Playing
The ▶ button on the top band plays the score; while it plays it is ■, and tapping it stops. On a keyboard, Space does both.
From the start, or from a note
With nothing selected, Play starts at bar 1 and runs to the end. Tap a note first and Play starts there. Tapping another note while the score plays stops it — so does changing mode, undo, or any edit.
What you see
The notes being played turn orange, and the page turns when the music reaches it. Every voice plays; a rest shows the orange too, so you can follow a bar of silence.
Repeats, endings and jumps
The score is played the way a musician reads it: a repeated section twice (or as many times as its endings say), the first ending the first time and the second on the return, D.C. and D.S. once, Fine stopping the second time through, To Coda jumping to the coda. A repeat inside a first ending plays out and hands back to its ending. Tempo marks are honoured; a score with none plays at 120 to the quarter.
Tempo
The tempo mark in the score is only where playback starts. … → Playback… docks a small sheet at the bottom — the score stays in view and keeps playing — showing the speed as beats a minute against the score’s mark, or 120 when the score has none. Drag the slider, tap − and +, or take Half tempo, 3/4 tempo or As marked. A change while the score plays takes effect at once, from where the music is. The speed is yours for the session and for that score; the next score starts as marked, and nothing is written into the music. Holding ▶ for half a second opens the same sheet.
The sound
A piano — the Salamander Grand Piano, a recorded Yamaha C5, credited at the foot of every page here and in the app’s About. It plays every staff, whatever the instrument, and it comes with the app, so it works offline. The same piano sounds when you place a note; that is a setting, under Settings → Sound. If you hear a plain electronic tone instead, the piano has not finished loading yet — it takes a moment on the first launch — or the device could not decode it.
Silent mode
When the iPad is in silent mode, Noteland is silent too — a web app cannot ask the iPad for sound the way a music app can. Turn silent mode off to hear the score.