Utilizing forScore App Features: A Visual Guide

This post is a visual guide that follows up on a two-part podcast episode series published on The Piano Pantry Podcast in December 2023 on utilizing forScore app features.

Episode 097 – forScore (pt 1): Organizing Digital Scores and Setlists

Episode 098 – forScore (pt 2): Need-to-Know Features

In those episodes, I gave a lot of details and described basic features that I thought were important for users to know. As a visual person, I realized it might be helpful to follow up the verbal descriptions with some supporting visuals.

If you have never heard of ForScore, it is a digital sheet music app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. It’s more than just a place to save digital sheet music, though. (In fact, I recommend still keeping master copies of your digital scores in your file manager).

You can create setlists, annotate directly on the music, rearrange, delete, and duplicate pages, enable half-page turns, jump in the score with a touch of a button, and more. The features of forScore are extensive.

Part 1 – Organizing Digital Scores and Setlists

Since this post isn’t about the basics of using forScore, I would start by listening to (or reading the transcript for) the first podcast episode – #97 (especially if you’re a newbie to the app). In that episode, I cover things like:

How to get sheet music into the app.
Whether or not you should scan individual pieces or entire books into one file.
If the cost of the Apple Pencil is worth it vs. a stylus.
The one thing you should do as soon as you import a file.
Why it’s important to edit the Metadata.
How to differentiate between “Tags, Genres, and Labels.”
How to organize setlists.

Here are some supporting visuals from that episode:

Editing The File’s Metadata

When you import a new file, I strongly recommend editing the title and adding relevant details immediately. You can navigate to the song’s metadata from two locations:

(1) If you are inside the song, the metadata is located at the top of the page in the middle.

(2) If you are inside the list of scores, click on the ℹ️ button next to the file name.

Once inside the Metadata box, click on Properties. From there you can edit things like the title, composers, genres, tags, labels, and more. Adding details such as what book it’s from, the genre, key, and more can help keep your scores organized and easily searchable.

(Again, be sure to listen to episode #97, where I share thoughts on differentiating between these items.)

As you can see in the image above, none of the square checkboxes are selected. That means nothing is being edited or changed within the file’s information.

In this screenshot, I am going to add the key (resting tone) of D and a Tag for “Dorian” because this piece is actually in D Dorian, not D minor. (The “Key” setting will only let you select major or minor.)

The boxes that are checked will be updated.

It is important to be consistent with spelling and capitalization within this information. For example, if you type the word “dorian” in all lowercase, it will add a whole new tag.

Rather than relying on our own memories, forScore has a feature that lets you select from labels/tags/genres/composers you already have created.

See the circle icon with the lines? Clicking on that icon will open up all the items you already created in that category.

Editing the Metadata Titles

One thing I didn’t discover until I was writing these podcast episodes is that you don’t have to stick with the default metadata tiles like “genres,” “tags,” “labels,” etc. You can’t change the “Title” wording but all the rest you can! You can’t get rid of the line entirely, just re-title it. Tap on the name to edit.

How to Create a Folder in Setlists

I find the process for creating a folder in setlists to be unintuitive. You would think that you would click the + button, but in fact, you have to first hit “Edit.”

Then, you click on the folder icon to add a new folder.

To add a setlist to a folder, hit “Done” and exit out of edit mode.

If you already have a setlist created you want to add to a folder, click on the ℹ️ icon.

Choose the folder.

That covers all of the visual representations I wanted to share from part one of the forScore podcast series!

Next, let’s move to supporting visuals from part 2 of the podcast.

Part 2 – Need-to-know-features

Since not every item talked about in the episode needs to be or can be shown with an image, here’s a quick rundown of what is covered. Consider listening to the episode while following along with this post.

How to wake up the metadata and annotation bars.
Managing your Apple Pencil settings.
The seek bar (the dotted lines-slider along the bottom of the screen) and how it’s easy to miss.
Editing the Metadata of multiple scores simultaneously.
Simultaneously adding multiple scores to one setlist.
Moving the annotation bar (it doesn’t have to be stuck at the top of the page!)
Duplicating and rearranging pages within a PDF.
Merging and duplicating files.

The (Easy to Miss) Seek Bar

I can’t believe how long it took me to notice the scroll bar at the bottom, but in some pieces, it may be hard to see due to placement of music or copyright text. This piece has two pages. There is a tiny dot at the bottom of the page indicating the existence of two pages, but it is sooo hard to see!

If you press and hold on the dot, it will show a preview of the page.

Editing the Metadata of Multiple Scores

One time-saving trick is to edit the information of multiple scores simultaneously. This is especially helpful if you are importing a lot of pieces from one book as separate files but want to label every piece with the book and/or composer’s name.

In the scores area of the toolbar, select “edit.”

Then choose which scores you want to edit. You’ll see the number of items listed in properties and the checkbox will now show a + symbol, which means there are different items in those categories for each of those files.

Proceed with caution when editing multiple files simultaneously!

Duplicating and Rearranging Pages

The ability to duplicate and move pages around is really helpful for mapping through repeats, D.S. al Coda’s and such. Click on the suitcase button in the top RH corner, then select “rearrange.”

forScore has a built in mapping tool system though that will do this for you. By adding a button on the screen you can tell it to jump to any page in the score. Oftentimes I prefer to duplicate pages, though, so I can always be moving forward and never back with my Bluetooth pedal.

Merging and Cloning (Duplicating) Files

Two final useful features are the ability to merge multiple files together as well as duplicate files. You do this from these scores area in edit mode.