Music Lesson Note vs InstruMate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Music Lesson Note
This app helps music students enhance their practice by allowing them to record lesson tasks using multimedia notes. Notes are contextually linked to music pages, offering visual practice plans and direct access to teacher instructions and demonstrations.
- Record audio and video notes
- Dictate and transcribe text notes
- Draw graphic notes
- Create textual remarks and symbols
- Edit, delete, and export content
- Create journal entries
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‘Music Lesson Note-Pad’ is an application designed to help music students in their individual practice. The application provides students with opportunity to record lesson’s most significant tasks in a series of multimedia notes - audio, video, graphics, and textual. The distinct advantage of these notes is that they are displayed contextually within the music page right at the relevant music selections, as seen in the screenshots. As a result, a page of music turns into concrete visual plan for home practicing. Furthermore, the audio and video notes allow to save teacher’s verbal instructions and playing demonstrations in the most vivid authentic way. Such notes are literally and metaphorically – speaking. Listening to audio notes, or watching video notes, or reading the transcription of dictated text note is utterly simple – just a single tap on the note’s image. Such an immediate access to the notes' contents allows students, while working on particular task, to retrieve the relevant instructions right at the moment when the guidance is needed. That makes individual practicing more effective and engaging. Creating a note was designed to be simple and minimally interruptive to the lesson. It takes mere seconds - 2-3 intuitively comprehensible taps - to start recording an audio or a video note, or drawing a graphic, or dictating a text. ‘Notepad for Music Lesson’ is a feature-rich application. To help explore its functionality in evident and engaging way, the application comes with precompiled ready-to-use project that demonstrates variety of pre-made notes and – what’s even more important and helpful - also allows you to create your own ones: • Recording Audio and Video Notes. • Dictating Text Notes that are transcribed into text on-the-fly as you dictate. (Subject of availability of Speech recognition service in your area) • Drawing graphic notes in multiple drawing styles. • Creating textual remarks, and various kinds of symbols. • Editing/deleting/exporting the contents to computer. • Creating text and audio entries in the journal.
InstruMate
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InstruMate is your digital music workspace for songs, documents, setlists, stems, MIDI, and learning material. The app helps you not only store musical material, but organize it in a meaningful way. Songs are at the center of it all: a song can bring together metadata, PDF sheet music, TXT files, audio, images, videos, MIDI files, and stem folders. This turns individual files into a playable musical context. For musicians, keyboard players, bands, teachers, and learners, InstruMate provides a central interface for preparation, practice, teaching, and performance. Organize songs and files Create songs, add title, artist, key, tempo, time signature, style, registration, or voice, and link the appropriate files. PDFs, TXT files, audio, images, videos, and MIDI files can be collected in the file library and connected to songs. With AutoLink, media can be automatically assigned to matching songs based on their names. This gradually turns a loose collection of files into a structured music library. Setlists for rehearsal and stage Create setlists for teaching, rehearsals, or gigs. Songs can be added, sorted, and used in Live Mode. The simple setlist mode focuses on the essentials, while advanced options remain available for more complex live workflows. This allows you to prepare your songs for the next performance, arrange them in a meaningful order, and access them quickly during rehearsal or live on stage. Use PDF and TXT files live Open sheet music, lead sheets, lyrics, or running orders directly from within a song. PDF annotations, start pages, auto-scroll, and TXT files help you prepare material for practical use. This means you can not only manage songs, but also use them directly while practicing, teaching, or performing. MIDI and keyboard workflows InstruMate supports MIDI files and helps connect songs with MIDI and registration workflows. Keyboard players can store registration or bank calls in the song context and use them directly from the song overview. Yamaha playlist workflows are also supported, allowing songs, registration information, and musical material to come together more effectively. Stem mixer for multitrack audio The stem area supports playbacks, clicks, guide tracks, and additional audio tracks. Volume, pan, mute, solo, and routing can be adjusted for each stem folder. This makes it possible to integrate practice and live setups directly into the song context — from simple playback to multitrack live arrangements. Learning and teaching In addition to its music features, InstruMate offers functions for flashcards, vocabulary lists, and learning materials. Learning content can be structured, practiced, and connected with documents. This makes InstruMate suitable not only for musicians, but also for teachers, music schools, lesson preparation, and independent learning. Who is InstruMate for? InstruMate is designed for musicians, keyboard players, bands, teachers, learners, and anyone who wants to organize songs, sheet music, playbacks, MIDI, stems, and learning material in one place. From the first PDF to the setlist for a performance: InstruMate helps you prepare, find, and use your musical material effectively in live situations.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: InstruMate at none against Music Lesson Note's 2. InstruMate also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 8 months). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Music Lesson Note sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. InstruMate asks for nothing beyond the download.
Music Lesson Note ships an update every 8 months, InstruMate fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Music Lesson Note | InstruMate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (21 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 75.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 21 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 16 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 46 MB | 94 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Igor Borodin | Aik Tan |
In-app purchases
Music Lesson Note
- Monthly non-renewing subscription$4.99
- Music Lesson Noter Pro$19.99
InstruMate
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Music Lesson Note free?
Is InstruMate free?
Do Music Lesson Note or InstruMate have ads?
Which is updated more often, Music Lesson Note or InstruMate?
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