Music scores online

An online collection from the Library of Congress that brings together musical scores, recordings, photographs, and essays documenting an important but insufficiently explored part of the American musical past. Includes brass band music, print and manuscript

An online presentation of selected music manuscripts, photographs, printed music, historical recordings of the Sousa Band, copies of programs and press clippings, and more from the Sousa Collection at the Library of Congress. Includes waltzes, character pieces and operettas as well as marches.

This is sponsored by the North Royalton OH Community Band. Public domain band sets, mostly complete as published (missing parts are noted, and sought.). Some selections are “Print and play”, i.e., parts for F horns (original Eb), C piccolo (Db) and saxophones have been created and added. There are cover pages citing the source collection for the scanned parts, and a brief biographical sketch of the composer.

The Marine Band makes available the marches of Sousa in score, parts and performance, in chronological order. The first volume contains Sousa's first 17 marches, from Review (1873) to Congress Hall (1882); volume 2 is due in 2016. Editorial practice is not quite Urtext in terms of sourcing, scoring and corrections, though editorial dynamics are quite clearly marked. On the other hand there are C flute and F horn parts (but alas, not the original Eb), and a full score (a boon for any community band director who performs marches from this period). First measures of each line are numbered in the parts, and every measure in the score, but there are no rehearsal letters as such.

Listen along to Sousa's marches on the USMB's youtube channel.