is there an app that can read sheet music and play it?

Which one suits you depends on where you want to use it and how much of the score you need to hear.

If you want it on your phone

PlayScore 2 scans sheet music from a photo, image or PDF and plays it back, following the score bar by bar. You can mute or solo staves, slow or loop a passage, or have it play the accompaniment while you practise. It is on iOS and Android, with a Windows version too. Without a subscription you can still play pages of music in unlimited staves from a photo and create single-page playable documents.

The limits are in the paid tiers and the camera. Multi-page scores and PDF scores need a subscription. The UK App Store lists a Productivity subscription at £5.99 and £34.99, with the listing saying both plans come as 1-month or 12-month subscriptions but not labelling which Productivity price is which, and Professional at £6.99 a month or £59.99 a year. Its Google Play listing also warns that most budget phones do not have good enough cameras for it.

If you do not want to install anything

Soundslice runs in a web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. Its scanner turns a PDF or photo into an interactive score you can play, transpose and edit, and you can solo individual parts. Exporting MusicXML or MIDI needs the paid Plus plan.

The free plan is $0 with 2 trial scans a month, each limited to 1 page and 32 bars. That is enough to see whether it reads your kind of music, not enough to work through a whole piece. Plus is US$5 a month or US$50 a year and scans 100 pages a month, up to 25 pages per scan.

If you sing in a choir

PlayScore 2 again. It reads scores with many staves, such as SATB vocal scores, and lets you mute any combination of staves, so it can play just your part or everything except your part. You can learn your line, then sing it against the other voices. Longer pieces as a PDF need a subscription.

If you only need single-line parts

ScanScore 3 is a desktop scanner for Windows or Mac that imports PDFs, scanner images or phone photos, then plays, transposes and edits the score, with export to MusicXML and MIDI. Its Melody licence costs US$9 for a year and covers scores with 1 staff per system, such as a lead sheet or an orchestra part.

The limit is the staff count. Melody reads only 1 staff, Ensemble reads up to 4 for US$39, and Professional is unlimited for US$79, each for one year. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with export and playback limited.

If you want to edit full scores on a computer

SmartScore 64 NE, from Musitek, is a music-scanning scorewriter for Windows or Mac. The US$399 Professional edition recognises and plays back band arrangements, operas and conductors' scores, with MusicXML, MIDI and PDF output.

You buy it per edition, and the cheaper ones give things up. The MIDI Edition is US$49 but outputs MIDI only and does not recognise chord symbols, text or lyrics. Piano is US$79, Guitar US$99 and Songbook US$199, so you choose an edition by the kind of music you read.

When paying is worth it

Pay for PlayScore 2 Professional, at £6.99 a month or £59.99 a year on the UK App Store, when you need whole PDF scores played, plus MIDI and MusicXML export. Soundslice Plus makes sense once 2 one-page trial scans a month stop being enough. On a computer, ScanScore's US$9 Melody licence is a cheap way in if your music is single-line.

PlayScore says capturing copyrighted music without the copyright holder's permission is illegal.

Handwritten music is uncertain. Soundslice says it might work if clear, but its scanner works best on published, engraved music.

SmartScore's demo is fully functional but cannot print or save recognised music, apart from two MusicXML conversions, so you cannot keep results without buying.

ScanScore licences last 365 days from first activation and do not renew automatically. There is no surprise charge, but the software stops being licensed when the year is up.