Comments on: Monday Mailbag – Finding Music

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:23:58 +0000

I took Steve’s advice.

http://www.SoloInstrumentalSheetMusic.com is excellent.

Their prices are good, the delivery is quick, and they have sheet music for virtually every instrument. It comes with a CD you can practice with at home, or perform with if you don’t have a pianist. I like the melodies, too. The music is kind of high school level.

Thanks Steve.

By: Mindy

Mindy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:15:42 +0000

This is a very tough spot to be in. If you were closer, you could have a look through, but you can’t. And from one publisher’s idea of elementary to another can vary hugely.If you are connected with an music teachers association, I would immediately tap into them and ask them what are their top 5 easy, medium and hard elementary or books. Then if you have the money- buy them. You have to start somewhere. Also, if you can get the repetoire from local competitions, you can build from some solid winners.
As for specific places, I have liked FJH for their 40% off 2 copies. It helps a ton. I’m also trying out PrimaMusic.com as you can build your percentage off and get free shipping with qualifying order.
Here’s a final tip for having money to buy this music that I got from another teacher: Set up a student account for every student in your studio. My deposit is $50 at the beginning of the year. Then I subtract all materials costs as they occur. That way, I have the money to go get what I need and I don’t wait on parents to get it. Then I either reimburse the difference at the end of the year, or transfer it to next year’s account. (I personally prefer reimbursing to help eliminate the awkward “Um, we’re quitting and you have my money.” thing.)

By: Lauren

Lauren — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:57:42 +0000

You can always subscribe to Virtual Sheet Music for a year (about $30) and then print off or save to your computer all the music you can ever want! They, of course, wouldn’t have things under copyright, but they have a lot of Christmas and classical music!

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:12:08 +0000

Here is a website with music appropriate for intermediate music students, and music teachers. http://www.soloinstrumentalsheetmusic.com/
index.html

All the music is arranged as solos for most orchestral and band instruments at the intermediate level. You can view the first page of each piece, and hear a sound byte of each piece.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:04:46 +0000

I, too, live quite a long drive away from a decent music store. I enjoy using Sheet Music Plus to browse music because it gives you the option of viewing the first page or two so you can get an idea of the difficulty level of the piece. Other websites such as 8notes.com let you download some sheet music for free, which is nice just to have incase you need it.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:33:04 +0000

I, too, am an hour away from a really good-sized music store. When I need to actually buy music, I use JW Pepper’s http://www.pianoatpepper.com website. Many of their selections include previews of the music. Shipping is very reasonable (free for orders over $50). Their customer service is awesome, shipping is fast and they will accept returns of printed music if it turns out you ordered something that didn’t suit you once it arrived. I can’t say enough good things about them, I’ve never been disappointed by JW Pepper.