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Music - Guide to Research

The purpose of this guide is to organize the most relevant USD Library resources for students, staff and faculty within the discipline of Music.

Free Scores Online

• Art Song Central
Free, printable sheet music for singers and voice teachers. An emphasis is placed on standard classical and traditional repertoire.

• The Choral Public Domain Library
Searchable database of close to nine thousand choral music scores available for free download. Updated daily. Also includes texts and translations.

• IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library
The free public domain sheet music library. 385,000 scores available for pdf download.

• Mutopia Project
2070 pieces of music – free to download, modify, print, copy, distribute, perform, and record – all in the Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses.

• Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA)
An ongoing project to digitize the complete works of Mozart and make them available. Users must agree to "fair use" principles of copyright law.

Selected Online Full-Text Scores - by Composer

  • Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Digital Archives  
    Beethoven manuscripts, first editions, letters and pictures
  • Chopin Early Editions  
    First and early printed editions of musical compositions by Frédéric Chopin at the University of Chicago
  • Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection  
    Early prints and manuscripts of works by Lully, primarily opera
  • Neue Mozart-Ausgabe: Digitized Version  
    Musical text and the critical commentaries of the entire Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
  • Ignaz Pleyel Early Editions  
    Pleyel scores, primarily "keyboard and chamber music, including arrangements of large orchestral works, published within the composer's lifetime"

    • Digital Collections from National Libraries

    Many libraries have begun digitizing their primary source materials. Once you know which library owns a specific manuscript or edition, check the library's website to see if a digital image is available.

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