Guides on how to find sheet music on the net.
Knowing how to play musical instrument is fun and enjoyable, especially when you are learning to play your favorite music songs. But, not everyone can play song just by hearing it; you will need to have a sheet music in order for you to be able to play that particular song.
And that brings out a question: are you willing to pay for the piano sheet music, guitar sheet music, saxophone sheet music or any other instrument sheet music?
If you are willing to pay, then it is quite easy as there are many online websites that are selling them through download. If you don’t want to pay, as in most people, then, it will be a bit harder as it will take a much longer time for you to find free sheet music.
Despite that, you can still find and download free piano and guitar sheet music online, though most will be classical sheet music as they mainly sit in the public domain. You may be able to find pop, jazz and some popular of contemporary piece, but, it will be very rare.
Here are a few ways that you can go about to find free piano and guitar sheet music.
Search For It
Hit the search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN and try to search for very detailed terms for the sheet music you are looking for. Don’t simply go for the term “sheet music” as the scope is too wide and you will have a hard time searching. For example, if you are looking for Celine Dion sheet music, enter terms like
Celine Dion free sheet music
My Heart Will Go On free sheet music
Guitar Tablature
If you are skilled in improvisation, this method will be very useful regardless whether you are pianist or using other musical instruments. As guitar tablature gives you the lyrics and chords of a song and is available for almost any song, you can try to play the chords and get yourself familiar with the melody and rhythm. You will be able to get a good feel on how to play the song.
Forums
There are many musical forums available and you will meet many like minded people there. You can exchange opinions, seek advices and even get new sources for sheet music in the forum. People are generally friendly and helpful, so, check out the various forums.
Notation software
Notation software is a tool that helps to translate the Midi music files into sheet music and all you have to do is to look for the Midi files for your favorite song; and it is a lot easier to look for the Midi files than the sheet music on the web. Take note that there is paid and free version notation software, with paid version having more functionality. For the purpose of just getting the sheet music, the free version will be sufficient
Alternative guide on how to find free sheet music.
1. Search engine (SE): Search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google are the most important tools that can help you to find free sheet music. The problem is, most people don't know how to effectively search for the information they need from the SE. Do you just enter 1 or 2 search terms and give up? Note that if your search term is too generic it may not yield good results. Don't believe? Try typing the term "sheet music" in Google, most of the results point you to paid site! So you have to be very specific with your search term. If I am looking for Beyonce sheet music, I would search for...
Beyonce sheet music
Beyonce free sheet music
If I were a Boy sheet music
Beyonce if I were a boy sheet music
I hope you get the picture. The more specific your search term is the higher chance that you can find the sheet music. Each search terms would usually give you thousands of listings. At times you have to go pass the first few pages to finally arrive at a website that offer free sheet music. It can be time consuming but I assure you that the result will be worthwhile.
2. Websites partners: With the method described above, you should be able to find few free sheet music websites. On the World Wide Web, websites with common themes are often linked to each other. When you land at a sheet music websites, look for links that says “link page”, “link partners”, “Resource”, “Other websites”, “Other links”. You should be able to find a list of website address which point to other sheet music websites.
3. Forums: Forums are great places where you meet like minded people, exchange opinions and seek for advices. There are literally hundreds thousands forums of different niche on the internet. If you are looking for sheet music, why not join some music forums? You will be surprised by the number of people out there who are friendly and helpful. I’ve also noticed that many musicians post links to various sheet music sites on the forums. Do a search on these forums and you should be able to find those links.
4. Notation software: Notation software really makes finding sheet music easy as pie! There are excellent notation software in the market that do a very good job in transcribing the Midi files into sheet music. The whole process is very simple and easy. You open the Midi files with the software, and it instantly arranged it into sheet music format. The good news is that it is very easy to find Midi files of almost any song from the web. The software that I used and recommend are Midinotate Composer and Noteworthy Composer. You can download 30 day trial version from their website. Best of all, they have friendly and supportive forums for their users.
5. Guitar Tabs: this method is suitable if you are good in improvisation. Guitar tabs give you the lyrics and chords of a song. If you are very familiar with the melody and rhythm, the tab can come in handy. Try to play the chords while playing back the song on the radio. This should give you good feel on how to play the song.
