Musopen facts for kids
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The Musopen homepage as of 2019
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| Owner | Musopen.org |
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| Created by | Aaron Dunn |
| Commercial | Freemium |
| Launched | March 5, 2005 |
Musopen is a special non-profit group that shares public domain music. This means they offer music that anyone can use for free. They provide both sheet music (the written notes) and recordings of songs. Musopen is located in Tarzana, California, and was started by Aaron Dunn in 2005.
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What Musopen Does
Musopen's main goal is to make classical music available to everyone. They have a huge online library filled with recordings and sheet music that are in the public domain. This means the music is old enough that its copyright has expired, so it's free for anyone to use.
Musopen also works hard to create new recordings of classical music. They raise money to pay musicians to record famous pieces. Once these new recordings are made, Musopen releases them into the public domain too. This way, more and more great music becomes free for everyone.
Famous Music Projects
Musopen has completed some amazing projects to share music.
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas
In 2008, Musopen helped record all 32 of Ludwig van Beethoven's famous piano sonatas. These recordings were then made free for everyone to enjoy.
Big Music Fundraising
In 2010, Musopen used a website called Kickstarter to ask for donations. They wanted to record even more classical music. Their goal was to raise $11,000, but people were so excited that they donated over $68,000! That's more than six times their goal.
By 2012, all the music from this project was recorded and edited. The audio files were then uploaded to Musopen's website and another site called Archive.org. This made a huge collection of new, free classical music available.
Chopin's Complete Works
In 2013, Musopen started another Kickstarter fundraiser. This time, they wanted to record all the works by the famous composer Frédéric Chopin. They aimed for $75,000 and ended up raising over $90,000! All the recording and editing for Chopin's music was finished by April 2015.
How to Use Musopen's Library
Musopen uses a system called "freemium." This means some content is free, but you can pay for extra features.
Free Access
Anyone can download sheet music from Musopen for free. You can also listen to recordings right on their website using a special player. If you don't pay, you can download up to 5 music recordings each day.
Premium Access
If you want more, you can become a member. For about $55 a year, you get unlimited downloads of high-quality music files. These files are called "losslessly encoded," which means they sound just like the original recordings.
There's also a "benefactor" level for about $240 a year. These special members get unlimited downloads and can even ask Musopen to record specific pieces of music.
See also
In Spanish: Musopen para niños
- Open Goldberg Variations
