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As easy as this task may sound, a few prominent points should be mentioned. Piano sheet music is readily available today from a myriad of sources on the Internet. Go to www.Google.com and type in "piano sheet music online" or "piano sheet music" or "virtual sheet music" and lastly by "(artist name) sheetmusic". You will find countless sites that offer immediate access to sheet music online or available to be sent to a physical address. Regarding "old fashioned mail order", Amazon.com has an amazing selection of sheet music by artist as well as instructional music folders and music books so make sure to investigate what they have to offer. The most popular site for online sheet music is probably www.sheetmusicplus.com. Many classical piano pieces that have reached public domain status can often be downloaded for free such as porfolios of Chopin's works or Beethtoven pieces, etc.
Contemporary artist books and sheet music to a single song tend to disappear after a short shelf life existance and then it becomes a trial sometimes to find your selection. Suggestions for obtaining out of print music would be to check out ebay.com and see if your item is currently available there in new or used form. As with most ebay items, availability can change by minute, hour, or day so don't give up if your item is not seen on your first try. There are a number of retail music stores that also specialize in hard to find music so "Google" "out of print sheet music" (or "hard-to-find music") and contact those particular stores.
"Virtual sheet music"sites enable you to gain immediate access to a single song and then print out the piano sheet music right from your computer download of that song. The fees are usual comparable to what a retail store would charge, say $3.95-$6.95. Again, just "Google" "virtual sheet music" or "download sheet music" to find a good site for this. The nice thing about this feature is that 1) songs only available in song books or 2)hard to find songs or out of print songs, will now be accessible at your fingertips by the push of a few buttons!
Last but not least, if a song appears to be impossible to find, what I've done is to search out the lyrics online and then search for the "tab or guitar tabs" or "piano tabs"for that song and then put the two together to create a "lead sheet". Often the "tabs" to a song list both melody and chords. Now with this method, you will have to transcribe the melody line on your own which is pretty easy to do- just whistle or hum the tune as you sit down at the piano. Sites that say "guitar tabs" that include guitar tablature are mostly where you'll be finding your song tabs but sometimes you'll see a site that says "piano tabs". What you are really doing as a pianist though is jotting down the chords and where they are placed with the lyric. Just ignore the guitar tablature. Your big limitation though of course, is that many of the tab listings for a song are created by "well intentioned, though inexperienced" amateur players. In this regard, you'll need to look at the chords as "a possiblity" and you may have to change one or many chords for the song to sound "correct". The other issue is make sure your "viral control" software is working as these sites tend to be vulnerable to those.
Concerning "piano or artist song books", very often a song is not available as a single sheet but is can only be found within a song book with many songs all by a certain artist or composer or perhaps a book with songs by multiple artists. The other scenario you will see is theme music books such as "Movie Classic Songs" or "Songs of the 90's" or "Best Loved Broadway show tunes", anything along those lines.
To discover the "pro way" to play piano songs without having to read note-for-note sheet music arrangements, be sure to visit http://www.instantpropiano.com
David Seagal is a New York City based pianist and teacher. A musician for over 25 years, he is a piano teacher, songwriter pianist and is the author of "Play Piano Like a Pro" video course. His formative music education was orchestral training on clarinet with Naomi Drucker, Hostra University and the late-great world-renowned Leon Russianoff, Professor of Music Julliard School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Pop and rock piano and songwriting studies with Frank Doyle, New England Conservatory of Music and "Moogy" Mark Klingman, author of the Bette Midler hit "Friends" and former pianist for Todd Rundgren's "Utopia". Classical piano studies with concert pianist Dmitri Alexev.
His piano course is available at http://www.instantpropiano.com
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