Download Guitar Sheet Music

Nowadays, it is not difficult at all to download sheet music for guitar and other instruments.

Before I provide links and instructions on how to download everything from the internet, I need to share a few negative thoughts about these “great” websites:

It’s not ideal to download and play everything directly. You should definitely try to transcribe simple licks, chords, etc., by ear first instead of giving up immediately and looking at the sheet music.

Sheet music on the internet almost always contains mistakes or is incomplete. Either the rhythm is missing, a note in a solo is wrong, or entire sections are absent. Therefore, it is very important that you can identify these mistakes by ear.

I always “force” my students a little to do ear training and occasionally figure out something themselves.

Downloading Guitar Sheet Music

There are many different types of “sheet music.”

On one hand, there are traditional sheet music scores. It is indeed worth learning sheet music reading for this. For those not interested in learning to read music, there’s always the option of reading tabs instead.

On this website IMSLP, you can download tons of sheet music that no longer have legal owners.

For example, since Mozart has not been among us for quite some time, it doesn’t make much sense to pay him every time one of his works is played. Therefore, the sheet music is available for everyone, can be copied, modified, and of course performed.

I personally use this site “almost” daily to practice my sight-reading or to maintain it at a more or less decent level.

I pick something I like and play through it as best as I can (not at the original tempo, of course).

Downloading Guitar Chords

Since practicing alone isn’t much fun, you should also just play now and then! :P

Ideally, you’ll pick up the chords and rhythm by ear and play along. If you’re not quite there yet, you can always look at the chords for a song.

Let’s say we’re looking for the chords to “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.

The best way is to go to Ultimate Guitar. On this site, anyone can upload their version of the song, and everyone else can view the sheet music.

This is a great concept but comes with the risk of occasional errors.

We search for “Hallelujah” in the search bar and get tons of suggestions.

If you haven’t found the search bar or website or just want to compare if it looks the same for me, here’s my link.

Now you have a huge selection of the same sheet music/chords. On the right side of the sheet music, you’ll see the categories. For example, there are:

– Chords (chords, without rhythm notation),

– Tabs (tabs),

– Guitar Pro (interactive tabs)

and other offerings like “Pro” or “Official” (which are not necessarily more accurate than user-uploaded versions).

In this case, we are looking for the chords, so we click on a version classified under the “Chords” category on the right.

Personally, I always pay attention to the ratings and the number of reviews.

I chose Version 2 with 40,000 positive reviews (as of October 2020) and opened it.

An important thing here is to watch out for the capo.

In this case, the capo is on the first fret. To play along with the original song, the capo needs to be on the first fret. If you’re just playing solo without any background music, you can leave it off.

Also, pay attention to the artist. It’s possible that a cover of a song is played in a different key. In this case, you would need to adjust the capo accordingly.

Downloading Guitar Tabs

Another option is tabs.

The advantage of tabs compared to chords is that tabs are much more detailed. The people who transcribe tabs go further into detail and aim to play the song as accurately as possible.

Here too, it would be better if you could hear and replicate these details yourself. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right away — it takes some practice! 🙂

Downloading Guitar Pro

Downloading “Guitar Pro” is basically the same as downloading “tabs.”

Guitar Pro is the software I mainly use. I write all songs, solos, and rhythms for my students in Guitar Pro. The students can then play everything back exactly as it’s written, slow it down, and even modify it if necessary.

Let’s say we want to download the sheet music for “Spanish Romance” (Romance d’Amour) for guitar.

We type “Spanish Romance” into the search bar and look for “Guitar Pro” on the right side.

There’s also a selection of categories at the top where you can filter what you want to see.

After clicking on the song with the appropriate reviews, an integrated player appears that allows you to play the Guitar Pro file. However, it’s best to skip this player as it’s neither as high quality nor as comprehensive as Guitar Pro itself.

Scroll all the way to the bottom (until the player ends), and there you’ll find the download button for the Guitar Pro file (assuming you did everything right).

The Guitar Pro files have the following extensions: .gp, .gpx, .gp5.

Guitar Pro Alternatives

Guitar Pro is fantastic, but of course, it comes with a price.

For me, it has always been a worthwhile investment, even when I was 15 and not yet working professionally.

For those who don’t want to invest that money, there are alternatives.

Guitar Pro as an App

The app for iOS and Android costs around 5 euros.

It’s a bit more cumbersome to use — smaller screen, no keyboard and mouse, etc. — but it’s definitely worth it for occasional use.

Integrated Ultimate Guitar Player

I admit, I haven’t used this integrated player often. I looked at it occasionally but never really engaged with it. For professional use, a few functions are missing.

It’s also difficult to upload your own sheet music as they are forced to be online and accessible to everyone.

Soundslice

Soundslice is Guitar Pro in the browser. Here, you can privately upload your downloaded or self-written sheet music and view it on any browser (including smartphones).

It’s free, as long as you don’t want to share the music with friends.

What’s really great about Soundslice is the feature to embed songs. You can upload sheet music for a song and link it with a YouTube video. While viewing the sheet music, the “real” song plays in the background.

TuxGuitar

TuxGuitar is the open-source alternative to Guitar Pro.
As with many open-source projects, the design isn’t the most beautiful, but it is comprehensive and offers almost as much as Guitar Pro itself.