Dogstar Music - Free and Sample Sheet Music Links

Free and Sample Sheet Music

Brought to you by Dogstar Music

Websites offering free downloads of sheet music in various formats

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Here is a listing, in no particular order, of a number of sites that offer free music scores in one format or another. This listing was originally developed by Jean-Pierre Coulon, and has been used with his permission. The listing has been more-or-less arbitrarily divided into five categories: Scanned, Printable, Composers' sites, Other Links and Search Pages, and Proprietary sites.

Most sites require only a suitable image viewer and/or Acrobat Reader or GSview. The "Proprietary" listings require specialised software to view and/or print. Browse the entire listing or use the "jump" buttons below to go directly to the section of interest to you. Newer listings will appear near the bottom of each category.

Printable (PDF, PS) Blank Scanned (JPG, etc.) Composers' private sites Samples/ Loss Leaders Other Links / Search Proprietary

Number of entries as of Apr. 24, 2004:

134

Sites are now organised into loose categories, as above. It should be noted that there will often be some overlap, for example "private composers' sites" will frequently include some public-domain material.

Disclaimer: This listing is provided as a courtesy only,
and is not to be construed as an endorsement for any of the sites listed.

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Sheet Music Suppliers

Printable formats (may be in PostScript, PDF, etc)

Werner Icking Music Archive
An extensive collection of classical and contemporary scores, provided as a free public service. PDF and PostScript format. The contents of the original site were frozen after its webmaster's tragic death; however, the original site now redirects to this new site at sunsite.dk, in which work of Werner Icking, including the material on the original GMD site is now housed. New submissions appear on a continual basis, and are posted as they arrive. Kudos to Christian Mondrup for taking on this worthwhile and invaluable work.
Public Domain Music
A goodly number of Classical Piano downloads for free. PDF format.
Free Sheet Music from Johan Tufvesson
"This site contains the result of my work. Here you can find modern editions of a lot of music from the 17th and 18th century, many of them not available in any other modern form." PostScript format.
Central Park North: Transcriptions
"Lifts and Lead Sheets: The music that follows was made by hard working Canadian jazz musicians. If you benefit from these transcriptions, please support these artists by purchasing their albums."
Musica Viva: The free sheet music archives
"More than 700 classical and traditional pieces in GIF format...." GIF? Well, ok. They're free. Most are also available in ABC format at Frank's ABC Site
Music Station Home Page
"We are a music school in West London (Uxbridge). We specialise in Keyboard Organ and Piano. The music used by our pupils is put together on a shareware music editor called 'Noteworthy Composer'... Once you have downloaded the editor, you can return to this site. And choose from a selection of free sheet music to play and print."
The Choral Public Domain Library
PDF's, midis, some NWC files. "The primary purpose of the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is to create a repository of editions of music in the public domain...." Note: the address given here is on yet another new server.
Coppini Edition
"MVSICA TOLTA DA I MADRIGALI DI CLAVDIO MONTEVERDE, E D'ALTRI AVTORI..."
Free PDF files of Italian madigrals (by Monteverdi, Giovanelli et al.)
Music I have typeset in ABC
Laura Conrad's free scores site, featuring mostly "ancient" music (pre-classical), in ABC, PDF and midi formats.
Music scores.com - free classical sheet music downloads
A wide variety of public domain sheet music in PDF format, available from two different www sites.
Free classical guitar sheet music
"The Guitar School - Iceland; 822 free pages of sheet music for guitar in Adobe Acrobat format." (PDF)
Musicians' page, Free sheet music and musicians' search engine
A nice site by Fabrizio Ferrari, with free sheet music and other resources for musicians and the musically inclined.
Fiddle City - The Fiddlers Resource on the Web A shared fiddlers' resource, including free fiddle sheets in GIF format.
Robert Allgeyer offers a free PDF version of the SATB parts to Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus", other public domain works to hopefully follow in the future.
Hamblen & Hamblen Music -- Contemporary Christian music, gospel, traditional, instrumental, free sheet music, MIDI and REAL AUDIO files New URL. The rather long TITLE tag says it all... GIF format.
mfiles - free music files and files about music "Free Sheet Music (Scorch and PDF), MIDI and MP3 files covering Classical, Original, Traditional, Ragtime, Christmas and Hymns with composer biographies and soundtrack reviews."
Sheet Music Archive A nice site featuring free PDF downloads of public-domain works by mostly classical and romantic composers. Note: the domain name extension has been changed to .net.
Share Song - the ultimate worship music rescource - download sheet music, ohts, chord charts and lyric sheets as well as midi and MP3 of the latest worship music for free. Features free PDF downloads of original Christian worship songs.
Perso Flamenco : Partitions Gratuites pour guitare flamenco et classique, partituras, mp3 - Free downloads of flamenco and other guitar pieces, in various formats. En français.
Partitions gratuites sur le Web - Free downloads of music for saxophone, piano, violin, accordion, orchestra, and choral works. En français.
The Cyber Hymnal - An long-established site with a new URL (Jan. 2001). This is a large site containing Christian hymns in various formats.
All Psalms Christian Sheet Music & Midis - A nice site by Steve Pearson, containing NWC, midi, PDF and some mp3 clips of all 150 Psalms.
Nota ve Güfte Arþivi - A site offering free sheet music (in TIF format) of Turkish music. Presently only in Turkish, hopefully a translated version soon. Now requires membership (free, reportedly without ads or spam) to control traffic.
A R E N A Ï - PDF files, along with midis of Renaissance vocal music. Care taken with authenticity of scores. Now translated to English, as well as the original French pages. Scores now also available in ENC (Encore) file format.
Hungarian Music, Songs, Video Archives- Magyar nepi zene, video, midi, kota archivum - including original hand-written sheet music of traditional Hungarian music, and lots of other resources.
The Magic Flute Project - Originally hosted at my site, "The Magic Flute Project" now has a permanent home courtesy of Mikkel C. Simonsen. Entire opera available for download in PostScript or PDF format, plus karaoke midis.
Eerland.net Sheetmusic - Free downloads of scores (in PDF format) of work by Cesar Franck and Johann Kuhnau, with more to follow.
The Piano Public Domain
As the name suggests, public domain scores for piano, in PDF format. Only price is putting up with Tripod's popups.
Sheet Music USA
Free piano and guitar sheet music, organised by difficulty level. Modern as well as classical pieces. GIF images in html "wrappers", right-click/save image as... to save.
8notes.com
(Updated Sept. 2001) Classical, jazz, world, and traditional music scores in PDF format. Also in Sibelius format (requires Scorch plugin, see below). Organised by category or instrument (guitar, piano, percussion, violin, 'cello, trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, flute and recorder). Other useful resources including a sheet music store, directory, and history & theory section.
Mutopia
A growing collection of public domain scores in PDF and PostScript formats, run by volunteers "... similar in spirit to Project Gutenberg."
Nissimo - Free Sheet Music
A rather fancy-looking site, somewhat cumbersome to navigate, but does have some excellent content (mostly classical). PDF format.
Violin Music
A Korean site with a wide assortment of violin music, in various formats (mostly PDF).
CCARH Publications: Scores and Parts
3 Bach cantatas, and a Vivaldi Concerti Grossi (parts only) in PDF format.
Acadia Early Music Archive
A comprehensive site featuring early (pre-Baroque) music, mostly in PostScript .eps format, also some Scorch files.
Tablature in PostScript form
A large collection of lute music in tablature. Mostly PostScript, but some are also available as PDF.
Musica Liberata - Free and Open Classical Music Library
A very promising new site offering high-quality transcriptions of classical music (PDF format, also mp3 and midi as applicable). Presently (Aug. 2001) a limited selection, mostly guitar works by Carcassi, but definitely one to keep an eye on. Contributions solicited.
La Folia - Spanish Early Music
Offers early Spanish music in PDF and Encore formats, also midis and mp3's. Click on "La Música" to enter download area. En español.
Volksdansarchief
A Dutch site offering Flemish folk dances, in ABC and PDF formats.
Accordion-Online.de / Akkordeon-Online.de
Finally a site for Accordion music, site is available in both English and German. GIF images of scores embedded in html "wrappers". Also mp3 files and accordion links.
The Recorder Player's Page
A comprehensive site for recorder players, including scores of renaissance, baroque and Norwegian folk music for the recorder, created and maintained by Niklas Saers. PostScript and PDF formats.
Renaissance Music
Alain Naigeon offers this nice site featuring Renaissance music in PDF or Encore formats, as well as demonstration midis. Also available en français.
TEXTES ET MUSIQUES DU MOYEN AGE
Music from the Middle Ages, at present only lyrics and midi files, and only in French. Also check out Cantigas de Santa Maria at the same site.
Learn How To Play Guitar:Free Method and Free MP3 Files
Classical guitar studies by Tarrega, Carcassi and Sanz, as well as the famous "Spanish Ballad" by Anonymous. PDF format.
Jorge Guillen Classical Guitar Archives
A nice selection of mostly classical pieces for guitar. Also midi and RealAudio samples. GIF images in html "wrappers".
Avi Ariav's music site
Scores of classic style and other traditional Jewish music. Uses an unusual but quite workable file format - embedding the images in microsoft Word *.doc documents. If you don't want to be a slave to microsoft any more than necessary, consider downloading OpenOffice.org
Organ transcriptions of cantata movements by J. S. Bach
Peter Baekgaard offers this site of free Bach organ music, in PDF format. View or download, depending on your browser setting and/or presence of Acrobat plug-in.
Mundial directory of free sheet music on the Web
Links to a wide variety of free sheet music, in English et Français, for strings, winds, keyboards, choral, orchestra, and percussion. Various file formats.
Words & Music - Free Piano Arrangements
A small but growing collection of piano transcriptions of contemporary pop songs. Requires Coda's Smart Music Viewer.
Free Choral Music Sheet MIDI MP3 Files
PDF, NWC, midi and mp3 files of a good number of classical choral music.
Archiv der kreuznacher-diakonie-kantorei
In Deutsch / English. PDF files in an ftp-based download structure. "This site containes sheetmusic for: choir, orchestra, brassband, recorder, organ. Special editions for amateurs - no original text."
Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary
1000+ hymn tunes, PDF and NWC format.
WWW.KANTOREI-NOTEN.DE - Ole Hesprich's digitales Noten-Archiv
In Deutsch. Introduction only available in English. PDF format. Sheet music for choirs, choir with organ, solo organ, and organ with other instruments.
Tunes at Ceolas
A large collection of traditional Celtic tunes in PDF, GIF, ABC and PostScript formats, with MIDI renditions. Also a bagpipe.tex macro engine geared to setting music for highland pipes.
Free Sheetmusic Library
A nice cross-section of classical orchestral works, chamber music, piano music (2 and 4-hand), organ works and sacred music, in PDF format.
Orient exPress Music
Some free scores of arrangements for string quartet, in PDF format. Also other titles available for sale.
Derek Hasted is a guitar ensemble music teacher, who has a nice site featuring (among other things) free guitar ensemble scores in PDF or GIF format. Scores are also available for sale.
Free printable blank sheet music @ Blank Sheet Music.net
One of the more unusual listings here, in that it gives you free blank sheet music! Select from any of a variety of staff styles, and click the PRINT button. Voila! (or even Viola!). If you set your print device to a PDF or PostScript writer, you can print to File and have it available as needed.
Chmusic.net
Links to church music sites and publishers, Free downloads of sheet music for worship, plus music for Christmas and Easter, Original piano compositions and simplified classics, Translations of ancient sacred poetry.

Scanned-in sheet music:

Sheet Music Consortium Home Page
This new consortium consists of resources offered by UC Los Angeles, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, and Duke University. A rich assortment of vintage sheet music, mostly classic American folk, blues, and song forms. Well worth a visit.
Sheet Music: A Window on 19th-Century California
(Mary Kay Duggan - About) A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900, together with related materials. Also a dandy launch site to other sheet music resources.
Historic American Sheet Music
"The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University holds a significant collection of 19th and early 20th century American sheet music. The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920."
The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection
"The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. It contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960...."
UNC-Chapel Hill Music Library 19-th Century American Sheet Music
"... 57 volumes (approximately 2250 titles) of sheet music have been indexed. The contents of 32 of these volumes (approximately 1200 pieces) have been fully scanned and are available on this site..."
Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885
"Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra."
University of Pennsylvania - Keffer Collection of Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1895
"The Keffer Collection of Sheet Music at the University of Pennsylvania contains 2,531 scores ranging in date from ca. 1790 to 1895. The great majority of the items were published in the United States and approximately 1,150 items were produced by publishers in Philadelphia. The musical content of the collection consists largely of American popular songs and piano music, but also includes works by famous European composers published in the United States."
Indiana University Bloomington Libraries; Opera Scores Demo - Scores only"
Scanned-in classical opera scores archive. GIF format, saveable using right-click "Save Image As..."
Public Domain Music
Mostly traditional folk tunes, scanned in GIF format. You may wish to experiment with image contrast and convert to 2 colours before printing.
The Tetovo's old songs
Macedonian folk songs, in JPG format. Uses java applets to navigate, you can save the images to local disk using "Save As..." after image is displayed.
African-American Sheet Music from Brown University
A comprehensive collection of historic sheet African-American sheet music available as high-quality jpegs.
LEMIRE JB (1867-1945) MUSIQUE
"Les oeuvres de JB Lemire". A site featuring the compositions of J. B. Lemire, mostly in jpeg format, but with PDF transcriptions to follow. Also some midis and other audio formats. In French.
La Combe de Louba
A jazz-oriented site with a limited number of scores in in-line JPEG format. Also sound clips, etc. In French. Click on the "Partitions" link to get to the scores page.
Gunnar Bärlunds hemsida, Notmenu
Scandinavian music in GIF format, along with demonstration midis.
ANA: An American Nyckelharpa Allspel List
More Scandinavian music in GIF, PS, PDF and ABC formats (!), including midis and mp3's.
The Music Library of Denis Bouriakov
Lots of classical scores, TIF format (multi-part works are zipped). You can even vote for pieces you want to see posted, he puts the most popular requests on his priority list.
Acadia Early Music Fascimile Archive
A sub-page of Acadia Early Music Archive featuring selected facsimiles of original ancient music. (JPG format in html "wrappers")
Bach Digital
Includes some scanned manuscripts by Bach and also some old printings. [was down for awhile, back up May 2002 - fn]
The Messiah - Table of Contents
The entire score of the Schirmer edition, scanned (in PNG format). There may be other music on this site (mostly Christian text books) if you hunt around. See also the listing for the Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary in the "Printable" section above.
A Traditional Music Library of folk music, tune-books, songbooks and sheet music
Lots and lots of traditional tunes, organised into 22 different "song books" which are also available for purchase. GIF files in html wrappers, midis included. (Only the "medium" speed version is online, you have to buy the CD for the other tempi.)
Pick's Place - Lucas Pickford's Transcriptions page
Scanned jpg images in html wrappers of hand-written transcriptions for bass, saxophone, trumpet, piano, guitar and groups by jazz greats like John McLaughlin, Jaco, John Scofield, and many others. Includes links to sites where you can get the CD of featured tunes. Front-page with the directory frame is here
UNT Libraries: Music Library, The Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection
"Welcome to the University of North Texas Music Library's Lully Collection Website. This Website was conceived in 1996 both as a multimedia thematic catalog of the UNT Music Library's collection of twenty-one first and second editions of operas and ballets by the French Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, and as a nucleus for collecting information useful to anyone studying those works." Scanned-in files in PDF format.
Hamparsum
"a website concentrated on the special notation system invented by and named after 18th/19th c. Turkish (of Armenian descent) composer Hamparsum Limonciyan. They provide tutorials, examples and scores, plus a true type font to enable typesetting of the mentioned system." Presently available only in Turkish.
Baby Tryst - popular piano Music & funny cartoons
A collection of favourite scanned but easily printable PDF files of popular piano pieces.

Living Composers' Private Sites

Welcome to Lorie Line's Official Website
Free downloads of her piano arrangements. A new one every month. Popular intermediate level. PDF format.
Music Instruction Software: Mucky Free music software...
Some of Brent Hugh's compositions, in PostScript format.
The Recorder Player's Page
A comprehensive site for recorder players, including scores of renaissance, baroque and Norwegian folk music for the recorder, created and maintained by Niklas Saers. PostScript and PDF formats.
Files maintained by Christian Mondrup and Annette Mondrup
Many scores of both original works and public domain arrangements for recorders and other instruments in PDF format.
Music by Ulrich Nehls (English), Musik von Ulrich Nehls (Deutsch)
Original compositions and arrangements, mostly for brass/ big band/ jazz band, in PostScript format.
Herb Wurtzel's FREE RECORDER MUSIC SCORES
Free sheets scanned in from the composer's manuscripts. Use the right-click "Save As..." technique to save to local disk.
Farid El Atrache WebSite. Arab composer, Oud player and actor
Includes free jpeg images of his instrumental scores for Oud, along with digital music in various formats.
Jubing's Free Classical Guitar Music
Scanned handwritten scores (GIF format) and midi demos of original compositions and classical arrangements and transcriptions.
Lesley Spencer's site - sheet music
Free samples of Composer/Pianist Lesley Spencer's compositions in PDF format. Scores also available for purchase. Navigating the site takes a bit of getting used to, as new windows are spawned at each link, so check your "bozo bar" if it seems that nothing has happened.
Fred Nachbaur's Dogstar Music
My own site, which hosts this index page. Featured are a variety of my own compositions and arrangements, in midi, NoteWorthy, PostScript and MP3 formats.
Sally DeFord Music
"Free Downloadable Sheet Music for LDS and other Christian use." Sally's own compositions as well as arrangements of traditional hymns.
Free scores for classical guitar and piano
Marc Lamberg offers nicely scored, printable GIF images of works for solo, two, three and four guitars, as well as piano solo and four-hands. Midi demos also available. Click here for French version.
The Hoempa Music Corporation
Jo Meessen offers this interesting site: "We are specialized in sheet Music for percussion ensembles. Not just ordinary sheet music; we arrange and publish sheet music in a very special category: Christmas music for percussion groups! In this category we are absolutely unique on the WWW and.... all our sheet Music is completely free!" Dutch version also available.
SHEET MUSIC FOR GUITAR
Theo Radic presents this nice site featuring his own compositions as well as transcriptions and arrangements of classics for guitar.
Free Scores for Military / Marching / Brassband - Compositeur Jean-Paul VERPEAUX
A growing collection of Mssr. Verpeaux's compositions, presented in zipped .bmp (bitmap) files; scores and parts available.
Rowy van Hest - free sheet music
In addition to Rowy's own compositions for Flute, Guitar, Harpsichord, Organ and Piano, she features a growing list of free sheet music (in PDF format) by classical composers, for Harpsichord, Piano, and Trumpet + Tuba. Also mp3 samples and a links page to contemporary composers' sites.

Samples and Loss leaders

Outside Shore Music - Publishing
Jazz compositions by several different artists. Low-resolution (72dpi) GIFs available for free preview. The high-res versions cost money.
Cormorant Press Catalog
Contemporary classical composers' publishing company, offers low-res GIFs and midi demos for free download.
The Music Scores Library on Line
Not free, but quite reasonably priced. USD30 gives you 1 year subscription or 800 connections, and access to a wide variety of scores. Non-subscribers pay a couple bucks per download.
Austin Rudy's MP3 Christmas Music... Sheet Music
"Welcome to Austin Rudy's Christmas Music Web site. I compose Christmas songs which stress traditional American values. Although the compositions are presented in an adult contemporary/ country/ pop format, the songs can be sung in multiple styles ranging from jazz to choral arrangements." Lead sheets only available as GIFs. Scores only available in Finale format.
Combs Music - Free Sheet Music of God's Great Family
Religious and secular songs by Dave Combs for sale. One song is free. PDF 600 dpi.
Free ChoralWeb Publication
"... You may download and copy this piece for use with your choirs! We are presenting this free piece as a way to show you the ChoralWeb method of publishing and delivering music across the Internet...."
Choraegus ShareMusic (R) / Larry Sue
A collection of original Christian choral scores provided in PDF format (with GIF previews) on a shareware honour system.
Piano solo free sheet music and for other instruments
Various free downloads from this membership site by Fabrizio Ferrari. Navigation and downloading a bit cumbersome, but it does work. PDF format.
My Music Section
Classical midi sequences and scores by Alan Chan. Scores are listed near the bottom of the page. GIF (or zipped GIF, in the case of multi-part compositions.)
Concert Band Music
Free samples of band music transcriptions for sale. PDF format.
Celtic Guitar Page by Glenn Weiser
Free samples of Celtic music for guitar (with tab) and other instruments. TIF format, rather poor scans from his books, but still may be a useful resource.
Brass Band Download Page
PDF samples of scores available for purchase.
SheetMusicNow.com
"Purchase" from a selection of titles at a price of $0. Requires Acrobat Reader as well as a proprietary program called "Safe Publish" in order to download/view the files. I have not tested this myself, and would appreciate any feedback on this aspect.
RYCUN Music Company - Customized Publications & Commercial Services
Quite a few free PDF files of scores, mostly jazz but also contemporary Christian, classical, and Holiday music. A feature is an "online fake-book", free samples available.
String quartet arrangements
A few free PDF files of scores and parts for string quartet pieces, and quite a number available for sale at varying prices. Previews available in "SmartMusic" format from Coda.