PDA’s aren’t just for keeping track of your schedule. There are lots of applications (many of them free or relatively inexpensive) that you can add to your PDA to make it a really handy tool to have around. For the next few weeks I will be talking about some different applications that you can add to your PDA to make it work for you.
Are you ever waiting in line somewhere and inspiration hits you. You come up with a great new exercise for your students or a theme for a piece or music and you wish you could write it down? Now you can. Music Pal is an application created for use on Palm pilots and Pocket PC’s that allows you to write music on your PDA. You can write up to 1500 notes and store them on your PDA. When you get back home, you can upload it in MIDI file format to edit and print from your computer. You can enter notes in score view or with a keyboard. It will allow you edit the score (move notes, cut, copy and paste.) You can even transpose notes and change their duration.
The software can be downloaded from online and costs $20.00. If you aren’t sure if it is for you, you can get the trial version. It has all of the features, but only allows you to use it 30 times before you must register it.
   
     
So the next time you are waiting somewhere and inspiration strikes you, pull out your palm pilot and jot it down.
