Guide
forScore app for low vision: Video tutorials
Learn how to use forScore, a digital sheet music app, with your low vision students!
Band and chorus are popular electives for students with low vision. But what if your student is unable to read the small music notes? Previously, low vision students dealt with miles of oversized large print pages for each song. Now, low vision students can take advantage of mainstream sheet music apps available for tablets and computers. Mainstream digital sheet music applications offer a simple way to declutter and magnify lines of sheet music and the ability to play one continuous line of music. Sheet music apps also enable students to organize all of their music.
In the videos below, Nancy Irwin demonstrates using forScore, an iOS and Mac sheet music app. Nancy is the Access Technology specialist for the SC School for the Deaf and Blind forScore; she is a knowledgable musician and has low vision.
Reflow
Analyzing each page of music, the Reflow feature automatically detects where most individual systems of music are located, then renders these areas (up to twice their original size) and lays them out end-to-end. The result is that one line of continuous music is displayed (similar to a teleprompter). With Reflow, musicians no longer have to scroll up and down through pages of music. This continuous line removes page turns while making notation larger and easier to see.
While using Reflow:
- Tap the magnifying glass icons to increase or decrease the size of your music.
- Tap the Page/Scroll button to change how you advance.
- Page mode: forScore quickly scrolls left or right by a set amount when you tap either side of the screen.
- Scroll mode: Moves the music at a steady pace. Tap the center of the screen to start or stop scroll mode. Tap the left or right sides multiple times to speed up or slow down the scrolling. Drag the music left or right at any time if you fall behind or want to skip ahead. Scrolling will resume automatically.
Note: forScore is also compatible with Bluetooth foot pedals for hands free page turns! Nancy uses the Donner Wireless Page Turner Pedal. forScore also supports using the Apple Pencil.
Reflow also allows the musician to edit the music. As Nancy explains in her video, low vision students may benefit from these easy edits, such as instead of scrolling back to “repeat”, edit the sheet music to embed a new page with the repeated music. This eliminates the need to scroll back to the desired location.
Video tutorials
In the first video, Nancy demonstrates how to turn on the Reflow feature in the accessibility menu.
In the second video, Nancy demonstrates how to import music, add zones to a piece of music, how to handle repeats, and how to import files from other places on the iPad.
Setting up for forScore for a VI student, part 1 video:
Setting up forScore for a VI student, part 2 video:
Resources
Note: Nancy also recommends joining the forScore Users Group Facebook page. (No developers from forScore are on the group, but users share tips and tricks.)
by Diane Brauner, 1/11/23
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