Composer's Sketchpad
© 2016 Alexei Baboulevitch
Quickly jot down musical notes with your fingers or better yet, the Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro, to hear them come to life. You'll get to appreciate the "undo" option on this app, because there is no traditional musical notation. So you end up using your ear to pick out the intervals. There are many more limitations to this app, from a traditional music creation or composing point of view. But from play perspective, this app has a lot to offer. It's one of the first experiences we've seen that maps free-flowing pitch over time. You'll invent new melodies, experiment with musical ideas, or simply give life to the sounds rattling around inside your head. Composer's Sketchpad has no limits placed on meter or pitch: sketch out bendy guitar solos and mind-boggling polyrhythms with almost no effort — or snap to the grid if you want to play it safe. The full app costs $2.99, but there is also a Lite version with limits placed on the instruments you can use, the length of your pieces, and the number of pieces you can create. Weaknesses -- once you have a creation there's not a lot you can do with it (this app doesn't play well with MIDI or Garage band) and you'd have to manually make the notation.
$2.99, iPad, iPad Pro
Teaches: musical composition, notation, pitch
CTR Rating: 87.5%