Dear Composer or Copyright Owner,
s a composer or other copyright holder, please take time to carefully review the Creative Commons and licensing policies and guidelines.
For those uploading the first time, please remember choose the menu option "New Composition" when uploading your original works (even if they are scans of manuscripts or printouts), "New Arrangement" when uploading new arrangements, and "New Edition" when uploading new editions of public domain works. As it is normally assumed that composers and arrangers have edited their own work, please leave the "Editor" field empty unless another person has actually edited your work (in which case their name should be inserted). Note also that the English term "Editor" is not the equivalent of the French editeur or Italian editore. "Editor" refers to the person who reviewed and corrected the piece, while the French and Italian words are closer to the English word "publisher". In the "Publisher" field, please use your own full legal name, as making your scores and sound files available for free download on this site constitutes "publication" under the laws of most countries in the world. (Note that this is done automatically when using the standard upload tools).
You should be aware that Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 allows for the unrestricted copying, performance (live and broadcast) and recording of the work (including explicitly commercial use) at no charge, with no compensation or royalties payable to the composer or copyright owner for such commercial exploitation. Note also that the all of the acceptable licenses are considered to be IRREVOCABLE once a file has been uploaded with the lawful copyright owner's authorization.
You are free to change the license after upload to something more suitable. IMSLP as a matter of policy will list files under the most permissive licensing terms. Since licenses and public domain dedications are irrevocable, restrictions cannot be added later, but a more liberal license can be selected. Composers are also encouraged to make use of our new template {{NoPerf}}, which automatically places works into a new category - Unperformed Works. To add this template to your pages, simply copy and paste the little template above (curly brackets and all) into the "First Performance" field of the "General Information" section on all work pages.
Before you upload, remember these key points...
PS: For additional and more detailed explanation, please visit our Composer Portal page.
I shall be editing this section on an on and off basis.
I am a French citizen, born in France in 1939. My mother (1895-1957) was English, my father (1911-1993) French. My mother had been steeped in music, and so was I, through her. She had learnt the piano with Vally (or Valley) Lasker (1885-1978) who was associated with Gustav Holst as a friend, colleague and occasional amanuensis but I do not know under what circumstances and where, whether it was at her home (103 Talgarth Rd) or St Paul's Girls' School. She also had an appealing contralto voice. She had my brother and I take piano lessons at an early age, and the violin later on. My urge for music was initially made manifest by an inquisitiveness in "discovering" obscure composers (at the time) and little by little I collected a vast amount of musical material and contented myself with sight-reading. I also spent some time doing chamber music, as a pianist, violist or cellist depending on who was available. Quite soon however I broke away from merely playing music by others and almost exlusively devoted my spare time to composition, which I found far more rewarding than mere reproduction. My first attempts in that area were untutored, and all my attempts to learn theory were quashed by utter boredom in ploughing through manuals and books, so I am to be considered as self-taught, for better or worse. My first scores were penned traditionally, but the advent of the computer provided a tool that has proved vital for my development, a kind of rounding-off tool. Thus, I have decided to make all my scores accessible to the public at large; that way, I am under a constraint : to try and put finishing touches to all my stuff, of which there is much, to the point it will take some time, all the more so as my "inspiration" is still intact, which means I continue to write down music in an idiom that can be termed conservative modern.
Julian Besset : besset@gmail.com
