Note taking app for song writing

thecolourbox

I was wondering if anybody knew of an app that's basically a note taking app, ideally ipad i guess, but with a few specific features which would be really useful for song writing and jotting down the little ideas that pop up but get forgotten if you don't note them down or record them somehow.

It would be great if you could load up a blank page, then have the ability to add say a stave at a time for writing out the tunes, or riffs or rhythm etc, but allow you to use the rest of the page for general notes, lyrics, etc etc. I know there are note taking apps and I know there are apps where you can write on musical staves but i'm struggling to find one that allows you to do both on the same virtual page. I think that would be a good workflow for me as it saves manuscript paper and then wasting most of the staves with scribbling notes, or the other way around it saves you having to try and quickly draw the staves so you can notate it while it's going on in your head.

Would also presumably save all pages like a song writing notebook so you can browse through and find older ideas which might fit in etc.

Only thing I can think is to find one that allows background templates and put a couple of staves on but often I only need one stave and to scribble more words around, or i need more than 2 staves to write out a whole verse and chorus type thing. 

Hive mind, please swarm me with your knowledge

Thank you

PetGerbil

'Keepnote'    https://keepnote.org/
It's quite old and hasn't been updated in years, But of all the newer note taking apps I've tried, This suits me the best.

It's handy for screenshotting stuff, pasting it onto a page then adding further notes after the image. No messing with 'would you like to save the file?' 'Where would you like to save the file ?','direct me to where you want the file to be saved...' 
(swiftly followed the next day by 'Where the f$^$ did I save that file ?')

No Ipad but Win/linux and Mac

thecolourbox

Thanks mate,  that looks like a great bit of software for other purposes and which I shall find a good use for.  It doesn't quite do what I'm after for the quick scribble down of some notation and words though.

Thanks for sharing though as I could definitely use that for a few things

mrkb

Looks like Flat and OneNote might get close to what you need

https://flat.io/en-GB

https://blog.flat.io/interactive-music-notation-in-microsoft-onenote/

mrkb

Or this with Google docs

https://www.musicsnippet.com/en-GB/

thecolourbox

Oh brilliant thank you! Yes those look good,I think the Google drove one would suit best but I'll try them both 

Thanks very much

thecolourbox

Ahh just tried it - you can't use add ons on Google drive on ipad, which I guess is the usual apple/Google thing. But even with One Note, you have to create the score from scratch in Flat before copying it over, which is a bit more faff than I wanted and I'd forget what I was doing by the time I'd booted all that up and faffed with the score creator. I subscribe to Musescore and that's similarly frustrating

I just want something I can draw on basically, I have a pen for the ipad, and I don't need it to be word processed just need to scribble things down

duotone

Have you tried Procreate ?  It does a lot more, but will allow note taking & you can create templates of page layouts you like to use, which should speed up things: https://procreate.com

Grunfeld

thecolourbox said:

I just want something I can draw on basically, I have a pen for the ipad, and I don't need it to be word processed just need to scribble things down

Goodnotes is the app I have a love-hate relationship with but I'm still using it.  I've tried Notability and Noteshelf but Goodnotes is the one I use regularly.

It's quick to fire up a new note with your favourite template, (which of course you can change), but the thing Goodnotes seems to do best for me is the quick way to change line thickness and colour. 

sev112

Any suggestions for which ones are best to export (to save/access elsewhere as pdf?) for an apple ipad?

Grunfeld

sev112 said:

Any suggestions for which ones are best to export (to save/access elsewhere as pdf?) for an apple ipad?

It's another thing Goodnotes does automatically if you tick the settings.  My handwritten notes go as pdf files straight to a designated folder in Google Drive.  To be fair, I think the other note apps I mentioned also do it, but Goodnotes definitely does it.