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Episode Summary
Episode 2 in a two-part series on best utilizing the forScore app. Check out some of these need-to-know features that Amy wishes she had known about sooner.
Items Mentioned
Amy’s favorite books on piano teaching
Episode 097 – ForScore (pt 1): Organizing Digital Scores and Setlists
Find the forScore app in the app store
Related article on the Piano Pantry blog: What iPad and Page-Turner Device Do You Use?
Utilizing forScore App Features: A Visual Guide
Transcript
Have you ever learned about something, whether that be a feature, a tool, or a product, and at the moment, thought to yourself, “Darn it! That is awesome. I wish I had taken the time to figure that out sooner, or I wish I had discovered that sooner – it would have made life so much easier!”
Today’s episode is one of those for me. We’re continuing our topic from last week on how to best utilize, organize, and manage forScore, a digital sheet music app where you can create setlists, annotate directly on and rearrange pages in digital PDF files, and more. If you missed last week’s episode, you might want to start there, as we covered some basics, such as how to get files into forScore, best practices for managing the file data, and more.
Part 2’s continuation today highlights features I wish I had taken the time to learn about sooner. It’s so easy to get a new tool or product and feel like you don’t have 30 minutes to give to reading or watching tutorials, but time has taught me that that 30 minutes can save us so much time and headaches, and darn it – I wish I had known that sooner – moments.
I confess that I discovered some of these features while researching and writing these two podcast episodes, so I am guilty as charged. I want better for you!
Oh, I guess I, the “confessee,” should introduce myself! I’m Amy Chaplin, and you’re listening to episode 98 of The Piano Pantry Podcast! I can’t believe we’re rolling into the end of two full years of this podcast. It has been a joy serving you this way over the past 100 episodes!
If you’re new around here, you can ignore me for the next few seconds, but if you’re been around for a bit, I need to talk to you directly.
I have three requests for my listeners:
First, as we round the corner to number 100, I would love to hear from you.
Is there anything in particular you would like to hear more of from me in the future?
The sky is the limit! I can’t make any promises, but I would love to hear what has been resonating with you the most here on the podcast and supports YOU as a teacher and business owner. Would you consider taking a few minutes to share with me? Visit PianoPantry.com/survey or go to the show notes for the link.
My second request is for those who haven’t already to take a few minutes to rate and review the podcast. Pretty please?
…and my third request for those who have been around here for a bit is to consider supporting the free content that I’m producing by partnering with me over on Patreon. For just $4 a month, you can be a silent cheerleader, or for $7, you can get a few personal bonuses from me.
This podcast is a solo production that takes at least 4 hours every week to brainstorm, write, edit, record, create show notes for, and share. If I’m being realistic, it’s often more like 6 hours.
I want to give a shout-out to Laurie Bender, a teacher from Illinois and a good friend who is one of my Patreon Partners. You can join in like Laurie by visiting Patreon.com/pianopantry or get the link in the show notes.
Do you love to read like I do? Every year, around the end of December or the beginning of January, I look back at the books I’ve read over the past 12 months and think through what I might like to put on my list for the next 12. Over the years, I’ve found I enjoy keeping track, including who recommended them to me. I even jot down a rating on a 5-point scale.
As I’ve continued intentionally making time for reading for pleasure, it has been really fulfilling to look back at my reading history for the year. It’s particularly eye-opening to see the balance in genres, reading for pleasure or information, and so forth. The ratings also help me see what authors I want to read more of in the future.
As you build your own reading list for the year, if you’re looking for recommendations on books on piano teaching, you might want to check out my list of favorites. If you’re a new teacher especially, there are so many books out there, I hope my recommendations will help guide you to the best of the best books to get your hands on right away. Visit PianoPantry.com/favorites or get the link in the show notes.
There are several features I’m excited to share with you today. I’m not trying to be exhaustive but just want to make sure you know about features that made my life easier once I learned how to use them more fully.
First up – how to wake up both the metadata bar – basically the song information toolbar controls at the top and the annotation bar.
Tap once in the middle of the screen to show or hide the toolbar controls at the top.
If you press and hold for a second rather than tap, you’ll bring up the annotation bar. This can be done with one finger or your Apple Pencil, but there’s a setting that controls whether this can be done with either a finger OR the pencil or just your finger, which I’ll circle back to here in a second.
Before that, if you are going to use the Apple Pencil, you will need to go into the Settings and look through all the different options for how it behaves. A big one for me was…If you’re using the Apple Pencil and you need to activate the annotation bar to annotate something, you need to decide two things:
First, if you want to activate the annotation bar with either your finger or the Apple Pencil and…
Second – if you allow a touch of the Apple Pencil to launch the annotation bar if you want it to automatically enter annotation mode. If you toggle this setting on, it will make a marking with whatever the last annotation you used as soon as you tap the screen with your pencil. I find this setting very annoying. I can’t tell you how often I have added a random sharp in the middle of a page or placed a tiny red dot where it shouldn’t be because of this setting.
To turn this setting off under the Apple Pencil settings, toggle off “automatically enter annotation mode.” Toggling this off means you can enter annotation mode by pressing and holding with either your finger or the pencil, and it won’t automatically start drawing on the page – it will just put it into annotation mode. From there you can choose which annotation item you want.
Next up, let’s talk about the seek bar.
If the current score has more than one page, the seek bar is the dotted lines-slider along the bottom of the screen where you can preview and jump to other pages. I wanted to point this out because if you have a bunch of copyright text at the bottom of the score, it makes it hard to see this feature. In order to wake up the seek bar, tap once in the middle of the page – it’s the same action that wakes up the metadata toolbar at the top of the page.
Then, if you press and hold your finger on one of the slider dots at the bottom of the page, you can preview any pages in that PDF. Just press and then slide your fingers back and forth on each dot to preview each page, and then release your finger to go to whatever page you need.
The next feature I want to bring to your attention is the Metadata area for each piece, also labeled as the lowercase (i) button or as Properties.
This area holds the song information and is one portion we discussed in last week’s episode. There’s so much to know, we’re talking about a few more things here today.
If there is a checkmark in the box next to one of the areas of the song information, that is the information that will be edited once you close the panel. If it’s unchecked or empty, no changes will be made. If there’s a checkmark, the file’s existing metadata for that line item will be replaced with whatever you’ve previously entered.
Remember, though, again, as I shared with you last week – you don’t have to rely on remembering what labels, tags, and information you have in each information bank. Your organized pre-saved information for composers, genres, tags, labels, etc., is viewable by touching the circle clear to the right with three lines. This helps ensure you don’t end up having, for example, a tag labeled Major with an uppercase M and one with a lowercase m. Yes, the case does matter – it has to be written out exactly the same way, which is why using the saved organization feature is important rather than just typing it in manually every time.
While talking about Metadata properties, it’s also helpful to know that you can edit the Metadata of more than one score at a time. You have to enter Edit mode first and then select which scores you want to edit. The metadata properties panel will open; from there, you can edit whatever properties you like for all those scores simultaneously. Please be careful when doing this, though. Be sure you understand how the properties work. Again, whatever you type in there won’t add to what you already have; it will replace it.
Similarly, you can simultaneously add multiple scores to one setlist by entering edit mode, selecting the scores, and then adding them to a setlist.
The next item I want to tell you about is something that makes me smile and roll my eyes because I went through a brief period of time years ago when I was about to go crazy trying to figure this out. It has to do with when you’re in annotation mode and the annotation toolbar is awake and on the page. It defaults to the top of the page and it was covering up areas of the page that I needed to write on. I didn’t realize that you could slide that toolbar up and down the page out of your way by pressing and holding on the three grey lines on either side of the toolbar. Thanks to Facebook groups, I was able to ask someone for help, and they saved me a lot of annoyance and heartache. Now that I know, it seems like it should be intuitive, but the fact that the metadata toolbar at the top isn’t moveable, I think, threw me off – I just assumed the annotation bar was locked in place, too.
There are so many things I want to tell you, guys, about, but the intention today wasn’t to be exhaustive, so I’m going to briefly mention a few more things; then you need to just go spend a little time playing around with forScore.
You can duplicate and rearrange pages within a PDF. If you click on what looks like a suitcase button in the top RH corner, then select “rearrange.” You can duplicate pages and then rearrange them, which I find really useful for repeats, DS al Coda’s, and such. There is also a button feature that will help you jump to certain parts of the score, but oftentimes, I prefer to duplicate pages, so I’m not touching buttons and can always move forward in the score with my Bluetooth foot pedal.
Lastly, you can merge two files by going into Edit mode – which is the same place I was talking about when editing the metadata information for multiple scores. So click on Edit, select the scores, and then instead of clicking Edit to change the information, click on Merge.
Another feature in Edit mode is that you can clone – that is, duplicate – a score. Click on Edit, then select the score you want to duplicate. If you select more than one score, you’ll see the merge feature, but if you only select one score, you’ll see the clone option at the top.
That’s it – I’m cutting myself off. LOL
Like I said, just spend some time playing around. If you have to sit down and listen to this episode gain with your forScore app open.
Taking the extra time to learn something will save you so much time in the long run. You won’t regret it.
Let me encourage you, though, that once you get the app up and running and organized how you like, you can’t just let it go on autopilot forever. We have to be intentional about managing and upkeeping the app in a consistent manner – such as always making sure you edit the metadata information of a piece when importing it and not letting the title go do a random default.
Then, sit down once or twice a year and clean things up. Delete old scores, add metadata info you didn’t take time to do when importing, remove setlists you no longer need, and so forth.
I hope you enjoy utilizing this wonderful tool and have discovered some new settings over these past couple of episodes that will help you use it more fully.
Before you go, I have a little tip for you. If you heard about a product or resource from someone who is an online content creator, go the extra step to try and purchase from any affiliate link they share. It’s an easy way to support your creators without costing you any extra. Little things like that can really help make a difference for those in content creation world.
As you roll into the final weeks of the year, I’m sending warm wishes your way and hope you experience the joy of the season in many ways. Until next week – it’s episode number 99!
