Guide

How to use Rep Jam Gig.

A walk through the app, screen by screen — what each screen is for and how the pieces fit together. Screens shown here have a little example data in them so there’s something to point at; your own copy starts completely empty.

Add a song, the credits fill themselves in

Tap + on Repertoire and start typing a title. The built-in songbook — 2,545 jazz standards — offers matches as you type. Pick one and it fills in composer, lyricist and year. The key is yours to set — the songbook’s key isn’t assumed to be the one you do it in, and a MusicXML chart you attach is shown and played in yours.

Add Song form with a songbook match suggested

Repertoire list split into Ready, In Progress and To Learn

Three buckets: Ready, In Progress, To Learn

Every song has a status. Performance Ready is what you’d call on a gig tonight. In Progress is under construction. Want to Learn hasn’t started. The stats strip at the top of Repertoire always shows your counts at a glance, and the list below splits the same way.

Each list sorts its own way — tap the small toggle beside its heading. Performance Ready goes A–Z or by Plays, most played on top. In Progress and Want to Learn go A–Z or Newest: the order songs joined that list, latest on top, including a song you’ve just moved there. Want to Learn starts on Newest, and each device remembers your choice. A small chart icon under a song’s key means it has a chart — tap it to open the chart.

Keep the chart with the song

Every song can carry its chart: a PDF, a photo of the page, a scan, or a MusicXML score. Open the song, scroll down to Chart and tap Add Chart, then choose Files, Photos or Scan with Camera. On iPhone and iPad, Scan with Camera finds the page, straightens it, and turns every page you scan into one PDF; on Android the choice is Take Photo, which opens your phone’s camera app. The chart is kept when you tap Save.

From then on, a small chart icon under the song’s key on Repertoire opens it. Each page fits the screen — swipe between pages, pinch to zoom.

A song’s Chart section, with a MusicXML chart ready to save and View, Replace and Delete Chart

A MusicXML chart drawn as notation, with its playback controls

A MusicXML chart draws itself — and plays, in your key

Export a .musicxml or .mxl file from MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Dorico or any notation program and add it as the chart. It opens as notation on a white page, with the title and credits at the top, moved into the key you keep the song in. Tap Play to hear it on a recorded piano built into the app, while a line follows the music and the page turns.

Choose Melody, Chords or Both; set the tempo by tapping, typing, nudging or sliding; repeat it, or play it round until you stop; start with a four- or eight-bar intro. Each tune remembers how you last played it.

Log a jam in a few taps

Add a date, venue, and the song you played. Write musicians as “Name (instrument)” — e.g. Dana (piano) — and the app remembers that pairing in your Musicians directory automatically, so you never type it twice. One person’s brackets can hold a list — Dana Reyes (piano, flute) — and they count under each instrument.

When a guest sat in on just one tune, tap Different musicians for this song under it; for a line about that tune alone, A note about this song. The night’s line-up and note cover every other song.

A logged jam entry showing song, key and musicians

Let the app build your set list

From Gigs, tap the wand icon. Set how many sets and songs per set, and it suggests a set list from your ready repertoire — balancing keys, favouring songs you haven’t played in a while, and leaning on tunes you’ve played with the specific musicians on this gig if you name them — their names complete as you type, so they match your log.

Every gig keeps its own set list

However it got there — built automatically or typed by hand — a gig's sets and songs live right on the gig, alongside the venue, date and who played. Tap any gig to see the full running order. Typing a set by hand? Start a line and your repertoire offers the title; one tap puts it in with your key and starts the next line.

The Calendar tab showing a month of planned sessions with a starred jam

Plan your jam calendar — and let performed songs file themselves

The Calendar tab holds the sessions you plan to attend — weekly jams, “third Monday of the month” nights, one-offs — with stars to pin the important ones and search across names, places and rules. Import any calendar’s .ics file and it lands intact — and importing it again later updates the sessions you already have instead of doubling them. And when you log a jam or gig with a song that isn’t catalogued yet, it files itself under In Progress with its songbook credits — nothing falls through the cracks, and there’s no queue to tend.

Musicians remember themselves

Everyone you’ve named in a jam or gig entry appears in Musicians automatically, rolled up with every session you’ve played together. Add people by hand too, with a note on where you met — instrument, Instagram handle and play history all live in one place.

Musicians directory entry with instrument, note and session history

The Import / Export screen, with Export All Data (zip)

Move your whole library in one file

Import / Export, from the Repertoire toolbar, covers your whole library. With no charts in it, that is one CSV, plus an .ics if you have planned sessions. Once you have charts, it is a single zip holding everything — the CSV, the calendar and the chart files — because a chart is a file rather than a row. Bring that zip back in on the same screen and your charts land on their songs again; for the calendar inside it, use the import button on the Calendar tab, which takes the same zip. Re-importing a file, including your own export, never erases or duplicates anything already in the app: matched songs and musicians are merged, and jam or gig entries already logged are skipped.

Bringing in an existing repertoire? The step-by-step import guide walks through filling in the file, with exactly what each row type needs.

Charts

Adding, playing and sharing

What can a chart be?

One file per song: a PDF, a photo (JPEG, PNG or HEIC), a scan, or a MusicXML score saved as .musicxml or .mxl. On iPhone and iPad a plain .xml file isn’t recognised — rename it to end in .musicxml. On Android, Add Chart → Files takes it as it is. A MusicXML chart is one tune, so if your notation program exported a whole book, export the tune you want on its own.

How do I add a chart to a song?

Open the song, scroll down to Chart and tap Add Chart. Files takes a PDF or score from your phone or your cloud storage; Photos takes a picture you already have. On iPhone and iPad, Scan with Camera finds the page, straightens it, and turns every page you scan into one PDF. On Android the third choice is Take Photo, which opens your phone’s camera app, and the photo becomes the chart. Nothing is kept until you tap Save.

Can I send a chart to the app from somewhere else?

Yes. In Files, Mail, Safari, a scanner app or anything else with a Share button, share the file and choose Rep Jam Gig — on iPhone and iPad you may need to tap More to find it, and AirDrop works too; on Android, use Share or Open with for a PDF or photo, and add a MusicXML file with Add Chart → Files. Then pick its song on Choose a Song, or tap + there to add the song with the chart already on it. If the song already has a chart, the app asks before replacing it. Send charts one at a time: if a second arrives while the first is still coming in, the first is kept and the second is turned away. One that arrives while you’re filling in a form waits until you close it. The file you shared stays where it was.

Why isn’t Rep Jam Gig in the Photos app’s share sheet?

On iOS 17, the Photos app doesn’t offer it. Add the photo from the song instead: Add Chart → Photos. Sharing from the Photos app works on iOS 18 and later.

How do I open a chart?

Tap the small chart icon under a song’s key on Repertoire, or View Chart on the song. A PDF or photo fits each page to the screen: swipe between pages and pinch to zoom. On iPhone and iPad, “This chart is still arriving from iCloud” means it’s on its way from your other device — give it a moment.

What does a MusicXML chart do when it plays?

Tap Play and a recorded piano built into the app plays it — no signal needed, and it sounds with the ringer on silent. Melody, Chords or Both chooses what you hear. The tempo starts from the chart’s own tempo mark: tap four beats, type a number, nudge it with − and +, or use the slider. Repeat takes it round twice, three or four times, or until you stop; Intro plays the last four or eight bars first. A line follows the music and the page turns on its own. It’s all in your song’s key — with no key on the song, or one the app can’t read as a key, the chart plays as written. Each tune remembers its tempo, part, repeats and intro for next time: on iPhone and iPad those follow you to your other devices through iCloud; on Android they stay on the phone. The notation software and the piano recordings are credited in About → Licences.

How do I get the best from a MusicXML chart?

Rep Jam Gig draws a MusicXML chart and plays it in your song’s key. Most of what it needs is already in the file your notation program exports; a few things make it sure of the rest. The MusicXML each one becomes is in brackets, for anyone who edits files directly.

A key signature that matches the tune. A D minor tune takes D minor’s one flat, not a bare staff with the flats written in as accidentals. (<key><fifths>)
The mode, for a modal tune. “So What” is in D dorian and is written with no sharps or flats — which, on its own, looks like C major. If your notation program lets you set a key signature’s mode, choose dorian, mixolydian, lydian or phrygian: it tells the app which note the tune lives on. (<key><mode>dorian</mode>)
Chords entered as chord symbols, not typed as text. They’re what the app plays behind the melody, and how it confirms the key. (<harmony>)
A pickup written as a pickup — a short first bar — rather than a full bar of rests. (<measure implicit="yes">)
A tempo mark on the first bar. The app starts at it, and shows it in the beat your chart counts in. (<sound tempo> with its <metronome> mark)
Composer and lyricist in the score’s credits. They print at the top of the page; if the file has none, the app uses the ones on your song. (<creator type="composer">)
Line breaks where you want them. With none, the app sets four bars to a line and starts each section on a new one. (<print new-system="yes"/>)
Repeat signs and first and second endings as real symbols, not words, so playback takes the repeats. (<repeat>, <ending>)

If a chart comes up in a key you didn’t expect, check its key signature and mode first. To see a chart exactly as it’s written, leave the song’s key empty — or write a mode, such as “D dorian”, which the app doesn’t read as a key to move to — and it won’t move it. (C minor or Bb major, written out, are read as keys.)

Can I share or print a chart?

Open the chart and tap Share at the top right. The file goes wherever you choose — Messages, Mail, Files, another app — named after the song; a MusicXML chart goes as a .musicxml file. On iPhone and iPad the share sheet also offers Print for a PDF or photo chart.

How do I replace or delete a chart?

Open the song. Replace Chart asks first, then takes the new one from Files, Photos or Scan with Camera (Take Photo on Android); Delete Chart takes it off. Either happens when you tap Save, so Cancel leaves the chart as it was. Deleting a song deletes its chart too.

Does Rep Jam Gig ask for any permissions?

On iPhone and iPad the app asks for one permission, the camera, and only if and when you choose Scan with Camera to add a chart — never when it opens, and for nothing else. If you’d rather not allow it, take a photo of the chart with the Camera app and add it from Photos in the app, which asks for nothing. The Android app asks for no permissions. Said no, and changed your mind? Choosing Scan with Camera again shows “Camera access is off”, with the same Photos way round and an Open Settings button that takes you to where Camera can be turned on for the app.

Do charts sync to my other devices?

On iPhone and iPad, yes: a chart travels with its song through iCloud whenever iCloud is on for Rep Jam Gig — see turning iCloud sync on. On Android a chart stays on the phone and is left out of Google’s cloud backup, so Export All Data, which puts your charts in one zip with the rest of your library, is the sure way to move them to another phone.

Quick answers

The practical stuff

How do I mark a song performance-ready?: Tap the song in Repertoire to open it, then change Status to Performance Ready and save. It moves to the top bucket immediately.
How do I delete a song, jam, gig, musician or planned session?: Press and hold its row in the list and tap Delete, or open it and use the button at the bottom of its edit screen. Deleting a song removes it and its chart from your repertoire — the jam and gig entries where you played it are kept. For a musician, the option is Remove from directory: it takes them out of the directory, but the jams and gigs you logged with them stay, so they'll still appear if they played on one. A planned session that repeats asks whether to delete just that session or all sessions in the series.
Can I move my data to a new phone without iCloud?: Yes — use Export All Data on the old device, then Import on the new one. If you have charts it comes out as one zip with everything in it, including the chart files: import it on Import / Export for the library and the charts, and on the Calendar tab for your planned sessions. Without charts it is a plain CSV, plus an .ics if you have planned sessions, imported the same two places. A chart already on a song is never written over, so re-importing is safe. On iPhone and iPad, iCloud can do it for you — see turning iCloud sync on, and Privacy for how it works. If iCloud sync is on, don’t do both: let your library arrive from iCloud first — importing while it’s still downloading leaves two copies.
My new iPhone or iPad shows an empty Repertoire — where’s my library?: If iCloud is on for Rep Jam Gig, it’s on its way. Repertoire says “Checking iCloud for your library…”, then “Your library is coming back from iCloud…” while it downloads — charts included — and the message goes once it’s all there. There’s no need to import anything — importing while the library is still downloading would leave two copies, so the app asks first if you try. Right after setting up a new phone, iCloud can take a little while to be ready, and until then Repertoire may show nothing at all: give it time rather than importing a backup. A device set up from your old one, or from a backup, usually opens with everything already in place.
How do I turn iCloud sync on?: On iPhone and iPad it’s on by default whenever the device uses iCloud. To check, open Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Saved to iCloud (tap See All if it lists only a few apps), and make sure Rep Jam Gig is on. On iOS 17 it’s Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Apps Using iCloud → Show All. The About screen — tap ⓘ on Repertoire — shows whether your library is syncing and when it last did. Turning iCloud off for the app, or signing out of iCloud, makes iOS remove the synced library from that device; it stays in iCloud and comes back when iCloud is on again, so wait for it rather than importing a backup. The Android app has no cloud sync.
Where do I find the version I’m on?: Tap ⓘ on Repertoire for About. It shows the version and how much space your charts take — and, on iPhone and iPad, whether your library is syncing with iCloud — with links to this guide and the privacy policy, Rate the app, Send feedback, and Licences, which credits the notation software and the piano recordings.
Something here doesn’t match what you’re seeing?: The app changes between builds — check Release Notes for what’s new, or reach us through the support page.