Back in August, after much debate (about 1.5 years of debate) I finally decided it was time to take the plunge and purchase an iPad 2. I got the 16gb wifi version, as I didn’t feel I had any need for the 3G version” because I always have my iPhone with me, which I can use to tether to the iPad and access the Internet that way if necessary, I also went 16gb because I figured the thing that takes up the most space is music (for me anyway) and again, I have my iPhone which has around 2500 songs on it.

One of the main things that changed my mind and helped me to decide it was time to get an iPad was 1 app. Most of you know that I am a worship leader in my church, which means I have a lot of music in books and folders and… Well.. All over the house really. I’ve never been very good at keeping a proper music book.. I just don’t have the patience for keeping it in order, so I found I was printing my music sets every week, which in turn was a huge waste of paper, because I would end up with 10 copies of the same song.. Not very environmentally friendly.

Cue OnSong. OnSong is a app made for worship leaders (though it can be used by any kind of musician really).. Basically it is a digital song book… But you don’t have to scan all your current music and import them as PDF files,, you see, onsong has import features built right in that allow you to type the name of the song, and if you are connected to the Internet, it searches different music websites and finds the chords for you. The most recent update, which is the one I’m most excited about, it even has SongSelect built right into it, so if you have a CCLI subscription, which, if you are leading in a church, you really should have one, but it allows you to now, not just search from different websites, but also the ccli database of thousands maybe millions of songs, and import the right to your iPad.

OnSong also has a lot of really useful built in tools, such as transposing, though it only works on text based songs.. What it does is, if you find a copy of a song, but its in the key of D and you want it in G, you merely select the transpose, pick the key, and it automatically transposes the whole song for you, this has become a very handy feature, though now with SongSelect built in, you can just pick the key you want, and you’re good to go.

There are a lot of great tools built into OnSong that make things easier for your whole team as well. You can export a whole set list you’ve created as PDF files and email them to your team, so you know you all have the same keys and words, this is very handy as I’ve found different times we will have 3 different versions of a song, which all have slightly different words.

In the latest version they have created something called OnCue, which allows you to wirelessly share your set with your team LIVE.. What it does is, if you all have OnSong, be in on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, you engage OnCue and whatever is on the leaders device, shows up on everyone’s device.. Which means you don’t all need to have copies of the music, as long as 1 person has it, you are set.. Then when the leader, who, for example, may have a wireless foot pedal connected to turn pages, turns a page, it automatically turns the page on everyone who is connected, no one gets lost, everyone is on the same part of the song. I’ve found this to be especially useful, as I often don’t do a song in service, the same way we may have practiced it.

There are a tonne of other great features, such as the ability to plug in an external monitor for sharing with the band, or plugging in a projector to display lyrics for your congregation, though I haven’t used this one yet, as we have a tech team who does all that, but the monitor is very useful if you have team members who don’t have a iOS device.

Enough reading, please take a few minutes to watch the following video, which describes and shows how I am using this great app in our worship environment.

With that, let’s get to the good part.. The developer of this wonderful app has sent me 10 copies to give away.. They are first come, first serve.. Just take one of the 10 codes below and plug it into the “redeem” section of the app store, and you will get a free copy of OnSong. If you do use a code, please take a minute to comment below to let me know which code you used, so I can update this post as they get taken, so people aren’t wasting their time punching in all the codes.

X3YEPKP679HM
KFL7YXMK3NFJ
97TE49XA7JNH
FY7WTEFKXRMP
AMJET6JRT6W7
LAXRL47L93MP
MFM67PT9F39W
RWJ3AR6YTKMA
MN4LA6L9YE6T
KNMHJNPYT7NT

If you miss out, the app is a fair price… $4.99 an you’ve got a full worship book in front on you.. You can get it here