Thursday, March 12, 2010 | Posted by Jay
One of my most treasured hobbies is playing the piano. Since I dropped formal studies not 2 years after I started (at the age of five...very Asian I know), I've been learning on my own by playing out my basic piano lessons books and trying out a few more formal pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, and even the semi-modern Ravelle.
So about a week ago I decided to give Bach a try too. And came across this youtube video (cracked me up) - it's Bach in Vocaloid!! *w*
There are a few resources I use to find free classical sheet music. The way copyright works in the US is, if the original copyright has not been renewed within 95 years, it's considered Public Domain (i.e. a completely free resource). Which is why these sites can exist:
classicaland.com This is my personal favorite - it's a goldmine of classical music, organized by composer. PDF format.
sheetmusicarchive.net Not my favorite, but my second choice if I can't find anything on Classicaland. They have a limit of 2 downloads per day (which is annoying if you're not 100% sure what you're looking for), but they've got a good selection.
IMSLP Petrucci Music Library I should probably use this resource more than I have. It's a very well-organized database, and you can download in PDF format with no limits. My only complaint is you do have to navigate quite a bit to get to the files. But I imagine once you get the hang of it, it's not a problem.
Thanks for the links - esp. IMSLP! I wish I had known about that site when I was desperately searching for Mozart's 12 Variations on "Ah vous dirais-je, Maman" a few months ago ago. I think I ended up finding it on some sketchy looking site, but IMSLP looks great. I've bookmarked it for potential future usage, despite the fact that I don't have a piano here ; D;