Music Guide: Outside Resources

The sheet music in this digital collection has been selected from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University. The full collection consists of approximately 500,000 items, of which perhaps 250,000 are currently available for use. It is one of the largest collections of sheet music in any library in the United States. The sheet music, primarily vocal music of American imprint, dates from the 18th century to the present day, with the largest concentration of titles in the period 1840-1950.

The mission of the American Guild of Organists is to foster a thriving community of musicians who share their knowledge and inspire passion for the organ. The American Guild of Organists (AGO) is the national professional association serving the organ and choral music fields. The Guild serves approximately 275 chapters and 12,000 members throughout the United States and abroad.

Carnegie Hall's mission is to present extraordinary music and musicians on the three stages of this legendary hall, to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience, to provide visionary education programs, and to foster the future of music through the cultivation of new works, artists, and audiences.

Classic 107.3 was created in 2013 by people who believe a vibrant arts and cultural scene is essential for our community to thrive. Their mission: to enrich the cultural landscape of St. Louis through the programming and outreach efforts of a nonprofit classical music station.

The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments is home to the most important collection of renaissance and baroque instruments worldwide. Furthermore, the museum keeps, maintains and presents numerous instruments that were played by famous musicians and composers. The collection includes a particularly comprehensive range of clavichords and Viennese fortepianos. The world of sound in which the composers of Viennese Classicism lived can be heard and understood here in a nearly complete fashion. The holdings of the collection have their origins in Habsburg holdings; they have since been continually expanded via purchases, gifts and loans. The Matinees of the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments give visitors the opportunity to both see and hear the instruments, insofar as their condition allows them to be played.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum collects, preserves, and interprets the evolving history and traditions of country music. Through exhibits, publications, and educational programs, the Museum teaches its diverse audiences about the enduring beauty and cultural importance of country music.

Scores and books in the public domain. Many of these are unique to the Sibley Music Library collection.

The Global Music Archive is a multi-media reference archive and resource center for traditional and popular song, music, and dance of Africa and the Americas.

Learn from award-winning experts and professors from the most respected institutions in the world. Great Courses are available in many fields of study: Music & Fine Arts as well as Economics, Health, Travel, Science and many more. Check the catalog of the St. Louis County Library to see which courses are freely available. Use this website to see all available titles.

The Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments is the first municipal museum of musical instruments in Japan. It was established as part of the Hamamatsu City“Creation of a City of Music” beginning in 1981, and is registered museum facility under the law of museums. The mission of the museum is to collect and preserve a representative selection of musical instruments and related materials from around the world, to research them, to exhibit them with an equal and unbiased perspective, and to cultivate a vast knowledge and understanding of music, musical instruments, and cultures through a variety of activities.

The Horniman has over 9,500 objects made to produce sound. The oldest is a pair of bone clappers in the form of human hands made in Egypt around 3,500 years ago. Electric guitars and synthesizers are among those recently acquired.The Horniman interprets instruments in a broad musical and cultural context. Recent collections of instruments from makers in India and the newest collections associated with street bands in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are supported by rich audio and video recordings of performances. Instrument makers’ and collectors’ archives are also an important element of the Horniman’s musical instrument collections. Performance-demonstrations on historic keyboard instruments in the collection are given regularly in the Music Gallery.

IMSLP, also known as the International Music Score Library Project or Petrucci Music Library. It was started in 2006. The logo on the main page is a capital letter A. It was taken from the beginning of the very first printed book of music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. It was published in Venice in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci, the library's namesake.

To celebrate, promote and preserve the rich legacy, tradition and future of the great American art form and international language known as Blues music.

In November 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially designated April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe. The Institute is the nonprofit charged with planning, promoting and producing this annual celebration. International Jazz Day brings together communities, schools, artists, historians, academics, and jazz enthusiasts all over the world to celebrate and learn about jazz and its roots, future and impact; raise awareness of the need for intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding; and reinforce international cooperation and communication.

The Irish Sheet Music Archives website is the home of the online sheet music collections found in the Ward Irish Music Archives located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Search over 5,000 pieces of Irish and Irish American themed sheet music in the collections. Users can narrow down the collection by filtering items in the Public Domain (published before 1923) to view free online sheet music.

Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization with the mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

The Civil War Sheet Music Collection at the Library of Congress consists of over 2500 pieces culled from the Library's collections. This collection is unique in that it offers a contemporary perspective from both sides of the conflict, unfiltered by generations of historical interpretation. Recurring themes in this collection include emancipation (represented by sundry polkas and quicksteps), constitutional reconstruction, reconciling the nation, and of course, songs heralding the Union or the Confederacy. The collection is limited to music about the war and therefore does not include every piece of sheet music published during the war. In addition to the music, many of the covers are worth noting. They treat a variety of subjects ranging from conventional portraits of generals to battlefield scenes to the popular image of Jefferson Davis escaping in petticoats.

The Library of Congress classification number M1.A1 includes music printed or 'copied in manuscript' in the United States or the colonies through 1820. As an early record of musical life in America and the colonies, this classification number holds many interesting popular and topical pieces. Contemporary English composers such as Samuel Arnold, Charles Dibdin, and William Shield are well-represented as one would expect. There are also songs and arias of Mozart, Gluck, Schubert, and other European composers published in English translation. Perhaps most importantly, this classification number documents early American compositions such as the piano pieces of Alexander Reinagle (piano teacher to George Washington's step-granddaughter at Mount Vernon), the songs of Benjamin Carr (an important music publisher and composer), the music of Francis Hopkinson (signer of the Declaration of Independence), topical pieces such as "Battle of Trenton: a favorite historical sonata for the piano-forte" by James Hewitt, and collections of social dance music such as "Admired cotillions for balls and private parties: with new figures" published by G.E. Blake of Philadelphia.

This sheet music collection consists of approximately 9,000 items published from 1800 to 1922, although the majority is from 1850 to 1920 [view finding aid for the collection]. The bulk was published in many different cities in the United States, but some of the items bear European imprints. Most of the music is written for voice and piano; a significant minority is instrumental. Notable in this collection are early pieces by Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, as well as music by other popular composers such as Victor Herbert, Jean Schwartz, Paul Dresser, Ernest R. Ball, Gussie L. Davis, Charles K. Harris, and George M. Cohan. Numerous arrangements of classical tunes by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and other famous classical composers are also well-represented.

Consists of over 15,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1820 to 1860. This collection complements an earlier American Memory project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 as well as the Band Music from the Civil War Era and Sheet Music from the Civil War Era. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular vocal music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and some music for band and orchestra.

Patriotic Melodies tells the stories behind many of the songs that have now become part of the American national heritage. A combination of hymns, national songs, music of the theater, radio and television, military themes, and poetry, all of this music demonstrates that while over history many things have changed, this expression of pride and hope remain a constant part of the American experience.

Sheet Music of the Musical Theater is a collection of more than 16,000 pieces of sheet music published between 1880 and 1922. These songs, specified as “M1508” items in the Library’s classification system, were taken from musicals, revues and operettas primarily of the American and British stage. They are arranged for piano and voice, sometimes simultaneously in arrangements for lower and higher voice. Sheet music was the primary method by which the public learned about the latest songs, only much later supplanted by recordings and radio. Composers and lyricists from the famous to the obscure can be found in this collection, and the songs portray the culture and history of more than 100 years ago in unique and valuable ways.“It’s Showtime! Sheet Music from Stage and Screen” is a database encompassing these pieces and much more, and can be found here: https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/songsinshows/songsinshows-home.html.

The Metropolitan Opera is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented singers, conductors, composers, musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers from around the world.

Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) has a collection of more than 7,500 instruments from more than 200 world countries and territories. The galleries reflect the rich diversity and history of many world cultures. But music and instruments also show us what we have in common—a thought powerfully expressed in their motto, 'music is the language of the soul.'

Award-winning, pioneering designers, developers, publishers and distributors of world-class, accredited courses, training programs and services used in-classroom, online or blended environments in over 1500 colleges and universities in the USA and abroad since 1999. OnMusic Dictionary is the successor of former Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary.

The Museum of Music has become world renowned for its collection and presentation of musical instruments. The historical heritage within its walls spans centuries.The Museum of Music represents a collection of more than 8000 instruments and art objects, with almost 1000 on exhibit in the permanent exhibition space.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened its doors on September 2, 1995, and celebrated with a blockbuster benefit concert at nearby Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is dedicated to bringing the museum's vision of engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock and roll to life.

The Royal College of Music Museum maintains one of the richest and most relevant collections of music-related objects in the UK and Europe. Standing in excess of 14,000 items, it represents a range of music-making activities over a period of more than five centuries.

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) Collection of Historic Musical Instruments comprises in excess of 300 instruments (European wind, strings and keyboard; Non-European wind, strings and percussion). These include a number of keyboards by Broadwood; viols by Barak Norman and Collingwood; violins by Stradivarius and Guarnerius together with some wind instruments from the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The Museum has a collection of 450 old and rare instruments from various regions of India, depicting different musical traditions. Of these, 207 objects are currently on display. Most instruments belong to the 17th-19th century period; but there are some that date as far back as the 15th century.

The Sheet Music Consortium is a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Harvested metadata about sheet music in participating collections is hosted by UCLA Digital Library Program, which provides an access service via this metadata to sheet music records at the host libraries. Data providers have chosen to catalog their sheet music in different ways, but a large proportion of the original sheets in participating collections has been digitized, allowing users direct access to the music itself and in many cases covers and advertisements that offer evidence of the cultural context in which the songs were published.

The Smithsonian holds incredibly diverse music-related collections; were they all assembled in one place, the Smithsonian would be the largest music museum in the world. With unparalleled collections and scholarship, signature programs, exhibitions, education, and performing artist ensembles and networks, the institution is a leading destination for visitors who want to learn about and experience music to enrich their lives.Smithsonian Music brings together these rich resources from throughout the institution’s museums and research centers to provide unique musical opportunities and increase access to the nation’s collections. The Smithsonian works with more than 200 Affiliate museums around the country and is developing innovative partnerships with organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jazz Educators Network, the Grammy Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Now, more than ever, we are engaging people in all that America’s treasured institution has to offer in music, in person and online.

Holding over 2,500 historical and contemporary musical instruments from all over the world, the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments is one of the largest accumulations of such artifacts housed in a North American university. Known internationally as a unique collection, it is not only a precious heritage from the past, but also a rich resource for musical, educational, and cultural needs of the present and future.

From the border regions of Mexico and the United States, it includes over 40,000 recordings of music.

The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University, is the most comprehensive collection in Britain of European woodwind, brass and percussion. There are on display more than a thousand instruments, by all the most important English, French and German makers, which show the musical and mechanical development of all wind and percussion instruments from the Renaissance and the Baroque to modern times.

The World War I digital sheet music collection is drawn from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library. It is composed of over 1,800 titles that relate in some way to the events of World War I, and the impact of that war on American society. There are patriotic songs, songs relating to specific military units, romantic songs of love and loss, comic songs, and songs that look to the war’s end.

The Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments is committed to fostering an understanding and appreciation of musical instruments from all cultures and periods. One of the foremost institutions of its kind, the Collection acquires, preserves, and exhibits musical instruments from antiquity to the present, and showcases restored examples in demonstrations and live performances. The Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments also serves as a laboratory for historical, artistic, and innovative exploration and education in the arts and sciences. It is a renowned study and research collection for scholars, musicians, and instrument makers, and a world-class museum that engages the public in the fascinating history of musical instruments through exhibits, publications, concerts, and outreach initiatives.

The Yiddish language sheet music in this digital collection is part of the large Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library. The digital collection is composed of public domain (pre-1923) titles; when the project is completed it is expected that it will be comprised of approximately 700 titles.