Project Sousa is to music what Project
Gutenberg is to the written word.
There is a veritable wealth of music out there
that has passed into the Public Domain. Silver Clef Music is
pleased to be one of the main repositories for Project Sousa
works.
The project was initially started as a means
to share Band Music in the public domain, but we now accept
music for all types of instrumental and vocal solos and
ensembles.
Click on the link above to browse the music we
have available for download from Project Sousa. All of our
listings are available for FREE download. We do, however, ask
you contribute to our "Tip Jar" above, to help defray
the expenses of operating this website. (Note: Right
now our "tip jar" is simply PayPal. Send donations to
PayPal ID donations@ProjectSousa.com.)
We welcome all submissions for music for
Project Sousa. Because of copyright issues, we must be extremely
meticulous in ensuring that all copyright concerns are
settled. Please click here to view
or download our Project Sousa Submission Guidelines
document.
What We Are Looking For: Any music that
is in the public domain, and can be identified with certainty as
being so. We prefer "good music," but we also
understand that what constitutes "good music" is
frequently in the ear of the hearer. So if you can send us
something that fits our guidelines, we'll
be happy to consider posting it. (Note: We are testing
various formats for our documents. Click
here to see an alternative document presentation, and please
let us know which you like better - the one with the text on the
white or the yellow. Thanks!)
There are two main sources for public domain
music: music whose copyright has expired, and music that could
still be in copyright, but whose copyright owner has donated it
to the public domain.
Why would someone want to donate their
music to the public domain?
First, it could be altruism or a love of
music. This is the reason that most of the contributors to
Project Sousa put in the hours of labor that they do. This is
the reason the heirs of the John Philip Sousa estate placed his
very last march, The Library of Congress March, into the
public domain.
By the way, there's a fascinating story behind
Sousa's final march. Read about it on the Library of Congress
website here:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200000027/default.html
But another reason someone might place their
work into the public domain is that they love writing music, and
they just want to get some of it out there and available,
possibly so people will have a no-risk way of seeing how good
they really are, and then want to purchase more of their work.
Regardless of your reason, Project Sousa is
the place to post any music you have in the public domain.
We look forward to serving you with good
public domain music.
