The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...
archive which focuses on
choral
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
and vocal
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
or otherwise freely available for printing and performing (such as via permission from the copyright holder).
It is a
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
, tax-deductible organization, whose contents are published under a specific copyright license, and editing articles can be allowed only for registered contributors.
Overview
The site CPDL.org was launched in December 1998 by Rafael Ornes. In 2005 CPDL was
ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
, or converted, to
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
format, and is known as ChoralWiki.
[Main Page]
''www3.cpdl.org'', accessed 6 November 2021 In July 2008, Ornes stepped back from the site administration and turned the operational responsibilities to a group of the site administrators. A transition committee was formed which subsequently incorporated CPDL as a non-profit under California state law and now operates CPDL.
[
In addition to making sheet music scores available, the wiki format supports additional features including:
*original texts, their sources and translations;
*cross-indexing of choral music using criteria including musical genre, period, and number and voicing of choral parts;
*composer information;
*description and performance considerations can be included for works;
*contents of collections of choral music;
*community discussion such as through "Talk" pages related to composers or specific works.
*advertising ]web banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linkin ...
for link exchange and for crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...
via credit card or PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
.
Music is available for free download
In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...
in a variety of formats, including score images in PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
, PS and TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...
format, sound files in MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
and MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
formats, and in the notation formats supported by various notation programs, including Finale, Sibelius
Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...
, NoteWorthy Composer
NoteWorthy Composer (NWC) is a proprietary scorewriter application made by NoteWorthy Software. It is a graphical score editor for Microsoft Windows computers (from Windows 95 to Windows 10), and also works on PCs under Linux with Wine. Versio ...
, Encore
An encore is an additional performance given by performers after the planned show has ended, usually in response to extended applause from the audience.Lalange Cochrane, in ''Oxford Companion to Music'', Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Pres ...
, and the open source GNU LilyPond
LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.
LilyPond is cross-pla ...
. Most scores on CPDL are distributed under an open-source license
An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...
. As of 1 December 2017, CPDL archives over 27,800 scores by more than 2,900 composers, contributed by over 1,200 editors and contributors. It includes large numbers of scores from the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
and Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
eras, including nearly complete vocal works by William Byrd
William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...
and Tomás Luis de Victoria
Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes Italianised as ''da Vittoria''; ) was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Ren ...
in excellent editions.
CPDL is suggested as a resource by departmental or faculty websites at Kent State University
Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in As ...
, Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...
, the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
, the University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...
, the Internet Public Library of the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, the University at Albany, The State University of New York, by the UCLA Music Library, by the libraries at the Universities of Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
and by inclusion by faculty members in syllabi for courses at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh
The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (UW Oshkosh or UW Osh) is a public university in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System and offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs to nearly 14,000 students ea ...
. It is recommended by the Iowa and Massachusetts chapters of the American Choral Directors Association
The American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is a non-profit organization with the stated purpose of promoting excellence in the field of choral music. Its membership comprises approximately 22,000 c ...
, and is included in the resource database of Intute, an association of Institutions in the UK.
Jason Sickel has described the CPDL as a Gold Mine for Choral Directors. [Sickel, Jason (2015) “CPDL (Choral Public Domain Library)— A Gold Mine for Choral Directors.” ''The Choral Journal'' 56, no. 5: 59–63. ]
License terms
Contents are published under a specific copyright license, if not otherwise specified and based on the GNU GPL license.
License is based on the principle that if users distribute copies of a musical work under the CPDL license, whether gratis or for a fee, they must give the recipients all the rights that they already have. Any modified Edition must be caused with the related date and any distributed copy must refer the copyright notice, whether gratis, or for a fee.
In that way, the same right of asking a fee may also be applied by the copyright holder, possibly with an exception for works listed in the U.S. public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
. As a copyright license, evenf if derived by GNU GPL, the license terms can be radically modified anytime, while they don't provide the universal and fundamental rights into a specific and permanent section of the license terms, that can be modified only under a vry large agreement of the community, or not be modifiable at all.
From a more operative point of view, it underlines and implies that all the source code in any article can be viewed by anyone, copied, reproduced on different Wiki engines or long-time preserved on specific websites like the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
or archive.is
archive.today (or archive.is) is a web archiving site, founded in 2012, that saves snapshots on demand, and has support for JavaScript-heavy sites such as Google Maps and progressive web apps such as Twitter. archive.today records two sn ...
.
See also
* List of online music databases
Below is a table of online music databases that are largely free of charge. Note that many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular music genre. Some of these operate as an online music store or purchase referral serv ...
* Public domain resources
* Werner Icking Music Archive
The Werner Icking Music Archive (often abbreviated WIMA) is a web archive of liberally licensed sheet music of public domain music. The scores are electronically typeset by volunteers and distributed in PDF, often accompanied by their typesetting ...
* Mutopia Project
The Mutopia Project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books. It started in 2000.Portal page at thInternet ArchiveRetrieved January 24, 20 ...
* Kantoreiarchiv
* International Music Score Library Project
The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki software ...
(IMSLP)
References
External links
* {{Official website
American music websites
Choral music
Discipline-oriented digital libraries
Internet properties established in 1998
MediaWiki websites
Music libraries
Online music and lyrics databases
Public domain music
Charities based in California