Authored by Brett Knickerbocker in Music
Published on 08-08-2009
It is easy for the practicing musician to run into a brick wall every now and then. Usually this brick wall is related to new material. Where do you find it and how do you get it? If you are a musician you know this feeling well – a piece of music catches your ear and your fingers instantly want to play. Whether it is a classical symphony or a new pop hit, all musicians love to learn their favorite material.
Sheet music has eluded musicians for years. Finding just the right music book, chord chart, or lyric sheet can be about as easy as finding the perfect strand of hay in a haystack. There is a lot to choose from but not everything is right. The number of retail stores carrying (and specializing in) sheet music continues to dwindle with each passing year, making it harder and harder to find physical copies of music notation. Luckily, there are a number of free websites that do the job for you! Minus a few legal battles here and there, the online sheet music community has been growing for awhile and is the easiest way to find exactly what you need.
Find Free Sheet Music – This online portal catalogs a large collection of links to various sheet music sites and resources. It is a majority folk music website, specializing in classic folk tunes and instruments (they even have sheet music for accordion, lute, and bagpipes)!. Find Free Sheet Music has a hefty amount of piano and classical sheet music links. Many of the links are intended as much for education as they are for practice.
Free Sheet Music US – An astounding site for the beginning classical musician, this online catalog has a wide variety of sheets and charts. There is a heavy focus on piano, folk, and classical music. Many songs are short, which makes this a perfect website for music teachers and students alike. Free Sheet Music US also boasts a collection of spiritual, choral, and opera sheet music. The database houses nothing but public domain music, but the simple arrangement makes it perfect for the beginning player. All of the sheet music downloads are stored as standard notation .jpg files and most are sized to 750 pixels (making them easy to print on a single page).
Ultimate Guitar – Ultimate Guitar is perhaps the single greatest collection of guitar tablature online. Though it is meant for those musicians who read tabs as opposed to proper notation it is still an extremely valuable site. All tabs are created by users and thus the selection is staggering. It is generally easy to figure out which tabs are worthwhile based on a simple rating system. The system is incredibly easy to navigate, allowing the user to search by either song title or artist name. Ultimate Guitar is heaven for those players who love popular music and classic tunes; you can find pretty much everything from Brad Paisley to Iron Maiden to Celtic folk songs.
