I have such a huge library of music already, why do I keep acquiring new music? Well, because I love new music and because my students often want to play a particular piece at a particular level. So this post contains some of my favorite sources for sheet music.
Free sheet music is great, but there is good free and bad free sheet music. The good kind of free music is music that is either out of copyright and in the public domain or has a type of copyright where people can legally print off the music for their own use. The bad kind of free music is stuff that has been posted online by random people who have transcribed or scanned the music without permission from the copyright owner. The Music Teacher National Association has a great information page on music copyright.
IMSLP – The ultimate goal of the IMSLP is to gather all public domain music scores in addition to the music scores of all contemporary composers (or their estates) who wish to release them to the public free of charge. However, another main goal of IMSLP is to facilitate the exchange of musical ideas outside of compositions: for example, the analysis of a particular piece of music. IMSLP uses a Creative Commons License. Typically the music scores available on IMSLP are scans of old out of copyright editions of music, so you do need to be careful in case the edition is careless in terms of editing.
Mutopia– The Mutopia Project offers sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These beautifully clean copies are based on editions in the public domain, but a team of volunteers typesets the music using LilyPond software, so it is typically easier to read than the IMSLP scans. Mutopia also offers some number of modern editions, arrangements and new music where the respective editors, arrangers and composers have chosen to make these works freely available. Most of the music is distributed under Creative Commons licenses.
Musescore – Musescore.org is a composing software (which I use and love). It is an open source desktop software application that supports more than 50 languages and is available for PC, Macintosh and Linux. Musescore.com is a sheet music platform. Previously anyone could create a free account and upload their music, to share with the world or to be kept as a private backup. However, musescore.com has gone to a subscription based model for sheet music and has a number of different pricing plans at this time. I don’t typically use musescore for sheet music anymore, but I love their composing software.
Sometimes the music you want is definitely not out of copyright. For instance, at one point I decided that I wanted to play the theme from the HBO show, “Game of Thrones”. So, I went to the ubiquitous Sheetmusicplus.com. Sheetmusicplus is a great online music store that has almost everything you can want (and you can get a discount as a piano teacher). Previously, the main downside was that the website was rather “klunky” and the search function wasn’t very good. However, the website has been re-designed, so it might be a bit better now. I have ordered quite a lot of music from them over the years. Something nice that they’ve done relatively recently is the Digital Interactive Download, so you can download individual pieces instead of bound books.
Musicnotes is a great website when you want to find a particular piece. They are partnered with tons of companies and arrangers, so they have a large inventory of legitimate sheet music. All the music can be downloaded directly upon purchase, so you don’t have to wait, and usually the computer will play the first page for you, so you can hear how the arrangement is going to sound. They do try to “get” you for an extra charge to download a pdf, but I just print straight to pdf, so that’s a fee I avoid. Some of the arrangements are definitely better than others, so its worth your while to look over the arrangement choices carefully. MTNA and NAfME are corporate partners, so they are definitely legit. I probably buy most of my individual sheet music pieces from Musicnotes. I get a slight music teacher discount.
I still like books and books are a cheaper way to go for music if you like the composer and will purchase more than one piece. For instance, I paid about $7.00 (with tax) for my digital download of an arrangement of Summertime by Gershwin at Musicnotes. I could have purchased Gershwin’s Complete works for Solo Piano edited by Maurice Hinson for around $20.00 on Amazon. (Although, supporting your local music store is a nicer idea than ordering on Amazon.) Unfortunately for me, Summertime isn’t actually one of Gershwin’s piano works (it comes from the Porgy and Bess Opera), so I needed a piano arrangement. In this case, Musicnotes was handy because I was able to find a wonderful Phillip Keveren arrangement there.
Folk Songs are another great source of non-copyrighted music for piano students and teachers. Songs like London Bridge, Hot Cross Buns, Greensleeves etc. can be used by students for arranging their own music or can be arranged by a teacher for use by a student. And don’t forget all the Christmas carols… many of our favorite Christmas Carols are very old songs and well out of copyright.
There are other great sources for sheet music out there. I have used sites like sheetmusicnow.com and sheetmusicdirect.com on occasion. Sometimes I go to music publisher websites, like Hal Leonard or Alfred to buy particular books because they publish a lot of books meant for music teachers and sometimes I have a discount coupon code. Another resource I use a lot for my beginning adult students is Wendy Steven’s music at ComposeCreate.com. I am especially appreciative that I can get a studio license for her music, which allows me to use the music for more than one student.
If I like a particular artist, then sometimes I try to go directly to their website to buy their music. Not all active composers sell their own sheet music, but I wish they would! I’m currently working on a lovely piece by composer, Conner Chee, and was happy to see that I could buy his music in book form directly from his website.
Piano Lessons for Adults 