How To Use PlayScore 2

We love to hear from PlayScore 2 users.  And we are very good at troubleshooting problems.  So if you have an issue, or you just want to ask something please send us an email to support@organumconsulting.com  We usually reply the same day.

If it’s about a particular piece, please attach the PlayScore 2 Document.  Go to the Documents screen and

iOS: tap Select, then tap your document

Android: long-tap the document

Now the export icon .  The document contains PDF, photos and settings.

PlayScore 2 and PlayScore 2 documents do not collect any personal data.  The only way we know about you is if you send us an email.

PlayScore 2 has two main screens.  The Documents screen is PlayScore home.  The app starts in the Documents screen.  When you tap a document or when you have taken a picture, PlayScore 2 shows the Play screen. The Play screen is where you play and interact with the music.  The screens are described separately below.

This is where you interact with your document.  You go to the Play screen from the Documents screen when you

On the Play screen:

Tap to see what all the controls do.

Playback depends on a good photo.  Tap  on the camera screen for swipeable help on taking the best photo.

Start your score on the Documents screen.  Tap the camera icon to take the first picture.   PlayScore 2 will then switch to the Play screen and start playing

NB if your score contains transposing instruments you will need to turn on the Auto transpose feature.  Tap the cogwheel and then tap Auto transposition.

Most music is portrait shaped, but PlayScore 2 works just as well in landscape if the music is wide.

After the first, keep tapping the camera to add pages.  PlayScore 2 always plays a new page at once (without repeats) so you can judge whether to recapture.  At the same time PlayScore 2 builds the whole piece in the background.

Tip: the better the picture the better the result – See Camera help

Playback depends on the picture you take.  If it doesn’t play well the reason is usually the picture

The picture should look clean and square on the page.  The sides and the measure lines should look vertical.  The top and the bottom should be the same width.

When you first use the camera, tap the ? button to see some swipeable help illustrations on the camera screen.

Things to avoid

PlayScore 2 does not read handwritten music or music printed to look handwritten.  These scores or parts of them have a felt-tipped-pen look with thick clefs and accidentals.  RealBooks are in this style.

Old-style hand-held hymnbooks do not scan well.  There are a large number of hymns available free online in a normal font.  We recommend using these instead.

Screens do not photograph well.  Sometimes this works, but PlayScore 2 is designed for paper music, scans in high resolution or  PDF scores.

To access PDF scores you need a Professional subscription to PlayScore 2.  Please tap the Store button to see options for your country.

Any good quality high resolution PDF score should play well.  Most published PDF scores are of good quality.  There is also an enormous number of printed/engraved music available free online, on sites like IMSLP.  Not all of this music is well enough scanned, but most is.  It is well worth selecting the best out of those available.

It is easy to play a PDF score:

When the PDF has opened, PlayScore 2 shows a row of page thumbnails.  Tap Done to go ahead and play up to 11 pages; PlayScore 2 will just ignore title and contents pages.  If it’s a long document with many pages you can select a range.

NB if your score contains transposing instruments you will need to turn on the Auto transpose feature.  Tap the cogwheel and tap Auto transposition.

If PlayScore 2 has trouble playing your PDF it may be out of focus, poorly scanned or low resolution.  If it came from IMSLP there are often several alternatives.  If there are some mistakes, try adjusting PDF Process Quality on the control panel (tap the cogwheel ).  The best setting depends on the individual score and can be found with a little trial and error.

If it’s a complex score with many pages it may take a little time to build.  To make this happen in the background while you do something else just tap Documents (top left).  Back in the Documents screen, you will see the little status dot animated, showing that PlayScore 2 is working on your score.

To process a PDF score you need a Professional subscription to PlayScore 2.  Please tap the Store button to see options for your country.

You can create playable PlayScore 2 documents from saved photos and images just as you can for photos.

If the scanned images are in your photos, go to the camera screen as if you were taking a picture, but instead of tapping the capture button, tap Photos.  If your scanned images are elsewhere, eg iCloud then tap the import symbol .

Please note: PlayScore 2 needs a high resolution JPG image.  Images smaller than about 1.5M may give poor results.

PlayScore 2 allows you to adjust the volume of each part in the music independently, and assign a different instrument to each staff.

Play-My-Part

Whatever part you sing or play, PlayScore 2 can play just that part on its own, or standing out from the others.

Music with one part per staff

Music with two parts per staff

Some multi-part vocal music is written with two parts to each staff. This is common in barbershop quartets but can also be true of hymns and in musical theatre.

PlayScore 2 can separate parts when written 2-to-a-staff as long as they are printed stem-up/stem-down. For example if the soprano and alto parts are printed on the same staff, PlayScore 2 can separate them, as long as the soprano is printed with stems going up and the alto with stems going down.

Count-in (Apple devices only) – If you need a little time to pick up your instrument, tap the icon 2nd from the left at the bottom and select a number of Count-in measures

A Music-minus-one score is a PlayScore 2 Playable Score with one part (usually the solo part) muted. Music-minus-one lets you practice your solo part to an accompaniment.

Instruments – you can enhance your score to use instruments (see Instruments and orchestration)

If your score has transposing instruments you can use the Auto-transpose feature (see Transposing instruments)

Count-in (Apple devices only) – If you need a little time to pick up your instrument, tap the icon 2nd from the left at the bottom and select a number of Count-in measures

When you share a PlayScore 2 Playable Score Document you are sharing the whole PlayScore 2 experience.  Anyone who receives your document will be able to play it and follow the music just as you do.  This is free; they don’t need a subscription.  They will be able to start from any measure, change tempo, create loops and more.

When someone receives your document, as long as they have an iPhone, iPad or Android device they will be able to play it.  To do this they must first have downloaded PlayScore 2 from the App Store.  This is free; they don’t need a subscription.  If the document comes in an email they just tap on the attachment and choose ‘Send to PlayScore 2’

Locking

Sometimes it is useful to prevent the recipient from accidentally changing the Document.  Say you are a choir leader and you want to send Play-my-part voice separations to your singers.  You might want to lock the Document so it can’t be changed unintentionally.  To do this just tap the padlock symbol top right before export.

If you want to share a score with someone who has an Android device of a PC, you can still send a MIDI file.  See Sharing a MIDI file.

PlayScore 2 will observe repeats written into your music, but sometimes it is useful to be able to repeat a short section.  This can help if you are learning a piece and want to play a passage over and over again, perhaps slowly at first and then getting up to speed.

To set a loop.  Tap and hold on the first measure in the loop.  When the green brackets appear, drag your finger to the final measure.  The music between the brackets will go on repeating until you tap the pause key.  To remove the loop just tap somewhere outside.  While looping you can still change the tempo, and stop/restart play.

Metronome

To hear on the metronome tap the icon lower left on the Play screen and turn on the Tick button.  The volume control underneath lets you adjust the tick volume relative to the music.  The sound the metronome makes depends on the current time signature, with strong beats emphasized over weak.

Count-in

If you are using PlayScore 2 as an accompanist, you may not want the app to start playing until you are ready.  This is the purpose of the Count-in feature.  Count-in will tap out one or more measures before the music starts, giving you time to pick up your instrument.

Tap the Count-in icon 2nd from left at the bottom.  Tap+/- to set the number of measures to be counted.  If the music has a pick-up bar or anacrusis, Count-in will also tap the beats prior to the first notated beat.

While one or more measures of Count-in are set they will be played before the music starts wherever you tap in a score.

(Apple devices only)

On iOS devices, PlayScore 2 can recognise multi-measure rests.  To enable this feature tap the cogwheel and then Lyrics and Text.

NB We do not recommend MIDI files for practice tracks sent to others.  MIDI will work, but PlayScore provides a better way.  If you use this PlayScore feature recipients will see the music and follow along just as you do.  This feature is free for the recipient.   Please see Preparing practice scores for a choir or ensemble, or watch this video

Creating MIDI files

In PlayScore you can export a MIDI file to play on any mobile or desktop device and sound as the music did in PlayScore 2.

Whatever adjustments you make to the music: voice volume, transpositions, instruments , tempo, repeats and so on are reflected in the exported MIDI file.  However, note that MIDI is not the same as a recording.  MIDI is a standard for controlling (electronic) musical instruments.  When a MIDI file is played on another device it plays using the instrument sounds on that device.  This means that the sound of the instruments will probably be somewhat different.

To share a MIDI file, open the document and from the Play screen, tap the export icon  and choose ‘Save as MIDI’.

MIDI as music notation

We don’t recommend that you use MIDI to export music to a score editor such as MuseScore, Finale, Sibelius, Noteflight or Dorico.  Use MusicXML instead.  MusicXML contains much more of the printed music than MIDI does.  Only through MusicXML export will you get the full richness of the original notation.

PlayScore 2 is designed to allow the musical director of a choir or ensemble to create practice resources for singers and players.  Play-My-Part and Music-minus-one arrangements can be shared with others free.  The director needs a subscription to make the practice scores, but the singers/players can play and interact with them free.

Your ensemble members should first download PlayScore 2 on their iOS or Android device.  They won’t have to pay.  When they get your email they tap on the attachment and choose ‘Copy to PlayScore 2’.  They will then be able to interact with the music just as you did.

Creating MIDI tracks

PlayScore 2 playing-scores are best for iOS or Android devices.  But if you need to listen on a PC, you can still create MIDI files with parts separated that sound just the same.  Any device or desktop can play a MIDI file so this option works for people with Macs or PCs.

On most devices the recipient can play the MIDI just by tapping it.

The PlayScore 2 Documents screen shows all your playable scores as thumbnails of the music, displayed sorted and searchable by Title and Composer.

To make it easier to search and sort, use both the Title and Composer fields.  You can set these from the Play screen.  To see the Composer field, pull down the slider under the Title, or tap the cogwheel .

In the Documents screen you can keep your documents sorted by Title, by Composer or by recency.  To display only matching documents, type in the search box.

PlayScore 2 does not sync the documents screen between devices, but you can archive to bulk to storage (eg iCloud).  From the Documents screen tap Select.  Now tap all the documents you want to copy and tap the export icon.  This action does not remove the documents from the Documents screen.  Documents can be deleted separately by selecting and tapping the trash .

The control panel contains options and settings applying to a score.   At the top of the Play screen, tap the cogwheel or pull down the horizontal bar just below the song title.

Title – you can type a title for your song here.  If it is a PDF, the name of the PDF will appear here by default

Composer – if you add a name here you will be able to search by composer in the Documents screen

Status – this tells you the processing status of your score.  If it indicates that there is a problem, try tapping the rescan button

Rescan – to the right of the Status is a circular ‘recycle’ icon.  This rotates to show when scanning is in progress.  You can rescan the music at any time by tapping this icon

Dynamic range – this tells PlayScore 2 how much to vary the volume according to markings like f, p, crescendos, diminuendos, accents etc.  If you slide it to the right you will hear the full dynamic range in the music.  All the way to the left causes the music to be played without dynamics

Play repeats – this tells PlayScore 2 to observe repeat markings in the music.  NB when you capture a page of music with the camera, PlayScore 2 plays the page through once so you can check the photo.  This initial play-through plays without repeats.  If the photo wasn’t perfect you can swipe right to recapture.

Note that this does not affect MusicXML export which always reflects any repeats

Auto transposition – turn this on to set transpositions appropriately for transposing instruments in mixed-instrument scores.  For example, if your piece is for clarinet and piano, and the clarinet is in Bb say, auto-transposition will make the clarinet part play at the pitch a clarinet would have done.  See Transposing instruments and transposition for more information

Split Staves – turn this on if you want to separate parts printed two to a staff.  It allows you to set the volume for upstem and downstem parts separately

Swing – turn this on if you would like to hear the music in swing style.

When swing is enabled , even quavers (8th notes) are (approximately) tripletised as heard in swing music.  The first quaver becomes the length of two triplet quavers and the second one.

This video shows the use of the Swing feature with French baroque music in inégales style.

https://youtu.be/KqIGXWUaRaU

Lyrics and text – this option causes PlayScore 2 to recognise lyrics, directions and text generally, and build them into exported MusicXML files.  Where possible guitar chords are also recognised.

Troubleshooting (Advanced options)

Error correction – this is an auto-correction feature that can spot mistakes in a score or or recognition errors.  In most music it works well, but in some music where there are false relations (notes played together on the same degree of the scale but with a different accidentals) Error correction may try to ‘correct’ these.  If this happens, turn the setting off.

Sampling (PDF scores only) this allows you to alter how the music is processed.  Essentially this setting determines how densely the image is sampled.  Some scores translate better at a lower or a higher setting and it is worth trying different settings for best results.  For poor quality scores it is sometimes possible to find a ‘sweet spot’ where the music sounds best.  For dense scores containing many staves results may be better at the + end of the scale.

Image – this control can be used to compensate when an image or parts of it are very faint, or very black.  The dark end of the scale(left) makes the image darker, the right lighter.

PlayScore 2 automatically adjusts to compensate for a wide range of image exposure, even when there are shadows.  But in extreme cases this control can be helpful.

faint scores – scores produced by certain early music editors can have staff lines that are very faint compared to other objects.  Other types of score have stems and lines so thin that render faint in the PDF.  For faint scores generally try moving the slider left towards the dark end.

dark scores – where a score has an over-exposed look with thick lines and symbols merging into one another, try moving the slider to the right.

The control panel contains options and settings applying to a score.   At the top of the Play screen, tap the cogwheel or pull down the horizontal bar just below the song title.

Title – you can type a title for your song here.  If it is a PDF, the name of the PDF will appear here by default

Composer – if you add a name here you will be able to search by composer in the Documents screen

Status – this tells you the processing status of your score.  If it indicates that there is a problem, try tapping the rescan button

Rescan – to the right of the Status is a circular ‘recycle’ icon.  This rotates to show when scanning is in progress.  You can rescan the music at any time by tapping this icon

Dynamic range – this tells PlayScore 2 how much to vary the volume according to markings like f, p, crescendos, diminuendos, accents etc.  If you slide it to the right you will hear the full dynamic range in the music.  All the way to the left causes the music to be played without dynamics

PDF process quality (PDF scores only) this allows you to alter how the music is processed.  In general this is a quality/speed tradeoff, but some scores translate better at a lower or a higher setting and it is worth trying different settings for best results.  For some poor quality scores it is possible to find a ‘sweet spot’ where the music sounds best

Play repeats – with this setting on, PlayScore 2 plays any repeats in the music.  Note that this does not affect MusicXML export which always reflects any repeats

Auto transposition – turn this on to set transpositions appropriately for transposing instruments in mixed-instrument scores.  For example, if your piece is for clarinet and piano, and the clarinet is in Bb say, auto-transposition will make the clarinet part play at the pitch a clarinet would have done.  See Transposing instruments and transposition for more information

Staff voices – turn this on if you want to separate parts printed two to a staff.  It allows you to set the volume for upstem and downstem parts separately

Swing – turn this on if you would like to hear the music in swing style.

When swing is enabled , even quavers (8th notes) are (approximately) tripletised as heard in swing music.  The first quaver becomes the length of two triplet quavers and the second one.

This video shows the use of the Swing feature with French baroque music in inégales style.

https://youtu.be/KqIGXWUaRaU

Error correction – this is an auto-correction feature that can spot mistakes in a score or or recognition errors.  In most music it works well, but in some music where there are false relations (notes played together on the same degree of the scale but with a different accidentals) Error correction may try to ‘correct’ these.  If this happens, turn the setting off.

The padlock at the top right of the Play screen shows the locked status of the document.  A locked document cannot be altered.  When you are happy with a document, lock it to prevent accidental changes.

This works like Photos.  Tap Select and tap the document(s) to be deleted.  Then tap the bin .

Masking allows you to cover up portions of a page and make them invisible to PlayScore 2.  For example, if a song in a songbook ends half way down the page and you don’t want the beginning of the next song to play you can mask it off.

Another use for masking is to hide any part of a page that is preventing correct recognition.  For example, some vocal scores begin with an indication of the voice part ranges.  If this causes a playback problem just mask it off.

In PlayScore 2 you can set the instrument for each staff independently.  Try out new orchestrations and see how your music sounds with different combinations of instruments.

In PlayScore 2, instrument selection affects the sound only.  If you choose the horn for example you will hear the notes on that staff as a horn.  If a real horn player were to read the same notes the music would come out transposed – because the horn is a transposing instrument.   But in PlayScore 2, instrument selection affects sound only.  PlayScore 2 also has extensive facilities for accommodating transposing instruments which is discussed below.

You might find you have to adjust the volume sliders for different combinations of instruments to make the sounds blend, or to make a solo part stand out.

You might need to use PlayScore’s transposition for several reasons

These situations are all different:

The score has transposing instruments (with different key signatures)

Normally PlayScore 2 assumes that all staves have the same key signature.  This assumption helps PlayScore 2 read poor quality scores, but it doesn’t work when there are transposing instruments.  To handle transposing instruments correctly.

PlayScore 2 will reprocess the music.  In most cases it will play correctly.  However, if your score has an old-style horn or a trumpet part, written without a key signature (when other staves have them) it will need special treatment.  See Transposing Brass below.

Making music sound higher or lower

Suppose you want to make the music play in a different key, so that it will suit your voice better, or to make a piano part sound right when you read a solo part written at pitch on a transposing instrument.  To do that, use the Staves screen to transpose all the staves up or down by the same interval.

As an example, suppose you have a song with piano accompaniment but you want PlayScore 2 to accompany you on your Bb clarinet.  Because every note on the Bb clarinet sounds a tone lower than written, you should transpose the music down by two semitones.  Then the piano, played by PlayScore 2 will accompany your clarinet in the same key.  Note that the music still looks the same.  PlayScore 2 just plays a tone lower to match your Bb clarinet. (in this example you would also need to mute the voice part so the PlayScore 2 plays just the accompaniment)

Changing the written key

This is different from the example above.  In this case the aim is to transpose the notation for the music, for a human to play.  The best way to do this is to export the music as it stands as MusicXML, and use SeeScore or a notation editor like MuseScore or Finale to transpose the music.  One advantage of using SeeScore is that you can do everything on your mobile device.

Transposing manually (transposing brass)

Manual transposition provides a solution for any transposing situation that cannot be accommodated automatically with the Auto transposition feature.  This includes old-style scores involving transposing brass as well as other rare cases.

Transposing brass: trumpet and horn

In many old scores, horn and trumpet parts are written without a key signature, regardless of key.  Players understand this convention, but the lack of a key signature prevents PlayScore 2’s Auto transposition feature from determining the correct transposition.

To make these scores play correctly, the transpositions must be set up manually:

Export

When you export a score with manual transpositions as MusicXML, and open it in a score editor it will look just as in the original score, with each instrument taking the right key signature.  However unlike Auto transposed scores, to playback correctly the score editor must know what the instruments are. The score editor documentation will tell you how to do this.

Examples

The transposition you enter on the Staves screen should be the same as the transposition the instrument performs.  After all, all you are doing is telling PlayScore 2 to play like a clarinet or a saxophone.  A clarinet in Bb for example transposes down one tone, i.e. 2 semitones; so the transposition you enter for its staff is -2.  An alto saxophone transposes up by a major 6th (+9).  A horn in F transposes down a fifth (-7).

Determining the transpositions interval

The first page of a score will normally list the instruments and their keys.  The key will tell you the transposition interval but not the direction up or down.  Wikipedia’s article ‘List of transposing instruments’ contains comprehensive information.  Once you know what note the instrument sounds for a notated middle C, count the number of semitone steps in between and set the PlayScore 2 transposition to that number, positive or negative.

Guitar and other instruments that transpose at the octave

Some instruments (eg piccolo) transpose at the octave.  A piccolo, seeing a notated middle C plays the C one octave above.  In the case of the guitar the transposition is the other way.  A written middle C played on a guitar sounds one octave lower.  Guitar music will play from a photo or a PDF, but it will sound an octave too high:

If you export the score as MusicXML to a notation editor it will look correct but once again sound an octave too high.  To correct this set the instrument in the notation editor to guitar.

Use the same technique for other instruments transposing at the octave.

PlayScore 2 can separate parts in a score and play them at independently adjustable volumes, but it cannot generate separate notation for those parts that you can print or export. However our companion product SeeScore 2 can do this using the MusicXML exported from PlayScore 2. If you have a score but no parts, PlayScore 2 and SeeScore working together can generate them. SeeScore is an iPad ‘sheet music reader’ app, but because it understands MusicXML it combines some of the features of a notation editor:

If you have the SeeScore app you will see Copy to SeeScore as an option when you share a MusicXML file. SeeScore can create a fresh score from your scanned music as well as parts, and you can use Airturn devices to turn the pages. Find SeeScore in the App Store.

Sometimes the best results are obtained by scanning music using a hardware document scanner.  A scanner is usually better than the best camera, and it can be easier to get a good square image with even lighting.

You can create a multi-page PlayScore 2 document from scanned pages just as you can with other images and photos.  If the scanned images are in your photos, go to the camera screen as if you were taking a picture, but instead of tapping the capture button, tap Photos instead.  If your scanned images are elsewhere, eg iCloud then tap the import symbol.

When scanning with a desktop scanner always use 300DPI for music.  Lower than 300 can lose detail, but higher will not improve results, just take longer.

Results are usually best with color or greyscale images.  Use a medium brightness setting and avoid results that are very black of very light.  Monochrome images will also work.

NB never use a scanner app with PlayScore 2.  Images from scanner apps may look good but in fact vital information from the music is lost.  PlayScore 2 has its own image processing internally and this is specifically designed for music.

Playback or export gives poor results

In many cases the two Control Panel image adjustments can greatly improve poor results.  These are easy to try.  See Adjustments for poor images.

If results are poor, the problem us usually something to do with the image.

Poor recognition

This can be due to poor image quality, or it could be that you have one of the unsupported types of score.  These are

handwritten music, or music printed in a novelty font designed to look handwritten.  Some jazz fonts fall into this category, for example Real Books.

some small or old fashioned hymn books – old hymn books are sometimes printed in a way not seen in other music.  These can scan poorly.

Processing fails

If there was a problem scanning a score, the score icon on the Documents screen will show an exclamation mark.  Tap the document to go to the Play screen and see what’s wrong.   Usually there will be a bubble indicating the problem.  Problems are normally on a specific page.  You can tell which page it is by looking for one showing an exclamation mark.  If there is no exclamation mark, you can narrow down the problem page by selecting to process small groups of pages in turn.  To do this tap the icon upper left – See Creating a playable PDF

In case of scanning problems the Status (tap the cogwheel) will show more information.

If the problem is in a photographed score, the first thing to try is to recapture the page and rescan (tap the refresh symbol).  If this doesn’t work, or the score is a PDF or from scanned images, try eliminating the page and rescan.  Alternatively a different setting for the PDF Processing slider may correct the problem.  Once localised to a particular page you can use masking to narrow the problem down even further to the measure, allowing the page to play.

You can always rescan at any time by tapping the rescan icon in the Control panel.

Ask us

We are very good at solving PlayScore 2 problems.  Most of the time we fix the problem.

Please feel free to send us any score that doesn’t give good results (support@organumconsulting.com).  We can often fix the problem or offer help.

SeeScore 2 is the perfect companion to PlayScore 2, and from the same makers.  SeeScore is an iPhone/iPad ‘sheet music reader’ app, but because it understands MusicXML it combines some of the features of a notation editor:

If you have the SeeScore app you will see Copy to SeeScore as an option when you share a MusicXML file.  SeeScore can create a fresh score from your scanned music; it can even create parts, and you can use Airturn devices to turn the pages.  Find SeeScore in the App Store.

The MIDI and MusicXML files generated by PlayScore 2 are for noncommercial use only.  If you would like to make commercial use of PlayScore 2 files please contact us at support@organumconsulting.com.

If you would like to license Optical Music Recognition engine at the heart of PlayScore 2 please see the Developers section of this site.

The popular IMSLP site https://imslp.org offers a huge repository of public domain scores for free download.  If you are looking for 18th, 19th or 20th century out of copyright music, try IMSLP.

Many of IMSLP’s scores will play well in PlayScore 2, and in many cases, there are several alternatives to choose from.  If so, try them and find the one that plays best.

PlayScore 2 recognises the following.  It observes all symbols when playing back the score and when exporting to MIDI MusicXML.  PlayScore 2 for Apple devices also recognises lyrics, text and (normally) guitar chords.  PlayScore 2 for Android does not currently support text other than dynamics and fingering.