Practical Trivia

Updates

What changed in each version, newest first. The dates are when each one came out on the App Store.

  1. 1.5.0In App Store review

    Record while you read, and share a setlist

    New

    • Record while you read: tap ● in the sheet’s bottom bar (Record in Auto page turn) to record your practice, and listen right there when you stop. It’s saved in Recordings under the song’s name.
    • Share a setlist: send it as one file, and anyone with MusicTools gets its sheets and Song Forms. Your notes and play-along tracks can go too, if you choose.
    • Settings: the language and theme color fold into one row.

    Fixed

    • Phones: the camera in the screen (a notch or a hole) no longer hides the top of the sheet.
  2. 1.4.2

    A new eraser, and a half-page fix

    New

    • The eraser: a circle shows what it reaches while you erase, in one of three sizes.
    • It erases only what it touches. Turn on Whole, beside its sizes, to erase the strokes it touches whole, as before.

    Fixed

    • Half-page turns: in a song reopened where you left it, turning to that page from the one before turned a whole page at once.
  3. 1.4.1

    Face gestures, half-page turns, Korean and theme colors

    New

    • Half-page turns: set Turn by to Half Page in Settings and the top of the next page comes in first, while the part you’re playing stays still. Pages are divided between lines of music.
    • Turn in Song Form order: with Follow Song Form on, pages turn in the order they’re played, back to an earlier page for a repeat. With half-page turns, the line you’re going back to comes in at the top of the screen.
    • Turn pages with your face: turn on Turn Pages by Face in Settings, and a wink, your lips or a turn of your head turns the page. It uses the front camera, only while a sheet is open, and nothing it sees is kept or leaves your device. Set how readily it turns pages in Adjust Sensitivity.
    • Settings: the gear on the tab bar slides settings in from the right, and the gear on the top bar brings them up while you’re reading.
    • Korean: pick 한국어 under Language, at the top of Settings. Buttons, menus, messages and the marks on the sheet all change. The app starts in English.
    • Theme color: Brass, Blue, Green or Violet. A sample shows the color before you save it; saving restarts the app for a moment.

    Changed

    • Margin trimming has moved from the viewer’s … menu to Settings.
    • How to Use and the Privacy Policy are now in Settings.
    • In Brass, the marks on the sheet and the bar being played are darker, so they’re easier to see.

    There was no 1.4.0 on the App Store: what was made for it came out here, in 1.4.1.

  4. 1.3.1

    Several songs at once, sharing a score, selecting your notes

    New

    • Several songs at once: Select in the Library picks songs to move to a folder, add to a setlist or delete together. The check on a folder’s row picks every song in it.
    • Share a score: Share PDF in a song’s … menu sends it to a friend or another app, with or without your notes.
    • Select and move your notes: in the sheet editor, the Select tool picks notes you draw a loop round, or the one you tap, to drag them somewhere else or delete them.

    Changed

    • Deleting asks first: scanned pages, play-along tracks, recordings and more.
    • Library folders sit closer together, so more fit on the screen, and a folder you collapse stays collapsed the next time you open the app.
    • Apple Pencil on the page turns on Pencil only: a finger moves the page instead of writing.
    • Scores made from photos or scans are straightened by their staves, and every page comes out the same size.
    • Pages can take out several pages at once.

    Fixed

    • A hand resting on the screen while writing with Apple Pencil left dots.
    • Add Play-Along Track did nothing on iPhone and iPad.
  5. 1.3.0

    A sheet music app: the viewer, setlists, photos and scans

    MusicTools is now a sheet music app.

    New

    • The viewer: tap a song and its score fills the screen, the margins trimmed so the notes come out larger. Tap the middle to show or hide the controls, tap the sides or swipe to turn the page, and every song opens where you left it.
    • Practice: choose Simple (the metronome over the score) or Auto page turn (pages turn in time). A song’s tempo, meter and clicks are set from the metronome in the viewer.
    • Setlists: songs in the order you play them, a practice routine or a concert program. Turn past the last page and the next song opens.
    • Scores from photos and scans: Add Sheet takes a PDF, photos of the pages or a camera scan. Photos are straightened by their corners and put in order.
    • Open PDFs from other apps: Files, Mail or Safari can open a PDF straight in MusicTools.
    • Pages: reorder, turn, remove or add pages, or make some of them a song of their own. Notes and the Song Form follow their pages.
    • Page-turn pedals: a Bluetooth pedal turns the pages, and starts and pauses Auto page turn.
    • Search and recent songs in the library, and a backup you can restore on a new device.
    • Stamps in the sheet editor: fingerings, dynamics, accidentals and more in one tap.
    • A tuner in the Metronome tab, with A anywhere from 415 to 466 Hz.
    • Play along: attach an audio file or a recording to a song, slow it down or loop it from A to B.

    Changed

    • The song setup screen is gone: its settings are in the viewer now. The app opens on the Library tab.

    Fixed

    • The first few clicks could come out bunched together when the metronome started.
  6. 1.1.0

    The Song Form editor, the bar you're playing, recordings in the background

    New

    • Song Form editor: in place of the step list, line the bars up on the score and mark repeat signs, 1st and 2nd endings, D.C., D.S., Coda and Fine on them, and the playing order is worked out for you. The bars and repeats read at import are already in. A Song Form made with the old step list plays as before; Edit Song Form reads the score again and sets it up afresh.
    • Tempo and meter changes, rit. and accel., fermatas and pickups: mark them on their bars and the metronome and the page turns follow, a fermata held for as many beats as you choose.
    • The bar you’re playing is marked on the score in Song Form practice, filling beat by beat, along with the marks from the editor.
    • Count-in in tempo: Start in Song Form practice now counts in at the song’s own meter and tempo. After a pause it comes back in at the top of the bar.
    • Page turns in Simple practice: tap the left or right of the screen, or swipe, to turn one page. A seek bar jumps to any page, and an iPad in landscape shows two pages side by side.
    • The screen stays on while the metronome or Song Form practice is playing.
    • Recordings in the background: recording and playback carry on with the screen locked or in another app. While playing, pause and skip from the lock screen and Control Center.
    • Recovered recordings: if the app is closed mid-recording (force quit, a crash, a flat battery), what was recorded comes back the next time you open the Recordings tab.
    • The recording clock runs smoothly, to the hundredth of a second.

    Fixed

    • A burst of metronome clicks after coming back from another app. Leaving the app now stops the metronome and pauses Song Form practice where it is.
    • A recording kept playing through the speaker after unplugging headphones. Unplugging them, or a Bluetooth connection dropping, now stops recording playback, the metronome and Song Form practice.

MusicTools first came out on the App Store on October 20, 2026.Android is in testing, and testers are wanted.