Notes
Write notes directly into your sheet music – fingerings, cues, music symbols, your own colors and announcements for your section.
What you used to write into paper sheet music with a pencil – fingerings, cues, breath marks – you do directly on screen in SinfoniaOne. Your notes sit on top of the sheet music.
Phone app only
You write notes only in the app on your smartphone or tablet, in the performance player. It's not possible on a computer in the browser. It works best with a stylus – what the Apple Pencil adds on top is described below.
Your notes belong to you
Normally nobody but you sees them
Every note belongs to you by default – and the original PDF stays unchanged. So there's nothing you can break: delete your notes, and the sheet music is back the way it was. Others only see a note if you explicitly share it.
The tools
In the player you'll find a toolbar with everything you need to mark up:
- Pen – draw and write freely.
- Highlighter – highlight spots in color.
- Eraser – remove your own entries again.
- Shapes – crescendo, decrescendo, slur or a simple line.
- Music symbols – ready-made marks to tap and place: dynamics, articulation, breath marks, repeats, accidentals, ornaments, rests and more.
With the Apple Pencil
Writing with a stylus feels like writing on paper – and the app makes use of what the stylus can do beyond that.
You see the tip before it touches down
Hold the Apple Pencil above the page without touching it, and the app shows a dot right there: in the color and the width you are about to write with. With the eraser you see the circle that is about to take something away; with a music symbol you see the symbol itself.
On a sheet of music it comes down to millimetres – whether a fingering sits above the right note is decided by less than a notehead. With the preview you hit it the first time.
Needs a newer iPad
Hovering works with the Apple Pencil (2nd generation) and the Apple Pencil Pro on an iPad Pro with an M2 chip or newer, and on the newer iPad Air models. On older devices the stylus writes as usual, just without the preview.
Press harder, write wider
The stylus senses how hard you press: a light stroke comes out thin, an emphatic one thick – just like a pencil. A hastily drawn accidental now looks like one.
With the highlighter, tilt comes into play as well: hold the stylus flat and it lays down a wider trail, the way a real marker does when you put it on its edge.
You set both yourself – see Stylus settings.
Your hand may rest on the screen
The first time you write with a stylus, the app turns on palm rejection: from then on only the stylus writes, and the hand resting on the screen no longer turns the page by accident. The app tells you when this happens.
You can undo it any time with the hand button in the toolbar – then finger and stylus write together again.
Double-tap and squeeze
On the Apple Pencil (2nd generation and newer) you tap the barrel twice to switch tools – without reaching for the toolbar. The Apple Pencil Pro can be squeezed as well.
What happens follows what you set on the iPad under Settings → Apple Pencil. If you want it to behave differently in SinfoniaOne, change it in the stylus settings.
Stylus settings
Once the app has seen a stylus, a slider icon appears in the toolbar. Behind it you set:
- Pressure – how much pressing down changes the stroke width (down to off).
- Tilt – how much the highlighter widens when you hold the stylus flat.
- Preview while hovering – show the tip before it touches down, or not.
- Double-tap and Squeeze – what the gestures on the stylus do.
This device only
The stylus settings belong to the device, not to your account – just like your colors.
What it looks like stays what it looks like
Pressure is applied while you write and stored with the note. Change the setting later and only what you write from then on changes – notes you already wrote stay as they are. The exported PDF shows exactly what you saw on screen.
Your own colors
Next to the five colors in the toolbar there's the palette icon: it opens a large color grid where you can pick any color you like – including greys for that pencil look.
Colors you pick there are remembered under “My colors” and appear in the toolbar next time. Pen, highlighter and music symbols each keep their own color.
This device only
Your color choices belong to the device, not to your account. So your tablet can have different colors set than your phone.
The eraser never removes anything for good
The eraser lays itself over your strokes like a film instead of deleting them. That means: if you erased too much, tap Undo and the strokes are back – even if it was already saved in between.
The eraser never affects the printed music. It only takes away your own strokes.
Sharing notes with others
Some remarks concern more than just you: “clarinets softer here” belongs to the section, not to your own copy. If you're allowed to do this, you'll find an audience row above the toolbar.
Choose the audience
Above the tools, tap Just me, a part (e.g. “Clarinet (Bb)”) or Whole band.
Write the note
Everything you draw now belongs to that audience. Your private notes stay untouched – they sit on their own layer and are not shared along with it.
Back to yourself
Tap Just me again to keep writing for yourself only. The shared note stays where it is and now appears fainter, just like shared notes from other people.
Who may share
The conductor can write to the whole band and to any part. A section leader can write to the parts of the section they currently lead. Everybody else writes for themselves only.
You recognise shared notes by the fainter ink
Notes from others sit fainter underneath your own and cannot be changed – not even with the eraser. Only the person who wrote a shared note can change it.
Shared does not mean visible to everyone
A shared note never shows anyone sheet music they aren’t allowed to see: a member only gets it on the sheets they may see anyway (see sheet music visibility).
How to write a note
Choose a tool
Open the toolbar in the player and tap the tool you want – e.g. the pen or a music symbol.
Write into the sheet music
Draw or place your note in the right spot. You place a music symbol with a tap; with the pen you write freely.
Saved automatically
Your notes are saved automatically – even without internet. They're there the next time you open the piece.
Shared notes need internet
Only your private notes are cached offline and sent along later. If you write to a part or to the whole band without a connection, the app tells you – otherwise you'd be drawing an announcement that never arrives.
Share a PDF with notes
You can export and share a PDF with notes. It contains exactly what you see on screen: your own notes plus the shared ones meant for you. However, this only works for individual part PDFs – not for combined bundles or entire setlists. You can export and share a PDF with your own notes – for individual part PDFs and for the play bundle of a setlist: in the preview, switch "My notes" to "Bake in".
It does not work for the print export or the march book: those re-bundle the pages, so there would be no way to say which page a note belongs on.
Either way: it is always only your notes, and the originals in the archive stay untouched.