Feadan,
step by step

Feadan reads ABC sheet music for the Highland bagpipe and plays it back with a real practice chanter sound, in the app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, and on the website. This guide follows the app the way you will meet it: open a tune, play it, practise it, make it yours.

Chapter 1

Welcome

What Feadan is, where it runs, and what you need to get going.

Feadan shows a tune as clean, printable notation and plays it back so you can learn it by ear and by eye. It is built for how pipers actually practise: slow a tune down, loop a difficult phrase, switch the metronome on, hear the harmony on its own, then print the page for your pipe case.

• The app (iPhone, iPad, Mac) is where you read and play. This guide uses iPad screenshots; the Mac and iPhone apps work the same way.
• The website (feadan.app) is where you manage your libraries, share them, set your account and, with a Pro account, record your own chanter sound.
• It works offline. Everything you have synced stays on the device, so a library loaded over wifi is still there on a piping field with no signal.
• Tunes are ABC text. ABC is a plain-text way of writing music. You never have to learn it to play tunes, but if you write your own, the last chapters tell you what Feadan understands.

Chapter 2

Your first tune

From a cold start to music coming out of the speaker, in a minute.

1. Sign in. Open the app and sign in with your e-mail and password. Your libraries download in the background.
2. Pick a library. The library name at the top of the screen is the one you are looking at. Open Settings (the gear) and choose Libraries to switch. The tick shows the library in use.
3. Open a tune. Tap its name in the list. The score opens full screen.
4. Press play. The triangle at the bottom is Play. A red cursor follows the music and the page scrolls with it. Press Stop (the square) to go back to the start.

Chapter 3

Reading a score

What is on the page, and how to make it look the way you like.

The toolbar

Everything you do to a tune lives in one strip at the bottom of the score. From left to right:

• Close back to the list
• Print print or save a PDF
• Share share this library (owners)
• Play / pause start and pause (on a Mac, or an iPad with a keyboard, the Space bar does the same)
• Stop back to the start
• Sound mute everything
• Mixer volumes and voices
• Metronome click and count-in
• − 80 + tempo in beats per minute
• Highlight colour rhythms and grace notes
• Selection draw loops
• Settings ornaments, dotted notes, play plan
• Report tell us something is wrong
• Edit the editor (if you can edit): notes, embellishments, bars and the ABC text, all in one panel

On an iPhone the strip wraps onto two rows. When the tune has loop frames, an eye button appears after Selection to hide or show them.

A button that is greyed out is not ready yet (the mixer wakes up a second after the page is drawn). A button with a padlock belongs to a different plan: see Your account.

Continuous or pages

Chapter 4

Playing it

Tempo, count-in, metronome, voices and ornaments.

Tempo

The − 80 + control sets the speed in beats per minute. You can change it while the tune is playing; it changes at once, without going back to the start. Feadan remembers the tempo you chose for each tune, so the march you practise at 70 is still at 70 tomorrow (this needs a Base or Pro account).

Count-in and metronome

The mixer: voices and volumes

Ornaments and dotted notes

Open the Settings button in the toolbar (the gear in a circle). The top of the popover shapes how the tune is played:

• Ornaments (grace notes) sets how long each grace note lasts, in milliseconds. Shorter is crisper. The length is the same in every time signature: 30 ms is 30 ms in a 4/4 march and in a 6/8 jig.
• Dotted notes sets how long a dotted note is held compared with the short note after it. 75 % is the plain 3:1 ratio; higher values swing it further, as in a strathspey or a march.
• Simplified ornaments plays a single grace note per ornament, useful when you are learning the tune.
• Heavy throw on D plays the heavy version of the throw on D.

Where the beat falls inside an ornament follows piping practice: a doubling or a single grace note starts on the beat, while a grip, a throw on D or a taorluath is played so that its D lands on the beat: the low G before it is played a fraction early (it shortens the note before) and the rest of the ornament follows.

Some ornaments also last a little longer than the others: the rodin (the grip played from D, a low G, B, low G) is rounder than a grip, so each of its small notes lasts half as long again as the Ornaments (grace notes) setting. The beat still falls on the same note.

These details come from the embellishment library built into the app. When players' votes and reports show that one of them should be adjusted (the note that takes the beat, how long it lasts, its name), the Feadan team changes it on the server, and the app picks the change up the next time it is online. Nothing to install, and without a connection Feadan simply uses the last version it received.

Each tune also has a type (march, jig, strathspey…): Feadan picks sensible defaults for it, and you can change the lengths from there.

Playing a set

Open a set (chapter 9) and the tunes play one after another with no gap, at the tempo each tune is written in, or at one tempo for the whole set if you choose to keep it.

Chapter 5

Practising

Tools to work on one phrase until it is right.

Start from any note

With the tune stopped, tap a note to pin it. The note turns orange and playback starts from it, with no count-in. Tap another note to move the pin.

Loops

Highlights

Chapter 6

Your sound

Match the chanter you hear to the one you play.

Audio delay (Bluetooth and AirPlay speakers)

Record your own chanter (Pro)

Chapter 7

Parts and play plans

Decide exactly what each voice plays, and when.

By default a tune plays as written: the repeats, then the first and second endings, with every voice following the same route. A play plan lets you arrange it. A few things you can do with one:

• start with the melody alone, then bring in the harmony on the repeat;
• play the tune three times, with one more voice each time;
• swap voices, so voice 2 plays voice 1's line the second time round;
• teach a harmony to a one-voice tune, by adding voices that exist only when you play.

Step 1: name the parts

A plan talks in parts: A, B, C… A part is a stretch of the tune, usually one of the repeated sections. Parts are marked in the ABC text with a line P:A, P:B at the start of each one (that is standard ABC). If your tune has none, press Find parts in the Settings popover (you need to be able to edit the tune): Feadan looks for the sections and writes the markers for you, in voice 1. The other voices follow voice 1's markers.

Step 2: write the plan

What a plan does with repeats

• A plan replaces the repeat signs: each letter plays its part once, and the plan says how many times.
• It keeps first and second endings. The first time a voice plays a part it plays ending 1, the second time ending 2, then ending 1 again, and so on.
• If a part starts with a pick-up before a repeat bar |:, the pick-up is played the first time and not again when the plan replays the part: it restarts at the |:, like a written repeat.
• A tune with no plan plays as written, with its repeats.

More voices than the tune writes

Chapter 8

Writing, printing and PDF

Fix a note, write your own tune, put the page on paper.

The ABC editor

Editing a score visually

The visual editor lets you change a tune by working on the score itself, with almost no typing. You can use it on any tune you are allowed to edit: one of your own, or one whose owner gave you edit rights. A tune shared with you read-only has no editor.

Opening the editor

Press the Edit button (the pen nib in a circle, the last one in the toolbar). One panel opens along the bottom of the screen, under the score. The score shrinks to fit above it, so nothing is ever covered. The ▾ arrow folds the panel down to its row of tabs; press it again to unfold. The ✕ button or the Edit button closes the editor. If you have changes that are not saved, Feadan asks whether to save or discard them.

The panel has six tabs: Notes (note values and rests), Ornaments (embellishments), Measure (a bar, a bar line or an ending), Selection (what you can do to what you selected), Score (title, composer, voices) and ABC (the text of the tune). Next to the tabs a row of buttons is always there: Select, Undo, Redo, the red-bar switch, Save and the fold-away arrow. On a phone the row of tabs scrolls sideways.

You do not have to hunt for the right tab. Selection opens by itself when you select a note, a rest or an embellishment, and Measure when you select a bar, a bar line or an ending. When you select nothing any more, you are back on the tab you came from. A tab you choose yourself stays where you put it.

Behind the scenes everything you do is written into the ABC text of the tune, so playback, sharing and the ABC tab always agree with what you see. Press Save to keep your work. The score does not answer to editing gestures while the tune is playing.

Starting a new score

The + in the list makes a new tune. In the New Score form, Create and edit opens the new score straight in the editor, with the title, composer, time signature and tempo you typed. Its bars hold a rest as long as the bar: place a note in one and the rest shrinks to what is left.

Placing notes and rests

In the Notes tab, tap a note value or a rest and keep it selected. A pale copy follows your pointer and snaps to the nine notes of the chanter (never to a note it cannot play). Tap to place it before the note on the right of the pointer, in the bar you point at. The note you place sounds once (the very first one can come a moment late, while the sound loads). To stop placing, press Esc, tap the same value again, or press Select.

If the bar already holds rests, the new note shortens them so that the bar stays full: first the rests after the note, then the ones before it. A rest that shrinks to nothing disappears. If there is no rest to shorten, the bar turns red (see below) until you fix it.

Selecting

Tap a note or a rest. Shift-click adds more, and dragging a rectangle along a staff selects everything inside it. To select a whole bar, tap the empty part of the bar, or double-click it, or press and hold anywhere in it; on a phone or tablet, double-tap or press and hold. The bar turns blue on every staff of the system, so the voices stay together. You can also tap a bar line, or the bracket of an ending (the “1.” or “2.” above the staff), to select them. On a touchscreen, tapping in an empty spot picks the nearest note, not the bar: use a double-tap for the bar.

Changing what you selected

With notes selected, the Selection tab offers:

• ↑ ↓ move the note along the nine notes of the chanter. The arrow keys do the same, and you can drag the note up or down (with a finger, drag once the note is selected).
• A menu changes the note value; • and •• add one or two dots.
• Tie ties the note to the next one.
• Slide makes the note slide to the next one: a straight line is drawn between the two heads and, when you listen, the first note glides smoothly up or down to the pitch of the second (see For ABC writers). Select the note, or two neighbouring notes (the slide goes on the first). It is greyed out when the next note cannot be reached: the next thing is a rest or a chord, it is the last note, it has the same pitch, a repeat bar or an ending lies between them, or the note is tied. Press it again to remove the slide.
• The beam buttons join the note with its neighbours or separate it from them. With several notes selected they read Beam and Split.
• < and >, when you select two neighbouring notes of the same length, turn them into a dotted pair (long then short, or short then long).
• The bin deletes the selection.

If a change cannot be made (the note would leave the chanter's range, a tie has nothing to join…), a short message says why and nothing moves.

Embellishments

The Ornaments tab has one chip per family: Doublings, Grips / Throws, Birls / Taorluath, Strikes / Shakes / Slurs, Pìobaireachd and Custom. Each embellishment is drawn as a small tile showing just its little notes. Hold your pointer over a tile to see its name and, for the longer ones, the note the beat falls on.

Placing one. Tap a tile and keep it selected. A pale copy of the whole embellishment follows your pointer and attaches to the note under it, which is highlighted. Tap to write it before that note. If the note already carries an embellishment, the new one replaces it. An embellishment can go on any note, even where it is not usually written: it is placed exactly as drawn (its own pitches, in front of the note), and nothing warns or refuses. Esc, or tapping the same tile again, goes back to selecting. The embellishment you place sounds once with its note.

Gracenote. This switch, at the top of the tab, places single gracenotes freely, like notes. Switch it on, then tap notes: the pale gracenote follows the height of your pointer and snaps to the nine notes of the chanter, and each tap writes it before the note under the pointer. Tap the same note again and the new gracenote is added to the ones already there. Several gracenotes in a row on one note join into a single embellishment (up to eight), which plays and prints as one. Undo takes them off one at a time.

Auto doubling. The other switch picks the right doubling for each note, looking at the note and the one that follows. Switch it on, then tap notes: each gets its doubling. It works on plain notes, and on notes carrying a single gracenote (which it replaces); elsewhere a short message says why not. Gracenote and Auto doubling cancel each other: turning one on turns the other off. If you already chose a ready-made embellishment, Auto doubling keeps it (other embellishments are placed as they are), and Gracenote drops it. A line under the two switches explains the active tool.

Custom. This chip lists the embellishments of this tune that are not in the library, for instance a shape written by hand in the ABC text or built from a row of gracenotes. They look like the others and you can place and select them again. There is nothing to create or name: for a special embellishment, chain gracenotes, or write it in the ABC text. When an embellishment is not in the library, the beat falls on its second note if it starts below the note it goes on, otherwise on its first. The ready-made ones keep their own beat note.

Replacing, moving and removing. In select mode, tap the stem or beam of an embellishment to select all of it, or one of its notes to select that note alone. The Selection tab shows the name (Custom if it is not in the library) and, for the longer ones, the note the beat falls on. Replace takes you to the Ornaments tab: the next tile you tap takes its place, and you are back in Selection. ↑ ↓ with a single note selected move that note along the chanter, and the bin removes the whole embellishment.

Report… At the end of the Selection tab, with an embellishment selected, tell us what is wrong with it: it has another name (write the one you know), it plays too fast or too slow, the beat falls on another note (you pick which), or something else. A line of comment is optional, except for “Something else”. You need to be signed in. The report goes privately to the Feadan team, with the name of your tune when it comes from a server library and never with the music. Sending again for the same embellishment and the same kind of problem replaces your earlier report. Without a connection the sheet says so and keeps what you wrote. Nothing changes in your tune or in the library by itself: reports help us decide how the library names, times and plays each embellishment.

Bars, endings and lines

When a bar is selected, the Measure tab offers:

• Delete the bar, or Add a rest bar before or after it.
• [1 Start and [2 Start: begin a 1st or 2nd ending here (tap again to remove it).
• The bar line at the start or the end of the bar: single, double, thick-thin, thin-thick, repeat start, repeat end, or both.
• Time and ♩: change the time signature or the tempo from this bar on (the tempo also has − and +, which change it by 5).
• The lines: Break here, Join next, and Line start / Line end (a new bar at the start or end of the line).

Tap a bar line to change its kind. Tap the bracket of an ending to change its number, make it cover one bar more or less (− / +), or remove it. To start an ending in the middle of a bar (with one voice), select a note and use the [1|2 button: the bar is cut there without a bar line. A time signature cannot be changed if it would leave bars too short or too long for it; edit the notes first.

Title, composer and voices

Tap the title, the subtitle (a second T: line), the rhythm or the composer on the score: a small sheet opens with the text, and Done writes it into the tune (Cancel changes nothing). A field that is not on the score yet is added from the Score tab, which has a button for each. Leave a field empty to remove it; the title cannot be empty. The logo, the footer and the header style belong to the library, so you cannot tap them here.

The Score tab also has one button per voice, Add a voice and Remove voice. A new voice starts with empty bars lined up with the others. Removing a voice asks for confirmation first.

Bars that do not add up

A bar that is too short or too long is tinted red. The pickup bar and the last bar of a part that the pickup completes are left alone. Nothing is added for you (apart from shortening rests when you place a note): fix the bar and the red goes away. The red is only a guide while you edit; it is never printed or saved in a PDF. The red-bar button in the panel switches it off.

Undo, Redo and Save

Undo and Redo go back through every gesture; a drag counts as one. Hold your pointer over them (or use VoiceOver) to hear what they will undo; they are greyed out when there is nothing to do. On a Mac, ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z from the Edit menu act on the editor while it is open. While you type in the ABC tab or in a sheet, they undo that text instead. Save keeps your work in the tune.

Two people editing the same tune. While the editor is open on a tune of a shared library, Feadan tells the server, and an orange banner names anyone else who has the same tune open for editing: agree between you on who saves. If someone else saved the tune while you were editing, nothing is overwritten: their version stays the tune, yours is kept next to it as “Name (my edit date)”, and an alert tells you where it is, so you can copy what you need from one into the other.

The ABC text tab

The ABC tab opens the text of the tune just under the tabs, so the score, the tabs and the text are all on screen together (see The ABC editor above). Change the text and the score follows; use the visual tools and the text follows. If the visual editor is not available for a tune, the Edit button opens the text alone.

On a phone, a tablet and a Mac

It is the same editor everywhere. With a mouse the buttons are small and tidy, like the toolbar. With a finger every button has a touch area of at least 44 points. A finger selects with a tap, draws a selection rectangle along a staff, drags a note once it is selected, double-taps or presses and holds to select a bar. Titles and the ABC text are typed in native fields, never on the score itself, so the keyboard never covers the music or the tabs: the whole panel rises above it. Each tab scrolls on its own when its list is long; only the rows of tabs scroll sideways. Some things are easier on a bigger screen, such as the long embellishment families. The panel follows the light or dark look of your device; the paper stays white.

Keyboard and VoiceOver. Arrow keys move a selection, 1–6 choose the note value (whole note to 32nd), . adds a dot, Delete removes, Esc steps back. Tab moves into the panel; ← →, Home and End move between the tabs or the buttons of a row, and Space or Return presses one. Every button and tab has a spoken name for VoiceOver, and the panel's one-line help changes with what you are doing. With increased contrast on, the panel's lines get stronger.

What the editor does not do (yet)

• You cannot draw your own embellishments or name them: use Gracenote chains or the ABC text.
• Logo, footer and header style are set per library, not per tune.
• It does not add or remove notes to complete a bar for you.

Print and Save as PDF

Chapter 9

Libraries, sets and sharing

Keep your tunes in order, and play them with other people.

Libraries

A library is a collection of tunes and sets. You see two kinds in Settings → Libraries: Personal libraries, which you own, and Shared libraries, which someone shared with you, marked Viewer (you can read), Editor (you can change tunes) or Owner. Each library has its own header, footer, logo and, if its owner wants, layout.

With a Pro account you can start a new online library from the app itself: in Settings → Libraries tap +, choose New Online Library…, type a name and tap Create. It appears in the list, is opened straight away, and syncs between your devices like your other libraries. You can still create one on the website.

The Feadan Default Library. The first time Feadan opens, even before you have an account, it downloads a small library of traditional tunes that are free of rights, so there is real music to read and play from day one. It is read-only: you can read it and play it, but not edit it. It updates itself when we improve it, and it stays on the device for use without a signal. To remove it from your list, swipe it (or right-click it) in Settings → Libraries and choose Hide, or turn off Show the Feadan Default Library at the bottom of the list; to bring it back, turn that switch on again, or tap + and choose Show Feadan Default Library.

Sets

Sharing

Pipe bands

A pipe band has its own library, managed by its administrators. Players are put in groups (pipes, tenors, drums…) and see what their group is meant to play. A player who has not been put in a group yet sees nothing until a band administrator does so. The band pays the seat: it gives you the features of a paid account on the band's library (more for editors), but nowhere else.

Chapter 10

Your account

Your details, your devices, and what each plan includes.

What each plan includes

You can…	Free	Base	Pro
Read what is shared with you, play it, use every playback control, highlights, print	✓	✓	✓
Keep libraries for offline use	✓	✓	✓
Have tempo, metronome and voice choices remembered per tune		✓	✓
Save your own loops, and your tuning, on every device		✓	✓
Edit tunes shared with you with edit rights		✓	✓
Print with highlights; set the layout of local libraries; use the Feedback board		✓	✓
Create libraries on the server, share them, set a layout for a library			✓
Choose other chanters, record your own sound, write play plans			✓

A feature your plan does not include appears with a padlock and a short note; whatever you chose before is kept, it is just not applied. When a subscription ends, the app signs out and removes the offline copies; renewing brings everything back, and nothing is deleted on our side.

Chapter 11

For ABC writers

What Feadan reads, and where it goes a little further than standard ABC.

Feadan reads standard ABC 2.1, including the bagpipe key K:HP, grace notes, repeats and endings. Settings such as tempo, ornament length or the play plan are kept with the tune (in the database), not written into the ABC text, so your ABC stays clean and portable. Where Feadan does more than the standard:

Endings

• A first or second ending written straight after a note, with no bar line (… c2 e2 [1 A3- A2 e:|2 …) is shown as written: Feadan no longer draws a bar line where you did not write one. Playback is unchanged.
• A first ending that closes a repeat with no second ending after it plays, on the second pass, the last second ending written above it in the tune: when a part's ending is the same as an earlier one, you write it once.
• The part where that second ending is written plays as if the bracket was not there: the whole part, ending included, on both passes.
• A second ending on its own (with no first ending) is always played, as in the ABC standard: |: A B [2 C :| plays A B C, A B C.

|: part 1, line 1
[2 ending A :|        ← part 1 plays line 1 and ending A, twice
|: part 2, line 1
[1 ending B :|        ← the second pass of part 2 plays “ending A”

Tied chords

[fd]4- [fd]4 ties every note of the chord to the matching note of the next chord; [f-d]4 [fd]4 ties only the F. A chord can also be tied to a single note of the same pitch, and the other way round.

Slides: !gliss!

Write !gliss! in front of a note to make it slide to the next note of the same voice, up or down: !gliss!A B, or across a bar line, c !gliss!d|e f. Other ABC programs ignore a decoration they do not know, so the tune stays readable everywhere.

• The score shows a straight line from the first note to the second (continued on the next line or page if the slide crosses it, like a tie).
• When you listen, it is one sound: the first note lasts as long as both notes together, and its pitch glides continuously from the first note to the second over the length of the first note. The second note is not played again, and the ornaments written in front of it are not played. The cursor and the highlights still follow both notes. Any distance is allowed.
• The decoration is ignored, with no warning, when there is no next note (end of the voice), when a rest or a chord follows, when the note is itself tied, or when a repeat bar or a first/second ending sits between the two notes. Two notes of the same pitch are drawn with a line but played again.
• In a chain (!gliss!A !gliss!B c) only the first slide is played.
• MusicXML files (and Celtic Pipes .cepx) that mark a glissando or slide are imported this way.

Voices that enter late

When voices alternate (V:1, V:2, V:1…), a voice that first appears further down starts at that point of the score. You no longer write lines of rests. Until it enters, that voice plays voice 1 when you listen (the score does not draw it), so the sound does not suddenly get louder when the other voices come in.

V:1
|line 1|
V:1
|line 2|
V:1              ← the 3rd line of voice 1
|line 3|
V:2              ← voice 2 arrives here, with line 3
|line 3, voice 2|

The same goes for a part that only voice 1 writes in the middle of a tune. In the tune's settings, Voices without music (shown only for tunes like this, and only without a play plan) chooses what the other voices do there: play voice 1 (the default), or stay silent. It also decides what you see when you hide voice 1: the next voice shows voice 1's music in those parts, or rests. With a play plan nothing changes on the page: the plan says exactly who plays what, and hiding a voice shows exactly what is written.

Parts

P:A, P:B lines in the body (or inline, [P:B]) mark the parts a play plan refers to. A voice without markers follows voice 1's. The P: order string in the tune's header is not used: the play plan is a setting of the tune.

Chapter 12

Questions

Quick answers.

The score is blank, or says it is still rendering.

Wait a few seconds: long tunes take a moment to draw. If it does not clear, close the tune and open it again; if it still fails, press Report or tell us on the Feedback board.

My tunes are not there on a new device.

Sign in, then press Refresh in Settings → Libraries.

I changed the tempo, but it is back at its old value next time.

Saving a tempo for each tune needs a Base or Pro account. On a free account tempo and metronome are controls for the session.

A button has a padlock.

It belongs to a plan your account does not have. Everything you chose before is kept.

I cannot change the layout.

The library's owner may have imposed one: the setting is greyed out and says who set it.

There is no sound.

Check the silent switch and the volume, the Sound button in the toolbar, and the Master and voice sliders in the Mixer.

Can I use Feadan with no internet?

Yes. Everything you have synced stays on your device. Sign-in, refreshing and sharing need a connection.

Something is wrong with a tune or with the app.

Use Report in the toolbar for a tune, or the Feedback board for anything else. You can follow what is planned on the Roadmap.

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