of the title of whatever score you’re in.
Once you’re in the display settings, you’ll want to select the arrow icon in the bottom row on the right to open Reflow mode.
Getting Your Music Set Up in Forscore’s Reflow Mode
Once you’re in Reflow, you’ll see that Forscore has automatically detected the lines of music from your score and has split them up so that you can just scroll left and right through the entire score.
If your score is anything like the one that I used to test Reflow, then Forscore didn’t do a very good job at detecting the lines of music. It got the first two lines of the first page correct, then it skipped straight to the second movement!
If you’d like to adjust the line cropping, press “edit” in the top left corner. You’ll see translucent gray boxes around (hopefully) each line of music. You can adjust the cropping to get rid of white spice, or if you need to add more boxes (like if Forscore skipped over any lines), just press the plus button in the middle of the floating row of buttons. This will add a box that you can move all over the page!
Using Reflow
Once you have Reflow configured the way you’d like it, you can try using it!
You can zoom in or out of the score using the magnifying buttons.
The button that says either “page” or “scroll” (it changes between the two words when you tap the button) actually turns on the scrolling.
“Page” keeps the score in place, and you can tap on the right side of the screen to switch to the next line of music, or the left side to go back.
“Scroll” will put you in the automatic scrolling mode. Once you tap the center of the screen, the score will start moving on its own so you can play hands-free.
Adjusting the Scroll Speed
Now you’ll probably notice that the scroll speed doesn’t match the tempo you’re trying to play.
To make the tempo faster, tap on the right side of the screen. To make it much faster, tap repeatedly.
To make the tempo slower, tap on the left side of the screen. You can tap repeatedly to slow it down even more.
My Thoughts on Forscore’s Reflow Feature
I think this is a really cool feature, and is much-needed for anyone reading sheet music on their phone, especially in a pinch!
I do wish that Forscore provided a tutorial for this feature within the app. I had to do a lot of googling to troubleshoot the intricacies of this feature! I feel like the buttons aren’t clearly marked, and this is actually one time where I’d like to be walked through the feature the first time I use it in the app.
I also think this feature could have a little more control and ways to customize; I would still be pretty nervous to use this feature in a performance! Although I totally understand that they’re probably not prioritizing the iPhone app. An iPad is just so much better for reading sheet music!
Have you tried Reflow in the Forscore iPhone app? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!
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