If you’ve ever sung in a choir or played for an orchestra, you probably have at least a faint idea of how much sheet music can cost. Between purchasing the actual music and producing enough copies for the entire group, you can run up a decent sized bill – and that’s just for one song.

Luckily, there are places where you can get sheet music for free online. With sites such as the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) and the Choral Public Domain Library, you can get free music and oftentimes avoid restrictions on photocopying.

What is the difference to your pocketbook? Take a choir of 50 who intend to sing Pablo Casals’ still-under-copyright piece O Vos Omnes. To buy enough copies of the choral arrangement could cost around $150.

If, instead, the choir chose to sing Schubert’s Magnificat D 483, the cost of sheet music would drop to the cost of photocopying, since it is free at CPDL.org.

To read more about these free sites and to get some public domain sheet music for yourself or your group, head over to WalletPop’s Free Sheet Music for Choirs and Orchestras via the Internet.