Comments

1. Sarah Frank Said,

   I purchased this to give to a friend as a gift. He just raves about how handy it is – he can write his music while he is out and about.
   Rating: 5 / 5

2. Jonn K. Said,

   I recently bought myself a Moleskine pocket music notebook, and it’s a great, classy travelling companion for any composer or musician.

   It offers plenty of room for ideas to be jotted down, and the quality of the print of the staffs is just fine.
   
   The size of the music staffs, from the top line to the bottom line of the 5 lines, is 0.8 cm. I would not have minded a size smaller, 0.6 cm, but the current size also is fine for my needs.

   I noticed Moleskine now also offers a large format music notebook, and I will be getting that one as well.
   
   There’s one other wish that I have, and that is a music notebook in A3 format. It may seem like a strange wish, but once you have worked with a big A3 Folio sketchbook you know what I’m talking about.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. A loving husband Said,

   If you write music, then you know inspiration strikes in unexpected places. This provides a useful way to transcribe these for later development. There’s handy folder inside the cover for to-do lists too.
   Rating: 5 / 5

4. Patricia Said,

   I bought this notebook, (the MOLESKINE POCKET MUSIC NOTEBOOK), some time back, but only seriously began looking at it today…..

   It certainly is a “pocket-size” notebook — very handy. And the
   
   music staffs within are made with nice big spaces between the lines, and between the staffs themselves. The staffs are drawn with nice light lines — so that one need NOT use a marker pen, (which could “bleed” to the other side, or smudge on the one side.) So any writing instrument — from pencil to ballpoint, or any other writing instrument of one’s choice can be used to write music. Also, the lines are light enough, not to interfere with the occasional drawing or sketch — if the musician/composer is also, (like me), an aspiring artist as well….

   I had never heard of the MOLESKINE mini-books before seeing them on Amazon.com — but the leaflet that comes with the Moleskine Music Pocket notebook has pictures of the entire line: 22 different mini-notebooks for different purposes. From a plain, baic, ruled notebook, (pocket – 192 page, large 240 pages), to a “Japanese Album” (which contains triple in folded sheets — with ’60 zigzag folded pages, of top quality heavy paper. For photos, collages, and sequences”, and a “Storyboard Notebook”, containing ‘a sequence of frames, 2 or 4 per page, for drawing mini-stories. For advertizing creatives and graphic designers. Pocket: 80 pages of heavy, top-quality paper” — and just about everything in between, each mini-notebook is described, and accompanied by a mini(!)drawing, so one can at once grasp the format of each mini-notebook, and the purposes for which they are intended. Pocket-size notebooks are 3 1/2″ x 5 “, large size notebooks (where available), are 5″ x 8 1/4″, and Extra-large size “cahiers”, are also available in Extra-large size, which is 7
   
   7 1/2″ x 10 1/4″. Page counts in all the notebooks and cahiers varies from 60 pages to 240 pages, depending on the page counts available for each individual notebook/ cahier style. Moleskine seems to have cornered the market in producing all kind of useful mini-notebooks, and a few larger ones as well!

   On the reverse side of the leaflet, is a history of the company. The first paragraph starts: “Moleskin is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemmingway to Bruce
   
   Chatwin….” It goes on to recount how the company gradually went out of business, with the last manufacturer stopping production in 1986. But in 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought Moleskine back again…! The complete text of this history, (“The History of A Legendary Notebook”), goes on for four paragraphs, (with some self-congratulatory — but truly deserving –words), and below it is a “Quality Control No. 4817″ subheading, stating that each Moleskine notebook is made by hand, and checked for quality. An e-mail address is given, for any faults which might found, and the customer is invited to send a photograph, and a description of, the problem to that e-mail address — because, it seems, THIS company really does care about the quality of its products, and wants to know if anything is amiss, so it can be fixed! : ) The “Quality Control” messages is printed only in English — but the “History of A Legendary Notebook” is printed in English,
   
   Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Chinese!

   It’s OK, I think, for a good product to contain some self-congratulatory literature. Besides giving a choice of small, (or medium or large), and of varied types, all of the notebooks /cahiers in the the Moleskine line are made with acid-free paper of various kinds. I’d much rather see a self-congratulatory leaflet for Moleskine products, (which company, it seems, does not do much other advertising), than for the VERY poor quality goods and services, of all kinds, (which often do a LOT of advertising), that flood our TV commercials, and print ads, most of the time.

   So, why do I give this product only 4 stars? It’s because, I suppose, that I’ve been spoilt. Years ago, you see, a company called National Stationery produced a line of mini looseleaf notebooks. These ran in size from, I think, 3 1/2″ x 5″, to 4″ x 6″. They looked just like regular loose-leaf binders — but they had flexible black leatherette, (ok, plastic), covers, and they were miniaturized! They were advertized as holding 150 sheets…but I think I’ve crowded about 300 sheets into the one I have. Boorum and Pease made mini-sheets to fit these mini notebooks. One could — just as in other loose-leaf notebooks — place sheets in different areas of the notebook. The portablilty of these mini-looseleaf notebooks by National Stationery was great…but all of a sudden, they disappeared! And so did the mini-filler paper!

   As a maker of quality notebooks — perhaps of THE Quality Notebooks — I herein respectfully request, (read: beseech!), Moleskine to consider making mini LOOSE-LEAF binders and filler paper, for those of us who like the freedom of changing pages easily, and not being bound by a ….bound notebook! The MOLESKINE line of notebooks — including the wonderfully beautiful, and incredibly practical music notebook which, as described above, can be put to “fine art” and drawing use as well,
   
   is a wonderful thing. But it hems the user in, as bound books always do. A loose-leaf edition of this notebook — and as many of the other notebooks offered by MOLESKINE, as well, would be SO very welcome!
   Rating: 4 / 5

5. Jason E. Maggard Said,

   A nice music Journal. I would just like to see Moleskine expand their options for musicians. Offering this with Tabulature fits the way many guitarists take notes, or even facing “Blank” pages for songwriting.

   Highly recommended for instructors. I make all of my students carry one for their lessons. I write my notes in their books as well as have them do their “Homework” in them. After a year, they have a nice history of the class. (And it fits easily into most cases and gig bags.
   Rating: 4 / 5