Maintaining old sheet music

April 18, 2015 at 01:26 PM · What I do with sheet music that is getting old and fragile (a bit like me) is to photocopy it onto good quality paper that can take penciled amendments and erasures.

The original is stored in an envelope in a drawer in a filing cabinet in the basement for historians to discover in a couple of centuries from now.

April 18, 2015 at 09:07 PM · Hi Ken,

I've previously worked in a music library (and will do so again soon) so I feel maybe my experience can help you out with your question.

Sadly, as Trevor said, there's not much you can do aside from make copies and use those instead. High use will lead to music falling apart no matter what you do. The other things that could help your music live longest (if you're interested in preservation) is storing them in a cool, dry place away from light. You could also mend some of the tears and other problems with specialized paper-tape made for mending books - this tape will hold much better than scotch tape and will not discolor the paper or get brittle and disgusting over time.

April 18, 2015 at 10:17 PM · The All-in-One printers that are practically given away for free when purchasing a new computer do an excellent job of digitizing manuscripts with their scan feature.

You can then save the scan as a PDF file so you can print a fresh copy whenever the previous copy gets tattered.

If the music is no longer under copyright, consider uploading the PDF to IMSLP.ORG.

I am still looking for a good PDF to MusicXML converter. This will let me convert my library of PDF music to a format that can be imported into a music notation program like MuseScore for playback and editing.

April 19, 2015 at 12:55 AM · Hi guys,

Thanks for all the enlightening responses so far. Actually, I realized after posting that I might have made the same post about 5 yrs ago? My memory really isn't the most reliable. But good ideas so far...

Cheers,

Ken