Sources
Credits and Licences
Where the text, scores, recordings and software on Music Theory Print come from, and the licence each one is used under.
Every page here is built from named, openly licensed sources. Nothing is written by an AI. This page lists them once; the page you came from also says which of them it uses.
Text and facts
| Source | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia and Simple English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Theory articles, composer and genre pages, and the background sections on the chart, chord library, key and instrument pages. Text is excerpted and may be lightly cleaned (markup and citations removed); each excerpt links to the original article and its authors. Excerpts stay under CC BY-SA 4.0. |
| Wiktionary | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Meanings, word origins and translations of musical terms. |
| Wikidata | CC0 1.0 | Dates, places, instruments and identifiers on composer pages; instrument facts. |
| A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Grove, 1900) | Public domain | Short historical notes on terms and instruments. |
| MusicBrainz (core data) | CC0 1.0 | Links from composer pages. |
| Published fingering and slide-position tables: Micah Everett (University of Mississippi), John Ericson (Horn Matters), galvanizedjazz.com | Not reused: facts only | Every cell of the trombone, horn and tuba and euphonium charts is computed by a program from the harmonic series and the length each valve or slide adds, then compared cell by cell with these tables and with Wikipedia. No text or images were copied from them. |
| Carol scores and texts: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), the Mutopia Project, Wikimedia Commons MIDI files, Wikipedia | Public domain (the 1920 hymnal, a US government publication); Wikisource transcriptions CC BY-SA 4.0; each MIDI file carries its own licence on Commons (PD, CC0 or CC BY 4.0, noted on the carol pages) | The melodies, harmonies and public-domain lyrics on the Christmas carol sheet music pages. Every melody was read from a machine-readable source by a program and compared note by note with at least one other independent version; the pages list where versions disagree. |
| Easy piano song scores: the Mutopia Project, Wikipedia (LilyPond examples in the song articles), Wikimedia Commons MIDI files and scores | Melodies are public domain. Source files: Mutopia public domain, except Moonlight Sonata (Stewart Holmes, CC BY-SA 2.5; the melody page is shared under the same licence) and Canon in D (Michael Fischer v. Mollard, CC BY 4.0); Wikipedia examples CC BY-SA 4.0; Commons files PD, CC0 or CC BY-SA 3.0, each noted on its page | The melodies on the easy piano songs pages. Each melody was read from a machine-readable score by a program and compared note by note with at least one independent version; differences are listed on the page. |
| Open Music Theory (Samuel Brady, “Chords in SATB style”) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | The written ranges of the four choral voices on the vocal range chart (figures only). The Yale University Library cataloguing page “Vocal Ranges” (quoting The New Harvard Dictionary of Music and Grove Music Online), classical-music.com and Radius Music are cited there for single figures or one sentence each; the page compares every source and says where they disagree. |
| chords-db – guitar and ukulele chord shapes (piano note lists used for cross-checking) | MIT, Copyright (c) 2016 David Rubert | The shapes on the chord library and on the guitar, ukulele and piano chord charts. Every shape is re-checked against the instrument’s tuning by the build program, and shapes that fail are dropped. The full licence text is on the chord library page. |
Scores and statistics
| Source | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder Corpus | CC0 1.0 | Counts, key and clef statistics and the example-song lists on the chart pages. Only metadata and computed numbers are shown, not the scores themselves. |
| Mutopia Project | Public domain, CC BY or CC BY-SA, piece by piece | Counts and statistics (keys, time signatures, instruments, tempo marks) on the "by the numbers" pages, and the melody excerpts on some easy piano song and carol pages (see the rows above). |
| MusicBrainz (core data: works, key field) | CC0 1.0 | How often each key appears in the key field of classical works, on "Most common keys in music". Counts only. |
| Open Opus | Public domain (as stated by the project) | Keys named in work titles on "Most common keys in music". Counts only. |
| AcousticBrainz | CC0 1.0 | Estimated keys of recorded music on "Most common keys in music". Aggregate figures only; the estimates are machine-made and are labelled as such. |
| RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (data export of source records, 1 October 2026) | CC BY 3.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported); credit: RISM. Images held by libraries are not covered. | Counts of clefs, key signatures, time signatures, first notes and first intervals on "How music begins". The notes of each incipit were decoded by a program written for this site; only aggregate counts and shares are published, plus four-note examples credited by RISM number. RISM does not endorse this analysis. Data exports. |
Chord and cadence figures on the "by the numbers" pages come from automatic harmonic analysis (AugmentedNet) supplied with the OpenScore Lieder corpus. They are machine-made, not hand-checked, and each page says so.
Museum images
The photographs of instruments on the instruments pages come from the open-access collections of the museums below (606 different photographs so far). They are shown reduced in size and otherwise unchanged. Every instrument page lists, photograph by photograph, the museum’s own credit line, the licence and a link to the museum’s record. Names, classification numbers and identifiers on those pages come from Wikidata and MusicBrainz (CC0); the explanatory text is excerpted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and, where shown, from Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (public domain).
Photographs that must be credited
These records are licensed CC BY (not CC0 or public domain), so each one is credited here and next to the photograph.
| Photograph | Credit | Licence | Source | Shown on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cornet | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | cornet |
| Organ | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | organ |
| Organ | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | organ |
| Fagott | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | bassoon |
| Cornet in B | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | cornet |
| Domestic organ | Estonian Theater and Music Museum / Estonian e-Repository and Conservation of Collections (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | organ |
| Cymbal | The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities / Swedish Open Cultural Heritage (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | cymbal |
| Cymbal | The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities / Swedish Open Cultural Heritage (via Europeana) | CC BY 4.0 | Record | cymbal |
Recordings
Spoken pronunciations on the Italian terms chart are recordings from Wikimedia Commons, used under the licence each file carries. Each one is listed here with its author, licence and source page.
| File | Author | Licence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian pronunciation of “a cappella” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-a cappella.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “abbandonatamente” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-abbandonatamente.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “adagio” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-adagio.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “affettuoso” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-affettuoso.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “allegretto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-allegretto.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “allegro” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown-allegro.wav) | Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “alto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-alto.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “appassionato” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-appassionato.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “arco” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Ciampix-arco.wav) | Ciampix (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “assai” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-assai.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “attacco” (LL-Q652 (ita)-DivoLetto-attacco.wav) | DivoLetto (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “basso” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-basso.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “batteria” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown-batteria.wav) | Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “canto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-canto.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “capriccio” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-capriccio.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “coda” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-coda.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “comodo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-DivoLetto-comodo.wav) | DivoLetto (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “concerto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-DiplomaticBadger-concerto.wav) | DiplomaticBadger (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “cornetto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-cornetto.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “da capo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-da capo.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “divertimento” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-divertimento.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “dolce” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-dolce.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “doloroso” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-doloroso.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “fermata” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-fermata.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “fine” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-fine.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “fuga” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-fuga.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “giusto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-giusto.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “largo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-largo.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “leggero” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown-leggero.wav) | Crunchy Cloaky Crackdown (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “meno” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-meno.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “mosso” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-mosso.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “motivo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-DivoLetto-motivo.wav) | DivoLetto (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “niente” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-niente.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “opera” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-opera.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “ossia” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-ossia.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “pausa” (LL-Q652 (ita)-DivoLetto-pausa.wav) | DivoLetto (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “pesante” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-pesante.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “piano” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-piano.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “presto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-presto.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “ritmo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-ritmo.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “scherzo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-scherzo.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “semplice” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-semplice.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “sempre” (LL-Q652 (ita)-XANA000-sempre.wav) | XANA000 (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “solo” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-solo.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “stretto” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-stretto.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “subito” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-subito.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “tutti” (LL-Q652 (ita)-LangPao-tutti.wav) | LangPao (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
| Italian pronunciation of “vivace” (LL-Q652 (ita)-Happypheasant-vivace.wav) | Happypheasant (speaker and recorder, via Lingua Libre) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Commons |
The sounds you hear when you press a play button on most staff charts are generated in your browser. They are not recordings. The two exceptions are listed below.
| Recordings | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| TinySOL: an audio dataset of isolated musical notes – Carmine Emanuele Cella, Daniele Ghisi, Vincent Lostanlen, Fabien Lévy, Joshua Fineberg, Yan Maresz (IRCAM, 2020) | CC BY 4.0 | The single notes you hear on the violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, alto saxophone and accordion pages. Each note was cut from the original recording (ordinary playing technique, mostly mezzo-forte), trimmed to at most 2.5 seconds, levelled in loudness, faded out and converted to a small mono MP3. IRCAM and the authors do not endorse this site. |
| Kimiko Ishizaka – Open Goldberg Variations (2012), Open Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (2015), The Art of Fugue (2016) | CC0 1.0 (checked file by file on Wikimedia Commons) | The recordings on the Bach pages and the “Bach’s prelude in this key” box on each key page. Re-encoded as small mono MP3 files; for The Art of Fugue only the first 60 seconds of each piece. Time signatures and voice counts were read from the CC0 scores of the same projects. |
Software and fonts
| Component | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| VexFlow | MIT | Drawing the staves. |
| SMuFL glyph names (W3C Music Notation Community Group) | W3C Community Contributor License Agreement | Mapping symbol names to the Bravura glyphs on the music symbols chart. |
| Bravura and Academico (via VexFlow) | SIL Open Font Licence 1.1 | Music notation symbols and text on the staves. The staff paper generator draws its clefs and braces from Bravura glyph outlines (© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH), so downloaded SVG pages do not need the font installed. |
| pitchy 4.1 (Ian Johnson), with fft.js 4.0 (Fedor Indutny) | MIT | Pitch detection in the guitar, ukulele, bass, violin and chromatic tuners. Microphone audio is analysed on your device and never uploaded. |
| tonal 4.10 | MIT | Music-theory calculations in the tools (chord names, scales, transposition) and independent cross-checks of every worksheet answer. |
| Cormorant Garamond, Source Sans 3 | SIL Open Font Licence 1.1 | Page typography. |
| Hugo and the hugo-book theme | Apache 2.0, MIT | Building the site. |
If you believe something here is credited wrongly or should not be used, please tell us and we will fix it.