Stanza Private beta · iPad
Built for ensembles

Mark it once.
Every stand gets it.

A sheet music reader for iPad. Write the bowing in once and it is on every stand playing that part, along with the cuts, the repeats and whatever else the room just spent five minutes agreeing on.

Join the beta → See how it works
The reader is free. No account, nothing to sign up for.

The principal writes the bowing in, and it is on every desk in the section before the bar is out.

Ensemble Sync

Rehearsal marks, without the rehearsal.

Someone calls a cut at bar 47. Normally that is twelve people scribbling, and somebody still gets it wrong. Here one person writes it and everyone on that part already has it.

It works device to device over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so a rehearsal room in a basement with no signal is perfectly fine. Up to eight iPads in a session, and everyone keeps their own part on their own stand.

  • Your part stays your part

    The cellos are nowhere near the page the first violins are on, and Stanza doesn’t pretend otherwise. A mark goes to the players reading that part, and everyone else carries on undisturbed.

  • The music travels too

    Somebody turn up without the piece? They get the PDF the moment they join. No AirDrop queue, no email chain the night before.

  • Page turns can follow, when it makes sense

    Sharing one part — a duo at one stand, a choir on one score? Turn one iPad and the rest follow. One tap to break away, one tap to come back.

  • Approve who joins

    Sessions are invite-and-accept, so nobody writes on your music unless you let them in.

The Ensemble Sync panel with Off, Lead and Follow
Off, Lead or Follow, and the list of who is nearby, who is connected and who is asking to join.
The reader

Fast where it has to be fast.

Pages are ready before you ask for them, so a turn is a turn. No spinner, no half-drawn stave while you are counting rests.

  • Pencil for writing, fingers for turning

    The Pencil draws and your fingers turn pages, so resting a hand on the screen will not smear ink across the second movement. Build your presets from six inks: pen, fountain, monoline, pencil, marker and crayon.

  • Layers

    Put your fingerings on one layer and the conductor’s cuts on another. Show either, both or neither, and never rub one out just to read the other.

  • Setlists and folders

    Build the night’s running order and play straight through it. Folders, tags and favorites keep things findable, and you can sort by title, composer, recently opened or recently added. Share the whole setlist with the band, or just the song list as text.

  • Whatever the music is doing

    Adjust Page crops the margins off a bad scan. Manage Pages reorders or hides them. Smart Jump takes care of the repeat that sends you back four pages, and Import Contents turns a table of contents into bookmarks you can tap.

  • Scan a paper part

    Point the camera at it and Stanza straightens it, cleans it up and files it away as a PDF.

A page of Beethoven open in the Stanza reader
Beethoven Op. 27 No. 2 on an iPad Air. Chrome hides itself once you start reading. The annotation bar holds your brushes, eraser, text, undo, redo, clear and layers, and drags to wherever your hand rests.
The Stanza annotation toolbar: brushes, eraser, text, undo, redo, clear, layers
Make it yours

No two musicians read the same way.

So almost nothing here is fixed. Set the reader up the way your eyes and your hands want it, then happily forget it was ever adjustable.

Page turnsSlide, Page Curl, 3D Flip, Push, Cover, Reveal — and a dial that runs from instant to slow.
The bottom sliderPlain slider, a thumbnail filmstrip, or a minimal hairline: solid, dashed or dotted, your color, thickness, opacity, knob.
Brushes and eraserPen, fountain, monoline, pencil, marker, crayon — any color, any width, saved as presets. Rub out part of a stroke or lift the whole one.
How the page sitsVertical Scroll, Two Pages in Landscape, Half-Page Turns, and Performance Mode for when the chrome should just go away.
Light, dark, invertedTheme follows the system or you pin it. Invert Colors gives you white-on-black for a dark stage.
Hands fullFace Turns nods you to the next page, a Bluetooth pedal does it with a foot, and tap zones do it with a knuckle.
The Stanza Tools panel listing every reader option
One panel, everything in it. This is the real thing, not a mock-up.

Pick whatever suits the instrument you play and the room you play it in. A double bassist reading at arm’s length wants something quite different from an organist.

Composer · beta

Write it down before you forget it.

A notation editor built right into the reader. Tap to place notes, or just sketch them with the Pencil: a scribbled oval becomes a note, a slash halves it, an arc ties it.

Multiple staves, chords, beams, ties, tuplets, dynamics, hairpins, articulations, and changes of clef, key, meter and tempo mid-piece. Hear it back with sampled instruments, then export MIDI or MusicXML whenever you want to finish it somewhere else.

The Stanza composer with two engraved staves
Two staves, engraved live as you enter notes. Play it back, then export MIDI or MusicXML.
In the case

The rest of the music stand.

All the things you would otherwise be juggling three more apps for.

TunerChromatic, with a settable reference A.
Tuning forkA steady pitch to tune against.
MetronomeAudible and visual.
PianoA keyboard over the score for checking a note.
RecorderCatch the run-through.
Backing tracksPlay along, pinned to the score.
A piano keyboard floating over a score in Stanza
The piano floats over whatever you are reading, so checking a note does not cost you your place.
Who makes this

Made by a musician, on purpose.

I am a musician who writes software. Every feature in Stanza started as something I wanted on my own stand and could not find anywhere.

It is built for whoever is holding the part: section players and soloists, pit bands and worship teams, students on a first iPad, teachers, and conductors with a full score and a pencil. There is no company behind this and no investors. Just one person, building the thing I wanted to play from.

Pricing

The reader is free. It stays free.

Your library, your marks and your setlists never expire. Pro adds playing together, writing music, and a few things in between.

What each tier includes
Stanza Free Forever · no account Stanza Pro $9.99/yr $0.83 a month · or $1.99 month to month Founding Lifetime $19.99 First 500 only · then $29.99
Reading
Unlimited scores, setlists and folders Included Included Included
Import, scan, crop, reorder pages Included Included Included
Every page-turn style, and the speed dial Included Included Included
Two-up, vertical scroll, half-page turns, invert Included Included Included
Face Turns, Bluetooth pedal, tap zones Included Included Included
Smart Jump and Import Contents Included Included Included
Marking up
Apple Pencil ink, custom brush presets Included Included Included
Stamps, text and shapes Included Included Included
Annotation layers — Included Included
Playing together
Ensemble Sync — marks shared across stands — Included Included
The score pushed to whoever joins without it — Included Included
Devices in one session — UP TO 8 UP TO 8
Writing
Composer — Included Included
MIDI and MusicXML export — Included Included
Practice
Tuner, tuning fork, metronome, piano Included Included Included
Recorder — Included Included
Backing tracks pinned to the score — Included Included
The small print
Account required NEVER NEVER NEVER
Free trial — 7 DAYS —
Renews — YEARLY OR MONTHLY NEVER
Join the beta →
Privacy

Your scores never leave your iPad.

There is no Stanza account, because there is no Stanza server. Nothing gets uploaded, nothing gets analyzed, and there is no tracking code anywhere in the app. Ensemble Sync talks to the iPads in the room over your local network and nowhere else.

Questions
What happens to my music if I stop paying?

You keep everything. Your scores, marks, setlists and folders are files on your own iPad, and the reader that opens them is free. The Pro features switch off, and everything else stays exactly where it is.

Why a subscription at all?

Because there is one person behind Stanza, and I play too. A subscription is what lets me keep fixing what breaks and adding what is still missing, rather than selling this once in 2026 and moving on to something else. And if renting software is not for you, that is completely fair: the lifetime unlock is the same thing, paid once.

Do we all have to be reading the same part?

Not at all. Everyone reads their own part, at their own page, at whatever size suits them. A mark goes to the players reading that part. And if you really are sharing one part, like a duo at one stand or a choir on one score, page turns can follow along too.

Does Ensemble Sync need Wi-Fi?

It only needs the iPads to see each other, which they will do over a shared Wi-Fi network or straight over Bluetooth. No internet connection, no router you control, no login.

Can I bring my library over from the app I use now?

Yes, and most readers make this easy. Anything that exports PDFs will do: import from Files, iCloud Drive, Dropbox or AirDrop, in bulk. Marks you made elsewhere come across as part of the PDF as long as you flatten them on the way out.

Does it work offline?

Completely. Reading, marking up, composing and syncing with the stand next to you all work with the iPad in airplane mode.

Is there an iPhone or Android version?

Android is on the way. I'm building it now. No date yet, but the beta address below is the fastest way to hear when it's ready. iPhone, no: a phone isn't something you'd put on a music stand.

How do I get into the beta?

Email beta@stanzareader.com and tell me what you play and who you play it with. Ensembles go to the front of the queue: sync is hard to test on your own, and one section testing together turns up more than five soloists ever could.