I am always on the hunt for new music to learn.

Anytime you hear a song that really speaks to you, you might want to see if you can get your hands on the sheet music – because, if you’re like me, you’ll forget the name of the song when you eventually try to hunt it down.  Plus it’s not easy to find a lot of music – especially if it’s old.  Not everything is available digitally.

There places online where you can get downloads of sheet music.  One of my favorites is MusicNotes.com.

What I like about MusicNotes is that it will play a digital version of the music for you before you buy it – so you can check the key.  And a lot of their music is available in multiple keys – so you can get your sheet music in a key that works for you. 

MusicNotes has a ton of digital music. 

I recently found SheetMusicDirect.com where I was able to lay my hands on a song I’ve been hunting for over the past couple of decades!

My husband and I listen to Garage Sale Music (featuring Floyd Vivino aka Uncle Floyd) on Sundays which lets me hear a ton of esoteric music.  Last Sunday, I heard a great (for me) Sophie Tucker song – and I think I found the sheet music on EBay – at least the title matches.  We’ll see when it shows up. 

The thing is the more unknown the song is, the harder it’s going to be to find.  It’s a good reason to search your local libraries and bookstores for old music books.  You never know what gem you are going to find and then you have a unique audition song that is not going to bore the creatives and that nobody else is going to show up singing.

Not so great for karaoke, but it’s terrific if you can find a good piano bar (one thing I miss about LA was all the piano bars with the magnificently talented pianists who could sight read just about anything).  (Are there piano bars anymore?)

By the way, I’m still looking for the sheet music to Dorothy by Judy Collins.  Anybody got that?