Guide

Sheet music offline: rehearsal rooms without Wi-Fi

How the Notenarchiv app keeps parts on your device – the automatic cache, marking individual pieces as offline, and rules by instrument and music book.

Rehearsal rooms are in basements, marquees have no Wi-Fi, and on the coach to a competition the signal disappears exactly when someone wants to check a part. A sheet music app that only works online is useless at the decisive moment.

The Notenarchiv app therefore stores music on the device – on iPhone, iPad and Android alike. This happens on three levels that complement each other.

Level 1: whatever you have opened stays

Every PDF you open in the app is automatically kept on the device. Open the same part again later without a connection and it is there immediately, without you having set anything up.

This cache holds the most recently used music and eventually clears out the oldest. For “I looked at it yesterday” it is perfectly reliable. As a foundation for the weekend’s performance it is the wrong approach – that is what the next two levels are for.

Level 2: marking individual pieces as offline

The detail view of a piece has an Available offline button. Tapping it downloads every part of that piece you are allowed to see and protects them from the automatic clean-up. Afterwards the button reads Offline ✓.

This is the quick route for a concert programme: mark the eight pieces of the next performance and you are done. Which pieces you have held this way is visible in your profile under Saved offline manually – there they can be removed individually or cleared in one go with Clear all.

Level 3: rules – “my instrument from these books”

If you would rather not think about it before every event, set up a rule once. A rule describes a combination of instruments and books, for example “Trumpet 1 from the main folder and the march book”. Everything matching that description is kept on the device permanently – including newly added pieces.

You set this up in your profile under Offline synchronisation:

  1. Tap Add rule.
  2. Give it a name – the suggestion in the field (“Trumpet – march book”) shows how it is meant.
  3. Select at least one entry each under Instruments and Books. Without both, the rule cannot be saved, because a rule without a book would quickly be half the archive.
  4. Save – the sync starts straight away.

During the sync the app shows progress as “3 / 47 PDFs”. Afterwards each rule states when it was last synchronised and how many PDFs it holds at what storage cost. Sync now triggers a run yourself at any time, for instance when the librarian uploaded something shortly before the rehearsal.

Otherwise it happens by itself: the app syncs in the background whenever the library has changed.

What you see offline – and what you do not

Without a connection, the music list shows a notice and limits itself to synchronised pieces. Everything else has not disappeared, it is simply not retrievable right now; if you open a piece that was not saved, the app says so explicitly rather than showing an empty screen.

The profile settings do not work offline – changing instruments, managing passkeys or switching ensembles needs a connection. The music already stored is unaffected.

If you play in several ensembles, the offline music of all of them is retained. Switching ensembles does not delete what you synchronised in the other one.

Recommendation for everyday use

  • For every member: one rule per own instrument covering the books actually played from – typically the main folder and the march book. That is a one-off task and covers everyday needs completely.
  • Before performances: additionally mark the programme’s pieces as available offline if they come from a book no rule covers.
  • Sync on Wi-Fi, not in the car park outside the marquee. Open the app once and tap Sync now while you still have a signal.
  • Keep an eye on storage: every rule reports what it uses. A complete instrument across two books typically lands in the low hundreds of megabytes – no problem for a modern device.

How to get the music into the archive in decent quality in the first place is covered in the guide Scanning sheet music: resolution, format and settings.