Hymn sheet music

[Jlmiller]

I’m looking for hard to find (for me at least) sheet music to old hymns. Is there a good website to find them? Seems like google isn’t much help. I love that I can find lyrics but I would like the sheet music to make sure that I’m singing it correctly. Thank you

[tab2010]

You can check “ https://hymnary.org/” there are photo copies of sheet music for songs in the public domain.

[Jlmiller]

Thank you

[steveliu]

Hi Jlmiller,

Thanks so much for your question—and sorry for taking over a month to get back to you!

As tab2010 mentioned, Hymnary is great. But for me, my two go-to sources are Archive.org and Google Books.

Here's an example of a search I do on Archive.org:

https://archive.org/search?query=hymnal&sort=-downloads

You'll get a few thousand results of books that contain the word "hymnal". There are some indices, commentaries, and text-only books, but there's also a delightfully rich selection of hymnals, including many historical ones from the turn of the last century. For example, you'll find the Free Methodist Hymnal from 1910, the Presbyterian Hymnal from 1874, and The Baptist Hymnal from 1883. Don't let the old dates fool you; by the late 1800s most of the beloved hymns we know of as "gospel hymns" were already written by familiar names such as William Kirkpatrick, Fanny Crosby, Albert B. Simpson, and others.

One of my favorite "finds" was The Broadman Hymnal, published in 1940 and edited by B.B. McKinney himself (who himself wrote hymns such as "Let Others See Jesus In You" and "Breathe on Me"). What I love about old hymnals like this is that the music is as authentic as it gets: sometimes modern hymnal publishers will change the music around so they can claim the copyright on the "new" version. But you can't beat the original versions, many of which are in the public domain.

If you look around Archive.org you can also find a couple of contemporary hymnals. Archive.org is a little more restrictive with these; you can still borrow them for free, but you need an account and there's no printing or downloading allowed.

Here's an example of a search I do on Google Books.

https://www.google.com/search?udm=36&q=hymnals

If you see a "Read" Icon it means that the work has fallen into the public domain. If not, Google will let you preview and search the title, but won't let you borrow it; it'll send you to a retailer to buy it or a library to look for it. If you just want to see public domain works you can use Advanced Search to filter on Full View Only.

I hope you find these helpful!

God bless,
Steve