What’s My Note? vs Notation Scanner
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
What’s My Note?
Hear the pitches in your sheet music by touching notes in an image. Ideal for vocalists who struggle with reading music, this app allows you to learn and repeat individual notes and intervals from scanned or imported sheet music. It's designed specifically for vocal parts in choral and vocal ensembles.
- Scan sheet music with camera
- Import JPG, PNG, or PDF
- Touch notes to hear pitch
- Repeat single notes and intervals
- OCR feature for any device
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An app for choral singers who don't read music well. Snap a photo or import JPG, PNG or PDF. Touch notes in the image to hear the pitch. Not for instrumental parts - see details below. Whether you sing in a choir, or a barbershop quartet, or other vocal group, What's My Note lets you hear and learn the pitches in your sheet music. You can repeat single notes or intervals as many times as you like. Use What's My Note? to read published choral music - the kind used by high school choruses, church choirs, musical theater, and barbershop quartets. If you are not sure that What's My Note? will read your music, e-mail us a photo, and we'll let you know. For a demo, please view the video on our website. (What's My Note DOES NOT play scores from start to finish, does not play more than one voice at a time, does not interpret rhythms, does not recognize or play piano or instrumental parts. Hand-written manuscripts and most forms of popular music probably won't work.) You can import PDFs and JPEGs, and use What's My Note's OCR feature on any device. To photograph music, What's My Note? requires an 8 megapixel camera, available on these models (or later): iPhone 4s, iPod Touch 6th Generation, iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4.
Notation Scanner
This app allows users to scan and recognize sheet music using their device's camera or existing images. It functions as a sheet music reader and player, supporting over 100 instruments and offering playback controls. Users can also export their recognized scores in various formats.
- Scan sheet music via camera or image library
- Recognize and playback music scores
- Support for over 100 instruments
- Adjust tempo and voice parts
- Export as MusicXML, MIDI, PNG, PDF
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A powerful scanner for sheet music lovers to recognize sheet music. A handy music OCR tool for you to scan and playback sheet music. Just try to take a photo on the printed sheet music and enjoy it. It dose the recognition process on server side, so it can recognize many more music stuffs than other apps. You could use it as a simple sheet music reader or player as you want. It supports more than 100 different types of instrument along with a very nice sound effect. ----------------------- Features: -Scan the whole sheet at once using the built-in camera or a picture from your image library. -Tap a bar to play the song from. -Support multi-page and reorder them as you wish. -Support up to 8 systems. -Support for changing tempo speed. -Turn up/down the voice of each part. -Export MusicXML, MIDI, PNG and PDF files.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Notation Scanner at every 2 weeks against What’s My Note?'s every 4 months. Notation Scanner also leads on price ($2.99 vs $4.99) and ratings volume (736 vs 222). What’s My Note?'s advantage is rating (4.3 vs 4.1). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
What’s My Note? costs $4.99 and Notation Scanner $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
What’s My Note? holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 222 and 736 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 45% of What’s My Note?'s written reviews are positive against 49% of Notation Scanner's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
What’s My Note? ships an update every 4 months, Notation Scanner every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | What’s My Note? | Notation Scanner |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $2.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (222 ratings) — better | 4.1 (736 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 44.9% of reviews | 49.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 222 | 736 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 | 9.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 168 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | What's My Note, Inc. | 嵩 张 |
Customer experience
What’s My Note?
Notation Scanner
User reviews
What’s My Note?
From 222 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for non-musicians
- 👍 Useful for choir practice
- 👍 Helps learn music faster
- 👍 Good for interval practice
- 👍 Helpful for singers who can't sight-read
Room to improve
- 🐛 Does not work for some users
- 🐛 Scanned sheet photo not detected properly
- 🐛 Scores vanish after reload
- 🐛 No option to import digital sheet music
- 🐛 Too many bugs in new update
Notation Scanner
From 736 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Helpful for learning and practicing music
- 🚀 Works well when the sheet music is clear
- 💡 Useful for choir and band members
Room to improve
- 🐛 Struggles to recognize complex or low-quality sheet music
- 🔒 Forces users to leave 5-star reviews to unlock features
- 🔋 Slow scanning and processing times
Bugs and requests
What’s My Note?
Reported bugs
9 issues- App crashes or freezes
- Scores disappear after reloading
- Scanning sheet music not working correctly
- New update introduced bugs
- Notes not being read accurately
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Scores being erased randomly
- Camera not having enough pixels
- App not playing notes automatically
- Issues with notes not playing on new pages after turning
Requested features
9 requests- Import digital sheet music
- Import PDF files
- Easier and less time-consuming import process
- Show note details (e.g., F, C, B flat) when holding a note
- Ability to import PDFs from Dropbox/email
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Upload PDFs or images of sheet music
- Annotate pages
- Sync music across devices
- Upload option for .pdf and .mus files
Notation Scanner
Reported bugs
3 issues- Cannot recognize any photos or scans of sheet music
- Playback skips notes and has timing issues
- App crashes frequently when trying to scan music
Requested features
3 requests- Allow users to manually correct scanned music
- Improve recognition accuracy for different sheet music styles
- Add more instrument options beyond just piano
In-app purchases
What’s My Note?
No in-app purchases
Notation Scanner
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is What’s My Note? free?
Is Notation Scanner free?
Which has better reviews, What’s My Note? or Notation Scanner?
Do What’s My Note? or Notation Scanner have ads?
Which is updated more often, What’s My Note? or Notation Scanner?
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