The tablet on your music stand: what to do before rehearsal
The tablet is only as good as the twenty minutes you give it the evening before. Do this at home on Wi-Fi, and at rehearsal you'll have the right key, your music on the device, and pages that turn when you press the pedal. The steps are written for iPad. The Android differences are at the end.
1. Sync while you have Wi-Fi
Open the app and let it finish. Your church's songs and plans are saved on the device, and from then on they work without a network. Then open the service on the Church tab and read through the order.
2. Check every key
This is the step that catches people out. Key and capo are saved on your device, separately for each song. A song opened from a plan starts in the plan's key only if you have no saved key or capo for it yet. If you changed it some earlier week, you'll see your old key, not this Sunday's.
So open each song from the plan and compare:
- ⊖ / ⊕ move the key a semitone,
- tap the key (for example G major) for the full list, including Original (G),
- Capo is for guitarists. Chords then show as shapes, and the caption gives the key that actually sounds.
3. Pick your chords
If the song has chord variants, open stage mode, then in the source menu choose Chord variant. The ★ star makes one My default, so it opens by itself next time, on every device.
4. Get your music onto the device
- Songbook scores: Settings → Songs → Songbooks → pick the songbook → Download scores for offline use. You'll see "Scores on this device: X of Y songs".
- PDF charts: the app keeps a copy of a PDF once it has been opened, so open each one once while you're on Wi-Fi.
5. Try stage mode on the whole plan
Open the service and tap the stage icon at the top right of the plan (Stage mode (N), where N is the number of songs and readings). Everything lines up as one run of pages.
- Swipe to turn the page. After a song's last page, the next song comes.
- A single tap only shows or hides the buttons. It never turns the page, so nothing jumps in the middle of a song.
- Drag down or double-tap to close stage mode.
- The screen doesn't go to sleep while you're here.
At the bottom, set Columns (Auto, 1, 2, Scroll) to whatever you can read from your playing distance. Autoscroll has its own speed control. Draw on page is for your own notes, with a finger or Apple Pencil. At the top you can switch between light and dark. The default is in Settings → Songs → Stage theme.
6. Set up the pedal
- Pair the pedal in the tablet's Bluetooth settings, not in the app.
- In Settings → Pedal / keyboard, check that Turn pages with a pedal or keyboard is on.
- Choose Pedal scrolling: Full page or Half page.
- If nothing happens, open Key assignment preview and press the pedal. It shows which key your pedal sends. The app turns forward on
↓,→,PageDown,SpaceandEnter, and back on↑,←andPageUp.
Then test the one moment that matters: press the pedal on the last page of a song opened from the plan. The next song should open.
7. Final check
- Turn on Airplane mode and walk through the plan once. Anything that fails to open needs another round on Wi-Fi.
- Charge the tablet, and pack the charger.
- Turn on Do Not Disturb, so no message slides over the chorus.
At rehearsal and on Sunday
If the leader runs the click or leads the band, join with Follow the leader: Click for the band. If the person at the projector turns on Lead the musicians, your plan shows Follow presentation, and your charts move along with the projector. Both need internet. Without it, you still have everything you prepared above, and you turn pages yourself.
If you're a singer who only needs words, try the Lyrics view of a song. There's no need for a chord chart you won't read.
On Android
The Android app covers the same steps, with a simpler stage mode. There's no drawing on the page, no Key assignment preview, and no adding your own sheet music. Key, capo, scores and pedal page-turning are all there.
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