Free Christmas Sheet Music for Piano (2020 edition)

Source: Dreamstime.com by Ellione.

With Christmas fast approaching, it’s time for piano students everywhere to start working on Christmas music. Here are five websites that have a good selection of Christmas sheet music for students:

Free Christmas Sheet Music for Piano

Free Christmas Piano Sheet Music (Beginner & Easy)

Christmas Sheet Music for Piano

Christmas Music Songs

Free Christmas Music

Do you have any a favourite websites with free Christmas music? Please add them to the Comments section.

Stay tuned for my list of recommended Christmas Books and sheet music available for purchase.

Where to Find Free Piano Music Online

A look at Free Art License, as well as various websites that legally offer free piano sheet music of anime, classical, video game, pop, and rock songs.

Numerous websites offer free sheet music for piano. However, tracking down a suitable arrangement legally sometimes requires a bit of digging.

Free sheet music that is legal falls under the Free Art License, which "grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform creative works without infringing the author's rights." Works in the public domain, as well as arrangements and transcriptions posted by the arranger to be downloaded for free fall under this category.

Once the intellectual property rights on a work have expired, they become part of the public domain. These works are copyright-free and can be printed, copied, distributed, and modified.

An arrangement is a music score of a piece that a musician has done by hand or with music notation software. It includes his or her own editorial markings or it is set to a style or instrumentation that differs from the original version.

A transcription is not the same as a reproduction. To make a transcription, a musician picks out the melody and harmonies of a song by ear and then writes out the notation by hand or with the aid of music notation software.

The following are some websites that offer free printable piano sheet music:

Free Anime Sheet Music and Video Game Music Online

Josh's Anime Sheet Music Collection boasts an extensive collection of anime and video game music transcriptions and links to other websites with fan transcriptions. Theme songs from popular anime such as Bleach, Naruto, and K-On! are available. Difficulty level ranges from intermediate to advanced.

Ichigos has one of the largest collections online of free video game and anime sheet music. Theme songs from popular anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Melancholy of Harurhi Suzumiya, and Clannad, as well as music from popular video games such as The Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy are available.The difficulty level of the sheet music varies from low intermediate to upper intermediate.

Free Classical Sheet Music On the Internet

Music-Scores contains over 500 pieces of classical sheet music. There are arrangements for piano, violin, woodwinds, and more. The site features music by the greats like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Mozart. The level of difficulty is listed with each piece. Members have access to more music scores than non-members.

The Sheet Music Archive has over 5000 works that are in the public domain. Classical sheet music by famous composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Chopin are included in this library. Visitors can download up to two works a day for free. Subscribers have unlimited downloads.

The International Music Score Library Project (IMSP), otherwise known as the Petrucci Music Library, contains an extensive collection of public domain music. Sheet music, as well as recordings are available. It contains over 234, 000 scores and 23, 000 recordings.

Websites With Free Piano Sheet Music in a Variety of Styles

Easy Sheet Music houses around 500 songs for piano. Music is listed in five categories: Music from Around the World, Popular Classics, Boogie & Blues, Opera Classics, and Mission - Not That Difficult. Non-members are limited to three free downloads per day, while subscribers get unlimited downloads.

Free Piano Music! contains approximately 100 pieces of classical, popular, and Christmas songs. The pieces are ordered by level of difficulty, from beginner to intermediate. Midi files are also available for educational purposes.

Sibelius Music - Score Exchange has a wide range of printable sheet music, including classical, Christian, Christmas, historical, jazz, pop/rock, educational, and original works. The site contains music for piano, voice, guitar, strings, and ensembles. Although there are many free music titles, there are some available for purchase.

For further suggestions, read Finding Free Sheet Music and Christian Sheet Music Websites.

Things to Watch Out for When Downloading Free Printable Piano Sheet Music

There are three things to watch out for when searching for free sheet music online: illegal scans of copyrighted scores, poor transcriptions, or editions:

A fan making his or her own transcription or arrangement is legal. However, scanning a copyrighted work is illegal. Musicians should inspect the score carefully. Fuzzy quality is a sign of photocopying or scanning. A transcription is genuine when "Transcribed by" or "Arranged by" is part of the text.

Some music was originally written for an ensemble to be performed by a computer. An anime theme song that requires the right hand to play a chord that spans three octaves is just not "piano friendly." The musician must modify the transcription to avoid musician injury. Music students should consult with their music teacher if they require assistance.

With regards to classical music, it is wise to consult and compare several editions as edition quality varies. Students taking a piano exam should use an edition that is approved by the music conservatory conducting the piano examination.

Downloading an arrangement, transcription, or copyright-free work are three ways to legally obtain free printable piano sheet music. Good transcribers and arrangers are able to make their arrangement "piano friendly." Fans who wish to download free piano sheet music should be cognizant of the difficulty level of the arrangement and look for signs that a transcription is legitimate.

Originally published on Suite101.com on June 16, 2010. Updated April 16, 2013. All rights reserved by Rhona-Mae Arca.

Online Music Resources Spotlight: Making Music Fun

Making Music Fun is a friendly site with music games, music worksheets, free sheet music and music resources. These are geared toward beginner to early intermediate-level students.

There is a nice selection of note-naming worksheets as well as interval worksheets. They are visually appealing to young students. There are also composer word searches.

Making Music Fun is well laid out. Visit the Music Library and learn all about a composer. There are composer biographies, worksheets, lesson plans and sheet music. You can also access this information in the Print It section.

There is also an arcade, which contains two music theory games ("Music Distress" and "Eek Shark!"). All worksheets are available for free.

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Fun Music Recommendations for Summer

Hooray! It's the last week of lessons. My students and I are looking forward to some time off.This week, they've all heard me stress the importance of doing some music practice during the summer so they don't waste the time, effort and money that they, their parents and I as their teacher have invested throughout the year.

The following are some of the "fun music" suggestions I have given them to make their "Summer Learning Projects" as enjoyable as possible:

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Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Tom Gerou. Piano - Five Finger Collection; Piano Supplemental. Five Finger Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 52 pages. Alfred Music #34451. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322311).

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Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Big-Note Piano. Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Tom Gerou. Piano - Big Note Collection; Piano Supplemental. Big Note Vocal Selections. Movies. Softcover. 48 pages. Alfred Music #34382. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322308).

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Star Wars - A Musical Journey (Music from Episodes I - VI) Composed by John Williams. Arranged by Dan Coates. Piano - Easy Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Easy Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 56 pages. Alfred Music #28304. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322093).

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Star Wars: A Musical Journey Music from Episodes I - VI. Composed by John Williams. Shows & Movies. Piano Solo Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 86 pages. Alfred Music #28303. Published by Alfred Music (HL.322092).

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The Twilight Saga - New Moon: The Score Easy Piano Solo. Composed by Alexandre Desplat (1961-). Easy Piano Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 48 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.349015).

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The Twilight Saga - New Moon The Score: Music by Alexandre Desplat. Composed by Alexandre Desplat (1961-). Piano Solo Songbook. Movies. Softcover. 56 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.313487).

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Harry Potter Magical Music From the First Five Years at Hogwarts (Five Finger Piano). Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, and Nicholas Hooper. Arranged by Tom Gerou. This edition: Five Finger Piano. Piano - Five Finger Collection; Piano Supplemental. 5 Finger. Movie. Book. 60 pages. Alfred Music #00-32710. Published by Alfred Music (AP.32710).

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Harry Potter -- Sheet Music from the Complete Film Series Easy Piano. Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Alexandre Desplat (1961-), and Nicholas Hooper. Arranged by Dan Coates. This edition: Easy Piano. Piano - Easy Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Movie. Book. 140 pages. Alfred Music #00-39075. Published by Alfred Music (AP.39075).

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Harry Potter -- Sheet Music from the Complete Film Series Piano Solos. Composed by John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Alexandre Desplat (1961-), and Nicholas Hooper. This edition: Piano Solos. Piano Collection; Piano Supplemental. Movie. Book. 144 pages. Alfred Music #00-38970. Published by Alfred Music (AP.38970).

I also compiled a listing of websites in a recent article Where to Find Free Piano Music Online (new link to come). An honourable mention goes out to Piano Squall's website with loads of video game and anime theme songs. I wanted to put his site on the list but there are constraints on article length.

Students can also check out the RCM Popular Selection List and Conservatory Canada's Contemporary Idioms Syllabus online for suggestions of graded popular pieces.

(c) 2010 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada.

Friday Fun Link #13

Ooh, how auspicious. Friday Fun Link #13 on Friday the 13th.

I found out about this funky website from one of my students (Thanks Leah!). Called Take a Piano Sheet Music Break, this site offers FREE popular sheet music, transcribed or arranged for piano. There is a good selection of songs, ranging from classic rock to the 80s and from easy listening to what’s hot on the Top 40 charts today.

Happy exploring! © 2006, Musespeak™, Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.