Sites with a good selection of sheet music

Question

When I look online for sheet music for the piano or flute, I find that a lot of the websites that promise great collections of sheet music are nothing but ad filled sites that talk about sheet music (but don't actually have any.)

The sites that DO have sheet music seem to only have a tiny selection. There are a number of pay sites that have sheet music, but often charge like $5 per sheet and also only have it in a small choice of keys (technically, I could transpose it, but if I'm paying $5 I think it should already be in the key I need.)

Does anyone know of any websites that offer a large variety of sheet music in a number of genres... written in various octaves and keys?

Answer 1

IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library is free and quite well-furnished.

Answer 2

The Internet Music Library Score Project, also referred to as IMSLP or the Petrucci Music Library, at imslp.org is a collection of all kinds of instrumental music by composers from before about 1920. It consists of works contributed by volunteers from all over the world. Sometimes it is scans of printed sheet music, and sometimes it is works that copyists have transcribed in modern digital formats such as Sibelius, Finale, MusicXML, etc. But the key is that this site only provides music that is in the public domain, and made available by its modern editors for free.

There is an analogous site called the Choral Public Domain Library at cpdl.org which has the same purpose but concentrates on choral and vocal music rather than instrumental and orchestral music. There is of course some overlap between the two, with regard to choral music written for orchestral accompaniment--Handel's Messiah, etc.

One advantage of sites like this is that the scores they publish are in the public domain, and are therefore free of copyright issues.

Answer 3

The Mutopia Project has some public domain sheet music available. Although not extensive, their collection is growing. For many (most?) of the pieces, audio files are available so that you can also listen to them.

Answer 4

Musopen has quite an extensive selection of public domain sheet music.

Answer 5

The Pianist's Library

(free) registration is required - they do not send spam, ever.

Answer 6

try these:

wikifonia.com RIP. they were unable to extend their licence.

Musescore.com: the community site of the free open source WYSIWYG score editor "Musescore" has a decent selection -over 10,000 pieces-, and they are all available as a Musescore format file (meaning you can edit every tiny bit of the score to your liking), besides for .PDF, .Xml, .Midi and usually a .Mp3 format.

Answer 7

I like the http://www.free-scores.com/

There are big differences in quality of transcription, but the are plenty of sheet music to choose from.

Answer 8

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com has a good selection of sheet music, mainly for gutiar but you can also find most piano songs. You will also need the program PowerTab or GuitarPro to view the music, but those aren't too hard to get ( wink ).

Answer 9

http://www.bandmusicpdf.org/ is my favorite site for band music. Most of their music is from the 1880s to the 1920s. They have thousands of pieces, many of which are for complete bands.

http://www.sheetmusicfox.com is a compilation of links to many other sites including Mutopia project and imslp.org.

http://www.classical-scores.com/free/ has over a thousand classical pieces for free. The majority of them are for piano, but their are also pieces for over twenty other instruments.

http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/index.cfm has over 22,000 classical pieces. The majority of their pieces have a six dollars a month fee, unlimited downloads. However, many of the pieces are completely free. They also have a ten day unlimited download free trial time.

The above mentioned sites I have also found to have an excellent selection of sheet music. http://imslp.org/wiki/ however, is my absolute favorite.

Answer 10

If you can read Russian, look at http://tarakanov.net (if you can't, try automated translation with the Chrome browser).

Answer 11

For American/Irish/British traditional/folk music, try http://www.tunearch.org/. Music is available as SVG or ABC, and all free.

Answer 12

If you are looking to play pop music, http://www.musicnotes.com/ is a great source. However, you do have to buy the music (have to compensate the writers for use of their work), it's usually USD3-6. They have music for many instruments and you can transpose the piece on the website. For songs with lyrics, there are lyrics, the melody, and the accompaniment.

They do have some free music for holidays and stuff that is in the public domain, which I believe you can download without an account.