With over 15 years in the App Store, Notion is a free, award-winning music composition tool for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and more! You’ll effortlessly create dynamic compositions in traditional musical notation or guitar tablature with its intuitive touch-based interface and incredibly broad editing capabilities.
With a user-friendly interface and simple interactive piano keyboard, fretboard, drum pad, and even optional Handwriting Recognition, Notion makes it easy to get started composing your music. You can also hear your music performed with the most realistic playback possible, using real audio samples recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.
Notion is a native cross-platform app, meaning you can write anywhere on any device without requiring a constant Internet connection. And when you’re back online, you’ll be able to sync your work across multiple devices through your preferred cloud provider. Start your work on one device and finish it on another. Once you are happy with your creation you can share the Notion file, or export as MIDI, MusicXML, PDF or as an audio file. You can even optionally transmit scores across a network with other instances of Notion, or between Notion and the Fender Studio Pro DAW.
Compose, edit, and play back your music performed with real piano and orchestral samples recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios — along with outstanding sampled guitar, bass, drums and other popular instruments. And when you’re ready for more sounds, you’ll find the extensive library of Notion Add-on Soundsets to purchase as part of the Feature Bundle. To save space, the initial app download contains just piano — you can then manage which of the bundled Soundsets to have on your device or keep in the cloud, just tap on Sound Installation.
Notion has been featured in various Apple campaigns including the Apple YourVerse television commercials, and has won several awards including a prestigious music industry NAMM TEC Award for Best Smartphone/Tablet App.
What you get:
Notion includes unlimited staves, comprehensive editing features and core orchestral and rhythm section Soundsets — all for free. You can optionally register (also for free!) to unlock an additional Soundset (containing Solo Strings, Classical Saxophones and Glockenspiel), and the multivoice function that allows writing in up to 4 voices per staff. Then for the full experience, either sign in with your Fender Studio Pro+ membership or purchase the Notion Feature Bundle. This unlocks Handwriting Recognition, Layout Controls, all the Expansion Soundsets (including many auxiliary instruments and additional articulations and effects), additional audio export formats (m4a, OPUS, FLAC), and direct score transfer with Notion and Fender Studio Pro running on the same network.
Free:
Unlimited staves
All editing features
Core Soundsets
Export as MusicXML, Compressed MusicXML, MIDI, PDF, wav, mp3
Welcome Pack (register for free):
Soundset including Solo Strings, Glockenspiel, Classical Saxophones
Additionally write for voices 3 and 4 in a single staff
Feature Bundle (in-app purchase or sign in with Fender Studio Pro+):
Handwriting Recognition, powered by MyScript
Available on iPhone, iPad and macOS (macOS with supporting graphics tablet or using Sidecar with compatible iPad)
Automatic pen vs. finger recognition to switch between handwriting and edit mode
Pressure-sensitive support for Apple Pencil
Adjustable timer for Handwriting Recognition
Override handwriting timer by double tapping Apple Pencil (2nd Gen)
Layout Control
All Expansion Soundsets
Additional audio export formats (m4a, OPUS, FLAC)
Transmit scores across a network with other instances of Notion, or between Notion and Fender Studio Pro
Sound sets are nice, especially the strings. Have used this app for around 6 years and it covers a lot of bases for a mobile app. Intuitive for a composing app. There is however a large stability issue and I cannot recommend the app while it exists: Adding new measures in the middle of a score will sometimes break the playback. The added measures do not show up in the score. The playback cursor gets all glitchy in the spaces where those new measures would be, sometimes moving way too slow and other times teleporting. The music still sounds normal when this happens, but it accounts for the “added” measures, causing a huge pause in the middle of the piece that you can’t do anything about. It is like a certain amount of space in the score just gets corrupted. You cannot undo this once it happens, and I have had to manually copy and paste everything into a new document if I wish to keep editing the music or listen to the playback. This is extremely frustrating, especially when it happens with larger projects. A huge timewaste that gets in the way of productivity. The chance of it happening seems random but often enough that it does not feel stable. 4 times within the last month or so, and I have had this issue for at least a few years.Also copy and paste doesn’t always work, which can compound with the above issue.
I Keep Coming Back
Jojed
I have used varying notation software on both a desktop and on iPad over the years. I’ve used both types (desk top and iPad versions of many products trying to be as mobile as possible. That wasn’t truly a possible for a long time. Because of this, I have tried many if not most of the music notation software out there. Say what you will, but I keep coming back to Notion for its ease of use, simplicity and straight forward tools. It makes sense to me how they have structured and organized the tools. It plays well with other DAWs when I need to move my scores to other platforms for recording work. I can even use Notion in conjunction with other DAWs. It has printed full orchestral scores and their parts for me as accurately as I’ve prepared the scores. It has even alerted me to times when I haven’t prepared them well, allowing me to catch issues before printing. I know there are other names out there that people feel are the “go to” notation software. I’ve used them and wasn’t impressed. But honestly, no one has ever complained about my work in Notion, or even known I used it instead of something else, and for that I’m grateful to this software for letting me focus on the music instead of the “how to’s” of getting music into a physical space that I can share with others. All software can use or need updates and improvements. I look forward to the new updates coming in the next version of Notion. Notion is a workhorse that I won’t be dropping any time soon. Thanks, Notion. Keep up the great work. I don’t really leave reviews but I actually wanted to. My two cents. :)
Pros and cons of Notion
YoungComposer_classicalmusic
There are benefits to the program like it is easy to navigate, it is IPad friendly, and has good sound quality. The things that should be improved is that instruments should be of a wider variety, for example; I wish there was percussion staffs that are 5 lines without it being drum set, and that percussion notation is wrong like Flam should not be written as a word in the staff, it is like writing fingerings instead of accidentals. There are other things that I could harp about but I just think the producers should check some of their tools and compare them to other popular programs like MuseScore and Dorico and see what they should change. Other than that, I don’t plan to stop using this program.
More percussion and instruments plus more
City smash fannnn
Great app supper amazing I have one issue though theres a lack of percussion instruments I really want like wind chimes and more. Also we need instruments like the alto clarinet which would make a huge impact on the game also we need other instruments that are able to do glissandos like flutes saxs every instrument need to be able to do a fall or a glissando not just jazz instruments that would really help In making fun tunes that would sound really nice also can we have more sound effects? I feel like the instruments should have a setting in tools where you can add a sound effect like shhhh or haaa and like claps, stomps a way to blow into the instrument without making sound like a wind sound effect. Other than that the game is really great and awesome hope the developers can see this and try to make it like that I known programming the instruments is hard but hope you can pull through.
Welcome to Notion 3.7.1 Maintenance Release
For the full guide, check: https://shorturl.at/sAETQ
Version 3.7.1
The developer, Fender Digital, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
