Digital sheet music management for bands, dance bands and orchestras

Your librarian creates a new piece – title, composer, arranger and category are entered in seconds. The scanned PDFs are then uploaded directly: flute, clarinet, trumpet 1, trombone – each part as its own file. During upload the librarian selects the matching instrument, and the assignment is done.

Did the scanner capture A3 pages in landscape? No problem – Notenarchiv detects landscape and A3 pages automatically and shows a notice. With one click the affected pages are cleanly split into two A4 pages. Rotated pages, blank back sides or an incorrect page order can also be corrected right in the app – without any extra software.

Finally, the piece is assigned to a music book. Your main folder has the code "SO"? Then the piece gets the number SO203 – and is available to all members from that moment on. Each member only sees the parts that match their assigned instruments. So the trumpeter immediately finds her trumpet part without having to scroll through dozens of other parts.

A club member selects their instrument on the upload page – for example "flugelhorn" – and uploads their entire sheet music folder as PDFs. 30 files, 50 files, no problem. Notenarchiv automatically detects duplicates: if a file already exists in the archive, it is not stored twice but linked directly to the existing piece.

All new files first land in the "Unassigned" area. This is where the smart assignment begins: Notenarchiv analyses the file names automatically. A file called SO203_Böhmischer_Traum.pdf is immediately assigned to the right book and the right number – without any manual searching.

For files that cannot be clearly identified by their file name, AI recognition is on hand. One click on "Load AI suggestions", and the system analyses all open files in the context of your entire sheet music archive. It detects which pieces already exist and which need to be created – and proposes the right assignment.

With "Apply all suggestions" every recognised assignment is applied in a single step. For the few remaining files, a quick search for the piece title is enough – or you create a new piece inline, without leaving the page.

Your librarian opens the books page and selects the desired book – for example the "main folder" or the "march book". Using the search, they quickly find the piece to be added and assign it a number. Piece by piece, a complete music book with clear numbering takes shape: SO001, SO002, SO003 – or MB007a, MB007b for multi-part pieces.

Each member now simply opens the book, selects their instrument from the dropdown and clicks "All pieces as ZIP". In seconds they have a ZIP file with all the parts for their instrument – either as PDF or forScore file, neatly named by book number and instrument code. SO203_Böhmischer_Traum_Trp1.pdf, SO204_Egerländer_Musikantenmarsch_Trp1.pdf – all in the right order, ready to print or import directly into forScore.

Thanks to permission management, every member sees only the books and instruments assigned to them. The drummer is not confused by trumpet parts, and the flute does not see the march book they do not need.

Whoever is librarian or admin in your organisation – often the conductor or the secretary – creates the full rehearsal: title, Friday 7.30 pm, rehearsal room at the clubhouse. While creating it, they decide who is meant – the whole organisation, a group such as the youth band, or individual sections. For a brass sectional, the flute never sees the event at all.

Members get the event as a push notification – on the Premium plan also by email – and reply with one tap: yes, no or maybe. Anyone who says nothing by the set deadline shows up as open in the list. If something about the event changes, the notifications go out bundled rather than one by one.

Before the rehearsal, attendance by section shows where it gets thin: seven of nine clarinets, three of three trumpets, percussion complete. If a section is almost entirely missing, that is clear beforehand – not when the warm-up starts. For members who reply by phone, a librarian or admin enters the answer for them.

Anyone who would rather see the club dates in their usual calendar subscribes to them: a personal calendar link brings rehearsals and performances into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook – new events follow along on their own.

Your librarian opens the desired piece and clicks "Share". A link is generated instantly that is valid for 14 days. This link can be sent to the external person via WhatsApp, email or messenger.

The recipient opens the link in the browser – completely without an account, without an app, without registration. They see the title, the composer and all available parts at a glance. Using the page preview, they can look directly into the individual PDFs and flip through the pages. Everything fits? Then they download all parts as a ZIP file – with customisable file names, so the files are sensibly named on their device too.

On the management page your librarian keeps the overview: which links are active? How often has a link been opened? And if a link is no longer needed, it can be deactivated early at any time.

The bandleader puts the evening together beforehand in Stage Mode: polkas, waltzes, schlager and party hits, plus placeholders for “break” and “announcement”. Every piece carries its duration – the set works out whether the first block really fills 45 minutes. With Prepare offline for performance every part is already on every device at home.

On stage they open the session and the band joins with a tap. If a request comes in, they drag it to the top of the list – and everyone’s own part jumps to the new piece at once. The change arrives over Bluetooth, so it works the same in a marquee without Wi-Fi.

The stand-in drummer has no account? They got the music in the afternoon via a share link. And anyone without a tablet follows the programme on the stage display on the TV.

Instead of a march book on the lyre, every musician carries an Android e-ink tablet. It does not reflect in the sun and lasts the whole festival day. The app recognises the device and switches to e-paper mode: black and white, no animations, zoom in steps.

The conductor opens the set list for the parade in Stage Mode. Everyone joins and switches on march mode – and the thumb on the edge no longer turns pages by accident.

When they call the next march, everyone’s own part switches over – over Bluetooth, without Wi-Fi and without mobile data. The music is already on the device anyway: an offline rule keeps the whole march book there. After the parade the same device goes into the marquee for the dance music.