Category: Guide

Importing Your Music – ChordPro and MusicPad Files

By Gordon Cameron 25 Jan, 2018 2 Comments

Pianist? Organist? Guitarist? Band Leader? Worship Musician?

Where do you get your digital music?

With Power Music your options are:
– Import PDF files – music scores or chord sheets
– Scan your paper music
– Type or copy and paste chord sheets
– Download songbooks from Power Music Store
– Import from ChordPro or MusicPad files

In this post I want to have a look at two particular sources of digital music:
– ChordPro files including OnSong files
– MusicPad .fh (FreeHand) files

UPDATE: Power Music App for iPad now imports ChordPro (OnSong) files.

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Windows 10 “Creators Update”

By Gordon Cameron 5 Jan, 2018 2 Comments

Microsoft are at it again! Another major update to Window 10.

UPDATE 5/1/2018: I have added a new section on the “Fall Creators Update” 1709 – scroll to the end to read.

Over the (short) life of Windows 10 we have seen these versions:

  • The original 1507 (July 2015)
  • 1511 (November 2015) AKA “November Update”
  • 1607 (August 2016) AKA “Anniversary Update”
  • 1703 (April 2017) AKA “Creators Update”

And of course there has been a myriad of other minor updates and hotfixes in between.

I would be the first to advise anyone to keep their Windows PC up-to date, so here are my observations on the latest “Creators Update”.

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What is Power Music Store?

By Brenda Cameron 29 Mar, 2017 2 Comments

Power Music Store is an online shop where users of Power Music can purchase “virtual” songbooks in Power Music format. You can access all the songs that you purchase using Power Music Box – our unique cloud storage system. See this previous blog  “What is Power Music Box?” for more info about the Box.

What is the advantage of this type of store?

When you buy music from other stores you either buy a physical book or a PDF or similar for printing. This is fine if you want to use paper. Alternatively you can import these to Power Music by scanning or PDF import and then add the relevant information on authors, categories, copyright etc.
Power Music Store means we have done the work for you in preparing the content and all you have to do is press a button to get all the content and indexing you need in the software on your iPad, PC or Mac.


Each songbook is a collection of “Songs”. Songs in a songbook will contain some or all from the following, where applicable:

  • Sheet music
  • Chord sheet
  • Lyrics
  • Authors
  • Categories
  • Performance notes
  • Copyright information
  • Tempo
  • Melody line
  • Bible refer Read more...

New feature requests that are already in Power Music!

By Brenda Cameron 21 Feb, 2017 3 Comments

In our recent survey we asked how best to describe your usage of Power Music and what features you would like to see in future updates to Power Music. We were overwhelmed by the positive comments and by the number of situations in which Power Music is used. From church worship bands to Morris dancing bands – it is good to see it so widely used. A big thank you to all who took part.

We were also really impressed by the detailed responses from you about what features should be added to the new versions of Power Music coming out this year.

It turns out that quite a number of the requested new features are already in Power Music! So the purpose of this article is to explain where these features are and how to use them.

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Chord Sheets for Worship Songs from WeAreWorship.com

By Gordon Cameron 21 Dec, 2016 2 Comments

One of the most common questions we get asked on our support desk and at exhibitions is “What is a good source of worship song chord sheets?”

There are many websites out there that let you download chord sheets, but people tell us that quite often there are errors in the lyrics and the chords used are not the original ones. Also it is important that the websites pay royalties to the copyright holders of the songs you download – not all websites do!!

Recently we worked with Integrity Music Ltd, AKA WeAreWorship to create a free songbook of chord sheets that we were giving away at Mission Worship 2016. Integrity Music let you download chord sheets from their website WeAreWorship.com. All you need to do is open a free account with them. I have created a short tutorial video on importing chord sheets from WeAreWorship.

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Scanning Music – Using a Doc Scanner and Hints & Tips.

By Gordon Cameron 25 Aug, 2016 Leave a comment

This blog post deals with digitizing your library of paper music.

So you have made the decision to digitize all your music!

  • It could be because you are tired of lugging around folders/binders of paper;
  • It could be that you need to find a piece of music quickly and searching through the folders/binders is too slow;
  • It could be that at the end of each concert or gig you are faced with the task of putting all the music back in the correct place in the folders/binders;
  • It could be that you are fed up trying to keep a music books open at the right page;
  • It could be you are having to use rubber bands, bulldog clips and magnets to hold your music on the stand;
    Or
  • It could be that your eyesight is not what it used to be and reading paper music is becoming a bit of a strain.

Whatever your reason you are faced with quite a task. You need to digitize your music. Let’s say you have chosen Power Music Professional as your music management system. So how should you go about this task? Assuming you don’t have electronic copies of the music already in the form of PDF files, then you are faced with scanning the paper music.

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How to manage my Product Key

By Brenda Cameron 2 Aug, 2016 4 Comments

Two of our most frequently asked questions are:
1. I have bought another computer/reformatted my computer. How do I get Power Music and all my songs back?
2. I have tried to register my copy of Power Music and it says I have used up all my activations. What do I do?

Here I will try to answer these questions and in so doing provide answers to other related questions.
First an explanation of what product keys and activation codes are and how they are managed.

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The big question a band needs to ask before deciding to “Go Digital”

By Gordon Cameron 8 Jul, 2016 2 Comments

It was interesting to see that the band in “The Voice” – BBC’s talent show – now use digital music display when performing live.front page book

Like “The Voice” band,  increasing number of bands, groups and ensembles with 2 – 10 musicians and singers are looking at ways of moving from paper based music to digital music display.  Many of the enquiries we get here at Cambron are from church worship bands, but “Going Digital” is something all bands that play from paper music are considering. We have had enquiries from cruise ship bands, wedding bands, backing bands, cabaret bands, tribute groups as well as classical string quartets and wind ensembles to name but a few.

This article is designed to help you decide on the best setup for your band or group to make the move from paper to digital.

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