When we were answering our support emails we ran across something that peaked our interest and we wanted to learn more. Melissa is a Music Therapist-Board Certified and we wanted to know what a Music Therapist does and how she was using OnSong, so we asked. Her response and explanation moved us and we wanted to share her story and profession. We would like to thank Melissa for sharing with us and hope that her story moves you as much as it has moved us.

I'm a contract music therapist, so I work in a lot of different settings, but mostly with children with disabilities or adults with brain injury/stroke.

With the adults, I may sing familiar songs with them to regain speech, or play instruments to familiar songs to regain control of an arm. The age range can be from 20 to 90, so songs familiar to each person are totally different. These guys are constantly requesting new songs, from Elvis to Kid Rock, from BB King to Nickelback, from Johnny Cash to Sugarland, and so on. There's no way one person can memorize all of that. I used to keep a binder of songs I knew, but OnSong is so much lighter and easier. If I need to change something, I can do it on the spot. I can add new songs quickly. I can change keys without having to transpose in my head (especially with songs that have a lot of different chords). I don't have to pause for long songs like American Pie to turn a page. I can look up songs by name, by artist, by genre (I have my books set up in genres like classic rock, country, pop, oldies, etc.) depending on what the client is able to tell me about what they like. I will never have to buy another fake book... ever! This is the biggest, bestest one! :)

I'm just starting to use it with the children because I've only had my iPad about a month, and I'm still exploring what the possiblities are. Yesterday I was working with a child with autism who is having difficulty learning to read. I've been using song lyric puzzles to encourage reading and expand her reading vocabulary, but I was limited by the visual aids I had prepared and with me. If I had a spontaneous idea, I had to wait until the next week to try it. This happened yesterday but I had my iPad, and the song I thought of was in OnSong. In seconds I had the song to sing for her, then could show her the lyrics and have her read them back to me. I could zoom into certain words if she got lost or had trouble. When I asked her questions about the lyrics to test comprehension, I could enlarge the answer if she needed help finding it. I have several children I can do this same activity with, and the variety of songs I can use for their reading skills is no longer limited to what I have time to make visual aids for. The visual aid is right there with the song, and the songs I have quick access to is limitless. I can't wait to try this with the other kids!

In the past I've given adapted guitar lessons to kids with disabilities, and I could see using OnSong as a tool with that, and an easy way to email/send/print copies for the kids to take home to practice.

Melissa
Music Therapist-Board Certified

OnSong is being used on many stages in various ways. We wanted to highlight one of our OnSong users and allow them to tell you how they were able to drive four VGA monitors off of one iPad. This allowed them to provide chord sheets to almost all of their worship team. Of course those poor drummers, are always left out in the cold...

I just found out today around 4:00 AM that my young friend from South Africa has obtained her F1 education visa!!! This has been an answer to prayer and a work in progress over the last few months. I can't express the amount of divine timing and provision that was required to make this feat possible.

I want to pause and give God glory for what has happened today. I also want to thank everyone who's prayers were with us as we attempted to change this young girl's life. Throughout the whole process we heard phrases like "this has never been done before". I love hearing that. It urges me to keep doing exactly that which has been implanted in my being.

As a way of showing my gratitude, I'm giving away OnSong for FREE from now until she arrives sometime on February 4th. Please do your part and spread the word that miracles do happen and lives can be changed. You can also mention that OnSong is FREE.

Please keep my wife and I in your prayers as we make preparations to bring this teenager into our home. We have just moved into a larger house last weekend and are still unpacking, reassembling and arranging furniture. We are also going to be drastically altering our lifestyle now with a baby boy and teen daughter. So we can use all the prayer and support you can offer.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! Things have been quite busy here at OnSong as you can imagine.  November was a rough month as I moved to support iOS 4.2 including features like multitasking and printing.  Because of some mistakes I made, and some delays on Apple's launch of iOS 4.2, I had to remove the app from the app store for a time.  But after a few days, we were back up and running with OnSong 1.6.  Thank you to everyone for your patience as I got things worked out.

OnSong 1.6 had to launch without sufficient testing so I'm working hard at wrapping up version 1.7 as soon as possible.  It has just gone to my beta team who are dedicated, hard working musicians from all walks of life.  I'm confident they will put this version through it's paces.  I believe together we will create something amazing to continue to help musicians everywhere go paperless and get organized!

I can tell you that OnSong if going to be under active development for a while!  So far I have 200+ feature requests just waiting to make their way into the next version.  I'm trying to make some more time for OnSong in my busy schedule so that I can continue to break new ground in this arena.  I'm happy to report the following features coming in version 1.7!

• Universal app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
• More robust Dropbox and MobileMe support
• Support for the AirTurn BT-105 pedal
• Updates to fix scrolling and multitasking issues
• Better chord and lyrics rendering
• Custom flow control of songs (V1 C V2 C C, etc)
• Built-in database management tools
• Improved importing of songs

Today I finally received my BT-105 AirTurn module and pedals. Within a few minutes I have support built into OnSong 1.7!  This is a great step forward for OnSong since you can now remove the USB cable and use the dock connector for external video out!  It's a great product!

OnSong 1.7 is still under continued development but I'm hoping to make a release soon.  So what's coming in this update? Check out some of the features:

• OnSong is now a universal app that can be used with iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
• AirTurn BT-105 support
• Added database tools like deduplication
• The ability to rename books
• Better import performance
• Ability to mirror the navigation
• Fixed the "Maj7" insert chord bug
• Added the ability to create bars with chords inline
• Added an improved ability to convert text files to OnSong

This past Friday, OnSong 1.6 was approved for sale and immediately, people started upgrading.  However, I must admit that I messed up a bit.  Version 1.6 is only compatible for iOS 4.2, and yet it wasn't "tagged" as such.  This means that people with older versions of the operating system (which is everyone because it hasn't come out yet) began to have their versions of OnSong stop working.  With the app store process, there's no easy way to go back once a version is approved.  So I had to resort to the rare instance of suspending sale of OnSong 1.6 until iOS 4.2 comes out.

Since that time I began adding some much needed features to OnSong.  Some of these should appear in the final releasable version of OnSong 1.6.  Two of these main features include the ability to organize your song collection into "books".  For instance, you can have a book for church, and one for your band.  Another feature is the ability to choose what files are imported from iTunes File Sharing.  You will also get the other features and improvements made for iOS 4.2 including wireless printing!

So please hang in there!  If you are interested in knowing when OnSong 1.6 is ready for sale, make sure you sign up for the newsletter and I'll let you know very soon!

Thanks to everyone for coming out to the NWLC East and stopping by the OnSong booth!  This last month has been a busy time at OnSong.  We just released version 1.5 for both iPad and iPhone, and had our first marketing push by sponsoring this conference.  It was a great time and so much fun to meet so many worship leaders in one place! Everyone was amazed at what OnSong can do.  We also gave away 100 copies of OnSong 1.5 for both iPad and iPhone!

What's next for OnSong?  Well, we are planning another release right now which will target November and version 4.2 of iOS.  Our primary focus of the next release will be formatting and printing. We want to make the most out of the space we have on the screen, and translate that to wireless printing.  I'm sure there will be other small improvements beyond this focus, but we want to be true to the most requested features.

OnSong is also opening dialog with many publishers of quality worship music. We hope to soon be able to offer chord charts to church musicians in a way that's never been done before.  There's nothing final yet, but just know that we are all very excited about this space.

Thanks for being patient as we update our blog.  I have a personal flaw that restricts communicate when I get busy.  So thanks for sticking with OnSong as we work to make it better and better!