As I was ATTEMPTING to study hematologic disorders in pregnancy I was suddenly struck with the urge to research
Maurice Ravel. While reading about him I thought to myself "wouldn't it be nice if I could see the
scores of his compositions?" Out of the clear blue sky a memory* concerning
public domain entered my head. I read about it on wiki and realized, with
absolute glee, that music works as old as those composed by Ravel would have entered the public domain. Through the wiki article on Ravel I found the following three sites (listed in order of awesomeness):
http://imslp.org/http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Pagehttp://icking-music-archive.org/BAM! Instant PRINTABLE musical scores from countless composers for countless works! YEAH BABY!!! You know that piano piece you've just been
itching to play? You know that choral piece you really want your church choir to sing? They are YOURS for the taking,
and it's legal.
*I was to accompany my college choir (the Genevans) on a piece of music and we were going to play a prank on the conductor (Dr. Bob). When he started to conduct the piece I was going to break into the
Hallelujah Chorus introduction instead, with the choir following suit (we used the public domain to get the score). It would have been EPIC, and he wouldn't have seen it coming. Someone with much wisdom (or too much caution) decided that his old heart may not be able take it. The last thing we wanted was to induce a heart attack in our beloved choir conductor. The plan was abandoned and I'm left only with the memory of what could have happened.