Write, arrange, score and keep your songs. Sol-fa, chords, lyrics and separate parts, all in one notebook.
To install Writenotes, open Chrome's three-dot menu and choose Install app (or Add to Home screen) If you don't see Install app. Before installing on your phone, make sure Desktop site is unticked. If it is ticked, the app opens in desktop view on your phone.
If the app later opens in desktop view, it means Chrome's Desktop site got ticked again while browsing another site. Untick it and reopen the app to fix the view.
Writenotes is a notebook for writing and scoring songs. It is made for singers, musicians, choir members, worship teams, songwriters and anyone who writes music with words. You keep every song you write inside the app, on your device, and it works without internet.
Open the Songnotes tab. Tap New to start writing, or Import Writenotes to bring back a file you saved before. When the editor opens, tap the title to name the song, then tap a part below it to start writing.
Every song has five parts: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass and Chords. Tap the row of buttons below the title to switch between them. Each part holds its own content. Writing something in Soprano does not affect the Alto line.
Notes are separate, see section 6.
Inside each part you write in blocks. A block is one section of the song, like a verse, a chorus, a bridge or a vamp. Tap the Add block button and a grid of block types opens. Pick the one you want and it appears in the part. Tap the three dots on a block header to rename it, move it up or down, duplicate it or delete it.
For the melody parts, a solfa keyboard sits at the bottom of the page. Tap the block you want to write in, then tap the solfa keys. If you ever need to jump to a different block quickly, tap the block name at the top of the solfa keyboard, a list of all blocks opens, and tapping one scrolls to it and selects it.
The letters are the notes. The straight bar marks the end of a phrase. The dash tells you to hold the note a little longer. The little mark after a letter, like d', means the note one octave above.
Notes live in their own tab. Each song has its own notes, saved with the song, exported with the song. Open a song, tap the Notes tab, and either long-press in a block to paste the whole notes in one go, or tap Add block to split them into sections. Blocks can be left untitled, so the text just flows.
When you tap a block, it opens in Read mode, the phone keyboard stays away, so you can read the block comfortably. To change something, tap Edit at the top. When you finish, tap Done to save and return to reading.
When you want to see the whole song without scrolling around, tap View notes in the overflow menu at the top of the editor (the three dots). A full-screen view opens showing the song title at the top and a row of chips for the parts that have content. Tap a chip to switch parts. Each block of the part is shown in order, so you can read the song straight through.
Use the search box on the Songnotes tab to find a song fast, by title or by its first line. To save one song as a Writenotes file, open the song and choose Export Writenotes from the overflow menu. To save every song in the app as one Writenotes file, choose Export all. To share a song with someone who does not use Writenotes, choose Export as PDF. To bring songs back, tap Import Writenotes on the library screen and pick a Writenotes file you saved earlier; if it contains several songs, Writenotes will ask before adding them all.
Every song has a short code, like WN-A7F3K2. You can see it under the song title, and tap it to copy. The same code appears in the PDF footer, so anyone who receives a PDF can bring that song back into Writenotes by tapping Open shared notes on the Songnotes tab and pasting the code. If the song is already in their library, it opens. If it is not, Writenotes tells them to ask the sender for the Writenotes file or the PDF.
Writenotes keeps the last three versions of every song automatically. To see them, open a song and tap History in the overflow menu. The current version is at the top, and older versions are listed below, each with its date. Tap any version to preview it. Tap Restore to make that version the current one. Your current work is saved as a version before anything is replaced, so nothing is lost.
Tap the round button at the bottom right of the screen to switch between day mode and night mode. The app remembers your choice the next time you open it.
No. Writenotes works entirely on your device. Your songs are saved in the browser and stay there even when you are offline.
On your own device, inside the app. Nothing is sent to a server. Nothing leaves your phone or computer unless you export a Writenotes file yourself.
Everything you were writing saves automatically. When you open Writenotes again, you come back to the same song and the same part you were in.
Yes. Open the song and choose Export Writenotes from the overflow menu, or use Export all from the library to save every song in one Writenotes file. Send that file to the other phone. On the other phone, open Writenotes, tap Import Writenotes on the library screen and pick the file. The songs appear with all their parts, notes and blocks intact.
Every song has a short code, like WN-A7F3K2. The code appears under the title in the app, and in the PDF footer. If you receive a PDF with a code, open Writenotes, tap Open shared notes, and paste the code. If the song is already in your library, it opens directly. If it is not, Writenotes tells you to ask the sender for the Writenotes file or the PDF.
Every time you save a change to a song, Writenotes keeps the previous version. Three versions are kept per song. To see them, open a song and tap History in the overflow menu. You can preview any version and restore it. When you restore, your current version is also saved first, so nothing is lost.
Export Writenotes saves the song in the app's own file format. That file can be imported back into Writenotes later, and it keeps every part, block and note exactly as it was. Export as PDF saves a readable, printable copy of the song. Anyone can open the PDF on any phone, print it, or share it in WhatsApp. The PDF is for reading and sharing. The Writenotes file is for editing and keeping.
Solfa is a way of writing music with letters. Instead of naming an exact pitch, it names the role a note plays in the key. The seven letters d, r, m, f, s, l and t match doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah and te. Any choir that sings solfa will understand a line written this way.
Melody blocks are written with the solfa keys at the bottom of the page, not with the phone keyboard. That way the phone keyboard never gets in the way. To read a melody block, tap it it opens in Read mode. To change it, tap Read's Edit button.
Yes. It is built for choir and worship settings, but any songwriter can use it. The five parts cover melody, harmony and chords, and the Notes tab holds the words.
No. Writenotes is built to hold hundreds of songs without slowing down. Each song saves as a small file on your device.
Paste the code that appears under the song title, or in the PDF footer. It looks like WN-XXXXXX.