Submission Guidelines
We accept submissions of original music or original arrangements of common domain music. We do not accept straight transcriptions of existing music; for instance, we would not accept "Lágrima" by F. Tárrega, but would accept "Lágrima" arranged for, say, two guitars or guitar and flute. We are focused on music for beginning guitar and guitar ensemble, especially music that can be used in teaching situations.
Preference is given to scores that are in digital format, Sibelius being our format of choice. We can convert files that are in other formats (i.e. Finale), and may accept, at our discretion, files in formats other than Sibelius. All associate composers must designate at least one score to be viewed and printed in full from the web site free of charge. Since visitors can print the first page of every score for free, all one page scores would essentially be available (with a watermark) for free. (An option is to 'bundle' several related scores together in a collection.)
Revenue Share
You can offer scores for free or for sale (see Appendix A, below, for our suggested pricing structure) - we pay you 50% of the net sale price of your scores (i.e. the sale price less PayPal payment processing fees, about 5% on average). What's more, it's free to publish your music on Music4ClassicalGuitar.com, and, since the agreement is non exclusive, you are free to also publish your music elsewhere!
Download a copy of our Distribution Agreement.
Download a copy of our Payment Schedule and Pricing Structure.
How do I start?
To publish a score on this site, simply contact us by email and tell us a little bit about yourself and your scores (i.e., instrumentation, difficulty, digital format - feel free to attach a file if you wish), and we'll go from there. If we decide to host your music on our site, we will execute a distribution agreement with you. (You can download a copy here.)
Remember, you can only submit music for which you own the copyright and which fulfils some basic submission criteria as outlined above. Please note that we do not accept all scores submitted.
What are the copyright restrictions on scores I can submit?
We only accept:
Scores composed entirely by you.
Out-of-copyright ('common domain') music arranged by you.
In addition, any lyrics in your score must be written by you, be out of copyright, or else you must have permission from the copyright holder. You are responsible for ensuring that you are the sole copyright owner in scores you submit (or have permission to use copyright lyrics) and you will be held liable in the event of breach of copyright.
View a more detailed explanation of copyright.
Proof-read your score!
Please check your score to ensure that it conforms to common practice notational conventions, especially those for classical guitar, and that good compositional craftsmanship is utilized with regard to voice leading, etc.
View our engraving and proofreading guidelines.