Tom's Public Domain Sheet Music Library

I am trying to put together a library of public domain sheet music, mainly for folk songs, hymns, spirituals, etc. Things are just starting out so not much to offer, but it is a start.

The music is available as lilypond sources (LilyPond is an excellent, open-source, and free music typesetting program that runs on a variety of operating systems), and sometimes in postscript and/or PDF formats. The latter two formats are likely to be viewable by anyone with software to view these widely adopted formats. The best use is for people with lilypond, as they can do simple edits (e.g. simple key transpositions). I am hoping to have an m4 preprocessor set up that will enable many different options on the output from essentially one input file for those with m4 and lilypond.

This music was entered into lilypond format by me, using old books as the source. Indeed, all the sources from which the lilypond input was derived were published in the USA prior to 1923. From the US Copyright Office, Circular #22

  Therefore,  the  U.  S. copyright in any work published or copyrighted
   prior  to  January  1,  1923, has expired by operation of law, and the
   work  has  permanently  fallen  into  the  public domain in the United
   States. 

• www.pdinfo.com

I am not a lawyer, and so anyone downloading these files does so at their own risk. No guarantees or warranties of any kind regarding the public domain status of the files, or their suitability for any purpose whatsoever is provided. To download the files, you will be asked for an username and password, enter ForUseInUS (note: case sensistive) for both. By entering this username/password combination you are agreeing to release me and the University of Maryland from any liability concerning the public domain status and/or suitability of these files.

If you believe one or more of these files is NOT in the public domain, please contact me as soon as possible (email payerle AT wam.umd.edu). I will certainly remove any questionable files until their status can be resolved.

The music