Sheet Music and Music Notes

Sheet Music

Sheet music is available from many sources, and the internet is one of the best. Whether you're looking for free sheet music, printable sheet music, guitar sheet music, piano sheet music or music notes for all types of music -- classical, jazz, pop, Broadway -- you're almost guaranteed to find it online.

Sheet Music Online:
Freehand Music
Sheet Music Direct
Levy Sheet Music
8 Notes
Sheet Music 1
MusicNotes
CD Sheet Music
Allegro Music Online

Musicians (or aspiring musicians) often look for sheet music for a specific instrument -- piano sheet music and guitar sheet music are popular -- but you can also find sheet music for vocals. Some types of sheet music are even available with "E-Z" notation for those just beginning to learn how to play and read music notes.

Christmas sheet music is popular every year, as well as Christian sheet music and gospel sheet music. Fans of rock 'n' roll can buy Beatles sheet music to learn the Fab Four's top songs, and Disney lovers can learn how to play their favorite movie themes with Disney sheet music.

Music Notes

Musical notation as we know it today is a uniform set of written symbols used to record musical ideas on paper in the form of sheet music. Music notes are symbols that denote pitch and duration of sound -- the durations indicated depend on the time signature of the piece, the note value, and the overall tempo, while the pitches are indicated by a note's placement on the musical staff.

A musical score is written on a staff, which consists of five parallel lines with pitches assigned to each. The staff is divided by vertical lines that represent measures. Each measure indicates a specific duration of time, consisting of a given number of beats determined by the piece's time signature. A time signature of 4/4, for example, means that each measure represents four beats of musical time. Whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes are a few examples of note values that indicate a pitch's duration. Specific markings on the notes themselves distinguish these note values from one another.

Dynamic markings, dots, ties and accidentals are among the many other symbols used in musical notation to provide specific instructions in sheet music for performance of a given piece. Though these standards of musical notation vary in different cultures, this is the accepted standard for the majority of modern musical notation (including popular piano sheet music).

A composition is written on sheet music and used by musicians who place it on a music stand as they perform. Often there are clips placed on the sides of music stands used as holders for sheet music.