Is there an app that names the notes in a photo of sheet music?

Yes. Notalune (iOS) does exactly this: photograph your printed sheet music and the note names appear right on the notes. Everything happens on your iPhone, no account, no uploads, nothing leaves the device. It deliberately does not do playback, audio-to-score transcription, or handwritten music; and when it is not sure about a note, it leaves it blank rather than guess. The free tier includes 10 quick readings in total; Notalune Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.

What it does, and what it deliberately doesn't

Notalune answers one small, stubborn question: what is this note called? Point the camera at printed sheet music, up close, a measure or a line at a time works best, and the names appear directly on the noteheads, in the convention you choose: English letters, the Czech/German H convention, solfège, or Japanese katakana. Every reading starts with a clef and key-signature check, because a wrong clef would mis-name everything. And in My Sheet Music you can assemble whole pages measure by measure and keep them with the pieces you actually practice.

All of it runs entirely on the device: no account to create, no photo ever uploaded, no server reading your music. What you photograph stays on your iPhone.

An honest answer needs the other half. Notalune does not play your piece back, does not turn a recording of your playing into notation, and does not read handwritten music, printed scores only. Tools for those jobs exist, and they are a different category: scanning a score into a playable, editable file solves a different problem than naming a note at the moment of doubt in the middle of practice. If playback or scan-to-MIDI is what you are after, Notalune is simply the wrong tool, better to know that before you download it.

Blank beats wrong

One design rule sits underneath everything: a missing name costs you a few seconds, but a wrong name gets quietly practiced into your fingers, which is why the check matters as much as the help (the full argument is in how to check your reading when practicing alone). So when Notalune is not certain, the note stays blank. A certainty view shows how much to trust each name it did write, and when a photo of real-world music leads it astray, you fix the name in two taps and the correction is kept.

Built to be hidden

The names are an overlay, never ink on your score, and they are built to disappear. One tap on the eye hides every name, turning the same page into a self-quiz; the goal is reading without the app, the same way mnemonics are training wheels, not the destination. Whether note names belong in sheet music at all is a fair question with real research behind it, the evidence is collected on the teachers page; the short version is that help must be built to fade, and an overlay can fade in a way a pencil mark cannot.

What the deal is

The free tier is meant to be genuinely usable, not a teaser: 10 quick readings in total, 3 saved pieces, 1 page per piece. Notalune Pro removes those limits for a one-time purchase, $9.99, with no subscription of any kind, and Family Sharing included, so one purchase covers the whole household.

Written by the maker of Notalune. More guides in the reading school · questions: support@notalune.com.