Christina
You write every now and then about sheet music. What do you have, where do you get it from, what do you recommend? Do you all sing from it, play it on the piano, or what? How often do you add to your collection?

Growing up in a musical family, it’s a given that I would have sheet music, piano books, etc. running out of my ears. We have everything from piano lesson books, violin lesson books, books of piano collections such as ragtime or classical, and sheet music of only one song. The bug to buy new sheet music bites at least once a week. We’ll hear a song and want to learn to play it on the piano or sing it.

I try to keep a wide variety of music in the house.
New Age:
Enya
Jon Shmidt
William Joseph
Secret Garden

Ragtime:
Ragtime Piano Solos
Library of Ragtime and Early Blues

Movie Soundtracks:
Jane Austen’s World: Evocative Music from the Classic Feature Films Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion – For Piano
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Harry Potter Musical Magic
Man from Snowy River

Classical Piano:
Library of Piano Classics: Piano Solo (Library of Series)
Library of Piano Classics 2 (Library of Series)

We get our music from a lot of different online stores. Our small town doesn’t really have a music store, which makes it hard to browse through music to see if it’s something we’d like or at the level that is right for my girls who are interested in playing it. I really like Sheet Music Plus because we can enlarge pages of music to see what skill level it is. Amazon is a great place to find some music. They don’t have a huge selection sometimes of the type of music we are looking for. When they do carry the music we want it’s usually at a good price. We also take advantage of free downloads from Jon Schmidt, Sally Deford, Lindy Kerby,  Craig Petrie, and lots of others.

**Updated**: I can’t believe I forgot Paul Cardall! (Thanks, Cheryl)  I play his CD Songs of Praise constantly while driving and love to sing along. His piano music is simply beautiful. Several of my favorites include Come Thou Fount, I Love to See the Temple, and Sweet Escape. I really enjoy all the songs he plays with Steven Sharp Nelson, a cellist, as well. As much as I love the piano because that’s what I play, I believe the cello is the instrument of heaven.

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