The library
The library
7 works, 12 warm-ups, 8 rhythm games, and 8 composition scaffolds to read, print, and use — free. Jump to a shelf or scroll the whole library. Everything here is free to perform with no royalty and no per-performance fee.
Solo and piano
Waltz of the Flowers (theme)
Solo and piano · easy to medium (grades 1-3) · 1 min · two-staff keyboard: melody (treble, any C instrument or recorder) + oom-pah-pah waltz bass
The cantabile horn theme of Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers (Nutcracker, 1892), engraved as a clean two-staff keyboard edition in D major: the singing melody over an oom-pah-pah waltz bass. Instrumental, no lyrics set.
Open the score →The Irish Washerwoman
Solo and piano · easy to medium (grades 1-3) · 1 min · two-staff piano/keyboard: treble melody + simple bass (playable as melody instrument + bass, or piano)
'The Irish Washerwoman' -- the classic Irish traditional jig in G major, 6/8, engraved as a two-staff classroom edition. Instrumental, no lyrics.
Open the score →The Easy Winners
Solo and piano · medium (grade 3, intermediate) · 1 min · piano / 2-staff (treble melody + stride bass); playable as melody instrument + bass
'The Easy Winners' (Scott Joplin, 1901) -- the bright A strain of Joplin's ragtime two-step, engraved as a two-staff classroom edition in C major. Instrumental, no lyrics.
Open the score →Solace (A Mexican Serenade) -- main theme
Solo and piano · medium (grade 3, intermediate) · 1 min · two staves -- melody (treble, any C instrument or piano right hand) + habanera bass (piano left hand or bass instrument)
'Solace (A Mexican Serenade)' -- the main theme of Scott Joplin's 1909 habanera-flavored rag, engraved as a two-staff classroom edition in C major. Instrumental, no lyrics.
Open the score →The Washington Post
Solo and piano · medium (grade 3, intermediate) · 1 min · 2-staff piano (or melody instrument + bass instrument): treble melody plus a plain root-motion march bass
'The Washington Post' (Sousa, 1889) -- the main strain of Sousa's celebrated march, engraved as a two-staff classroom edition in G major, 6/8. Instrumental, no lyrics.
Open the score →Prelude in C
Solo and piano · medium (grade 3, intermediate) · 1 min · piano (keyboard), 2 staves -- right-hand arpeggios over a left-hand bass
'Prelude in C' (J.S. Bach, BWV 846, 1722) -- the iconic opening prelude of The Well-Tempered Clavier, engraved as a two-staff classroom edition in C major. Instrumental, no lyrics.
Open the score →Rehearsal
Warm-ups
Original warm-up routines for choir, band, and orchestra — scales, arpeggios, intervals, long tones, breathing, and rhythm patterns, written out in plain language. Generic public-domain technique, in our own words. Free, like everything here.
Major Scales Around the Keys
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 3-12 · 5 to 10 min
A plain routine for running major scales in every key -- one octave, up and down, moving key by key around the circle of fifths. For any instrument or voice, at any tempo your ensemble can play cleanly.
Open the warm-up →Minor Scales: Natural, Harmonic, Melodic
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 5-12 · 5 to 10 min
The three forms of the minor scale, side by side, so the raised sixth and seventh are heard clearly against the natural form. One octave, up and down, moving key by key. For any instrument or voice.
Open the warm-up →The Chromatic Scale
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 4-12 · 3 to 7 min
Every half step in order, slowly and evenly, to build finger and ear accuracy across the full range. A steady-tempo climb and descent that exposes tuning and evenness with nowhere to hide.
Open the warm-up →Arpeggios and Broken Chords
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 4-12 · 4 to 9 min
Outline the chord one note at a time: root, third, fifth, octave, and back. Major and minor, key by key -- the fastest way to make a scale routine hear harmony instead of just steps.
Open the warm-up →Interval Warm-up
Warm-up · Choir · Grades 4-12 · 5 to 10 min
Hear and match the distance between two notes -- seconds out to the octave -- one interval at a time, both up and down. Sing it or play it; the point is to fix the SOUND of each interval in the ear.
Open the warm-up →Sight-Singing with Solfege
Warm-up · Choir · Grades 4-12 · 5 to 10 min
A short daily routine for reading a line at sight using movable-do solfege (do, re, mi ...). Establish the key, sing the scale, then read a few notes cold. Builds the reading habit five minutes at a time.
Open the warm-up →Long Tones and Breath Support
Warm-up · Concert band · Grades 5-12 · 4 to 8 min
Sustained pitches, held full and steady from the start of the breath to the end, to build tone, support, and control. Described generically for winds, brass, and voice -- pick a comfortable pitch and hold.
Open the warm-up →Rhythm Clapping and Subdivision
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 1-8 · 3 to 7 min
Clap, count, and subdivide the beat -- quarters, eighths, then sixteenths -- against a steady pulse, so the inner clock stays even when the notes get faster. No instruments needed; every student plays.
Open the warm-up →Call-and-Response Echoes
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades K-6 · 3 to 7 min
The leader sings or plays a short pattern; the group echoes it back exactly. Start with rhythm, then add pitch. A first ear-training and ensemble-listening game that needs no notation at all.
Open the warm-up →Pentatonic Patterns
Warm-up · Classroom · Grades 2-9 · 4 to 9 min
Warm up on the five-note pentatonic set, where every note agrees with every other. Improvise a short answer to the leader's call and no one can play a wrong note -- confidence first, theory later.
Open the warm-up →Five-Note Singing Patterns
Warm-up · Choir · Grades 3-12 · 4 to 9 min
Stepwise patterns on the first five notes of the scale (do-re-mi-fa-sol and back), moved up and down by half steps to open the range. A gentle vocal warm-up that also trains steady, in-tune stepwise motion.
Open the warm-up →Tuning and Unison Matching
Warm-up · Orchestra · Grades 4-12 · 3 to 6 min
The whole ensemble tunes to one sustained reference pitch and listens the beats away until the sound locks into a single unison. The daily habit that makes everything played afterward sound in tune.
Open the warm-up →Classroom
Rhythm games
Original classroom rhythm games — notation races, subdivision challenges, listening games, and call-and-response — each one playable tomorrow with nothing but voices, hands, and a board. Free, like everything here.
Name That Rhythm Relay
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 3-8 · 10 to 15 min
Two teams race to read a four-beat rhythm pattern off the board and clap it back correctly first. A fast, competitive way to drill note-value reading without an instrument in sight.
Open the rhythm game →The Subdivision Ladder
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 4-9 · 8 to 12 min
The whole class climbs a ladder of subdivisions -- quarters, eighths, sixteenths, triplets -- and any clap that drifts off the shared pulse sends that row back down a step. A group-accuracy game, not an elimination.
Open the rhythm game →Rhythm Telephone
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 3-8 · 8 to 12 min
A four-beat pattern is clapped student to student down a line, ear to ear, with no talking. The last student writes what they heard on the board in rhythmic notation, and the class checks it against the original. Listening meets notation.
Open the rhythm game →Silent Beat
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 2-8 · 5 to 8 min
Clap a steady pattern with the leader -- except on the beats the leader silently marks as rests, where the whole class must NOT clap. A game built entirely around reading and feeling the rest, the half of rhythm most students never practice.
Open the rhythm game →Beat Detective
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 3-9 · 7 to 10 min
The leader claps a four-beat pattern twice -- but the second time, one note is deliberately changed. The class has to find exactly which beat moved. A listening-accuracy game that trains the ear to catch small rhythmic errors, the same skill that catches mistakes in real rehearsal.
Open the rhythm game →The Groove Train
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 3-9 · 10 to 15 min
One small group starts a simple two-measure body-percussion pattern and keeps it looping. Each round, another group boards the train with a NEW pattern that fits underneath the ones already running, until the whole class is playing a layered groove together -- and nobody may ever drop their part.
Open the rhythm game →Echo Tag
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades K-6 · 5 to 10 min
The caller claps a short pattern; the group echoes it back. Whoever the caller points to next becomes the new caller and must invent a fresh pattern on the spot -- so the game moves around the room and everyone gets a turn leading, not just following.
Open the rhythm game →The Rhythm Menu
Rhythm game · Classroom · Grades 3-8 · 8 to 12 min
The class learns four short, one-beat rhythm cells by rote and gives each one a letter -- A, B, C, D. Then, one at a time, a student calls out any order of the four letters from memory, and the whole class claps the resulting phrase together. A combinatorics game hiding inside a rhythm drill.
Open the rhythm game →Classroom
Composition scaffolds
Original structured composition prompts — song forms, constrained pitch sets, and rhythmic frameworks — that walk a student from a blank page to a finished short piece. Free, like everything here.
Pentatonic Postcard
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 3-8 · 20 to 30 min
An eight-measure AABA piece built entirely on the five-note pentatonic set, where no combination of notes can sound wrong. The gentlest possible on-ramp from blank staff paper to a finished, performable melody.
Open the composition scaffold →Rhythm First
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 4-9 · 20 to 30 min
Compose the RHYTHM of an eight-beat phrase before a single pitch exists, then lay a five-note scale on top of the rhythm you already wrote. Separates two hard jobs so neither one has to be solved at the same time as the other.
Open the composition scaffold →Question and Answer
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 4-12 · 15 to 25 min
Write two four-measure phrases that talk to each other: the first ends on a note that sounds unfinished (the question), and the second answers it by landing squarely on the home note (the answer). The building block nearly every melody in every genre is made of.
Open the composition scaffold →Ostinato Plus One
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 4-9 · 20 to 30 min
Write a short, repeating two-measure pattern first -- the ostinato, the piece's steady foundation -- and loop it four times. Then compose one simple melodic line on top of it, using only notes that agree with the pattern underneath. A layered, two-part piece from a one-line start.
Open the composition scaffold →Same Bones, New Skin
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 5-12 · 25 to 35 min
Write one plain four-measure theme, then write it again -- changed. Same notes and same shape underneath, but different rhythm, register, or ornamentation on top. Teaches the oldest trick in composition: you do not need a new idea, you need a new angle on the one you already have.
Open the composition scaffold →Rondo in Miniature
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 5-12 · 25 to 40 min
Build a five-section ABACA piece out of just three short musical ideas: a home theme (A) that returns twice, and two contrasting episodes (B and C) that visit somewhere else. A complete, structured form, built from three small pieces instead of one long one.
Open the composition scaffold →Wordless Words
Composition scaffold · Choir · Grades 4-10 · 20 to 30 min
Write your own three-line haiku first -- five syllables, seven, five -- then set your own words to a simple melody, one note per syllable. A first, low-stakes bridge into vocal composition and text-setting that uses nobody's words but the student's own.
Open the composition scaffold →Twelve-Bar Blues Starter
Composition scaffold · Classroom · Grades 6-12 · 25 to 40 min
Fill in the classic twelve-bar chord-and-phrase framework -- three four-measure lines, the first two matching, the third answering -- with your own melodic ideas over the given harmonic outline. Learn the most-used song form in American music from the inside, by building one.
Open the composition scaffold →Browse by
The facets a director filters by
The library is organized the way a music director actually searches: by ensemble, by voicing for choral works, and by difficulty. Every work also carries an approximate performance time and, where stated, its instrumentation. Here is the full range the library browses by.
- Ensemble: Choir, Concert band, Orchestra, String orchestra, Chamber ensembles, Jazz ensemble, Handbells, Classroom, Solo and piano.
- Choral voicing: Unison, 2-part, 3-part mixed, SA, SSA, SAB, SATB, TB, TTBB.
- Difficulty: Grade 0.5, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, plus easy / medium / advanced for choral music.