So I just bought my kids a digital piano for Christmas and I’m looking for free beginner sheet music – not even pirated stuff, just free-as-in-freedom (Creative Commons, Public Domain, etc.) stuff – and I run across OpenScore. It claims that it “aims to digitize and liberate all public domain sheet music” and that “the OpenScore editions will be released into the Public Domain using Creative Commons Zero, allowing unlimited copying, adapting and sharing. The sky is the limit, without having to pay a penny.”
But then you click on one of the links to go to the actual sheet music, and it takes you to musescore.com, which won’t actually let you download anything without creating an account (which is 100% NOT “liberated,” whether you have to pay money or not). What in the bait-and-switch fraud is this shit?!
At this point, I want to download every single goddamn Creative Commons or Public Domain piece of music MuseScore has, just as a matter of principle. But how?
Imslp is legit, I’ve been using that site for years and downloading sheet music for free all through college. I finally decided to pay for a subscription a few years ago even though I don’t play as much classical music now. Web hosting isn’t free, and they provide a super valuable service that you can access for free with a mild inconvenience.