Welcome Message

Hello, and Welcome to the Sheet Music Archives. We are an internet classical music organization dedicated to retrieving public domain classical sheet music and putting it online FREE for public perusal and benefit. Please share in the fruits of our labor: here you will find over 10,000 pages of classical piano sheet music available FREE for download! Simply click on the composer who interests you, select your desired piece, and download away!

It's Legal

This site is completely legal! The editions of music presented on this site were published over 75 years ago, so their copyright has passed and they are in public domain. We can therefore copy them and distribute them freely. So, both the music and the original editions of the music presented here are in the public domain; however, please be aware that the computer file reproductions embodied in the Sheet Music Archive are copyright 2000. Copies of them may be printed out for personal and performance use, but they may not be used for commercial purposes without permission from the SMA, nor may they be distributed without permission from the SMA. And, naturally, we would not be able to include the music of more recent composers, such as John Adams or John Cage, whose music is still in copyright, as are the various editions of their music.

Sources

The majority of scores featured in this archive are from pre-1923 music editions such as C.F. Peters, Brietkopf and Hartel, Bach-Gesselschaft, various American editions, and some pre-1973 Russian music editions. These are all old enough to be out of copyright in essentially all countries. We can therefore distribute them on-line without royalty, and users can legally download them.

How to View the Files

The sheet music files are in Adobe .pdf document format. To view them, download the latest version of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader from http://www.adobe.com. This music is in the public domain, so you may print out as many as you need for personal use. Please notice, however, that these files are copyrighted, all rights are reserved on them, and unauthorized distribution or sale of these files is prohibited. Enjoy!

File Sizes

Note on file sizes: Adobe .pdf files can be quite large. The sheet music available here sizes at roughly 75k per page, give or take some. Most files here are less than 1.2 megabytes, but for larger files, it may help to obtain a program for resuming interrupted downloads, such as GetRight, at http://www.getright.com. Recently, we have made great progress in compressing the .pdf files. In fact, the original archive, as it existed at the end of July, was a giant 1.3 gigabytes in size. Through compression, we have slashed the total size of the archive by almost a gigabyte to only 331 megs! And this is after adding dozens of new pieces since then. The largest uncompressed .pdf is less than 500k.

In-House vs. 3rd Party Copyright

Also, please note that while the vast majority of files in the archive were prepared in-house, and therefore subject to SMA's copyright restrictions, a few files, where indicated, were prepared by people not affiliated with SMA. These "3rd party" files are subject to the copyright restriction of their respective creators; we do not control them in this sense.

Re-scanning and Distribuiting printed copies of Sheet Music Archive

When the Sheet Music Archive scans sheet music, it creates not only new (and copyrighted) computer files, but also alters the graphic information of the original sheet music. The scanning process alters the graphical information, angulation, details of the sheet music such as to create a new kind of graphic. The SMA claims copyright right on this new graphic. If you print out the sheet music, you are printing out this new graphic. Now, the Sheet Music Archive authorizes the public to use this new graphics in the sense of making unlimited printouts of the graphics, and gives the public the right to distribute the printouts. However, the SMA, as the copyright holder of this new graphics, reserves the right to re-scan the graphics into other pdf files. The SMA does not grant this right to the public. So you cannot re-scan printouts and make your own pdfs out of them. However, you can certainly feel free to obtain original copies of the original editions used by the SMA, subject to your local copyright laws, and scan these books/editions and create your own PDF files.

Privacy Policy Summary

The Sheet Music Archive respects the privacy of its users and does not collect personal information about them without their knowledge and permission. The SMA is also committed towards keeping e-mail communications between itself and its users confidential. Non-specific, automated information such as cookie information may be collected in order to compile statistical data about traffic to the site. Click here to view our full privacy policy text.