A belated Happy New Year to you all. It's been a while, my apologies.

I recently acquired an iPad, a great gift which is much appreciated, and as you might expect I immediately obtained a music creation app for it. So now I can make arrangements and write music on three platforms, an iMac, a laptop PC and my new iPad. You'd think I now have it covered wouldn't you, but despite their brilliance at handling notation, tabs and chords - and more - I've discovered they all lack the spontaneity most of us need when ideas come into our heads.

A customer once told me how frustrating it can be to pick out a set of chords making sense of a piece which may have dogged him for years, but by the time the computer is switched on and the music notation app launched parts are forgotten, particularly nuances which made the difference between being a bit close and being near perfect. Having had the same thing happen to me I know just how upsetting that can be.

Despite concerns when I first launched my chord and TAB notebooks that hard-copy may soon be out of date, especially with the amazing growth in tablets, I now realise they are still first in line when it comes to getting ideas down quickly. Once you've committed it to paper you can transfer that information to your music writing app later, and take your time about it without fear of what a memory lapse might do to your creativity. Hard copy remains king! 

Taking it a little further you might establish a procedure for your notebook jottings. For example, you might put down the chords first and then add a few written notes, or at least number the chords so everything works in sequence. Because the melody can easily be remembered - after all you can remind yourself of what it is by listening to an iTunes track or similar - you can set that to last. You might also include a couple of words from the lyric alongside or between the chords to add even more association with the piece and your arrangement. Whatever you do I think some kind of procedure will be helpful and later ease the process of transferring the work to your music app on your iMac, PC, iPad or whatever.

I hope this has been helpful but if you have any comments or further ideas on the subject let us all know. Don't forget you can order your Chord and TAB Notebooks directly from musicplaycharts.com - and also remember we ship worldwide for free.