Hi,
Does anyone know of a website(s) where you can listen to music first before you decide which piece you would like to learn and therefore, eventually, buy? I figure there must be, for 2 reason. First, libraries tend to stock the music scores of only well-known pieces. Secondly, or otherwise, music teachers/conductors who seek to widen their kids' repertoire would be financially broke! I doubt my kid's teacher/conductor are internet-savy. Hence this query. Thanks in advance. Any advice appreciated!

Tess

Classic Cat has many classical pieces (public domain) as mp3. I use it quite a lot when I look for new music.

I don't know if this is what you mean but if you register for free on Classical Music Archives you can hear 5 mp3s for free a day and there are loads!! Hope it helps...

Try looking on www.everynote.com You can't listen to entire pieces, but you can preview the score for the first page of most of them.

One used to be able to do this at www.naxos.com for free; now one can still hear the first 20 or 30 seconds of each track on the website without paying. For about £20 a year though one can register to be able to hear the full length tracks (the quality is not brilliant but it's listenable to). That means one can listen to any track recorded by Naxos (as many times as one wants) for £20 a year: it's really quite good value, Naxos have pretty much recorded everything! If you want to see what the quality is like it's the same as that for the 20/30 second clips so just register for free and have a listen.

Those lucky enough to be at a subscribing educational establishment; or to have £20 a month to spend on it can have this service from www.naxosmusiclibrary.com which has the same music on but at a higher quality .

The following site allows you to listen free to the first 30 seconds (I think) of a piece.

http://audiolunchbox.com/

They seem to have a decent selection of classical piano at least.

There is also Amazon, usually has only samples of tracks on their CDs. The American one is better for this (amazon.com). I use this sometimes.

At my old university we had a subscription for Naxos online and it was brilliant.

Also you can get the first 30 seconds for free without subscription on the iTunes music store Or just do a search for "*title* mp3".

You USED to be able to listen to entire CDs for free on Naxos!

IrisH - LoonY

I signed up for Naxos a couple of months back - wonderful resource for those quiet winter evenings...
When I was paying, I had the option to pay 19.99 Euros or 19.99 USD. Cable being the better rate saved a bit on the cost...
I think you can listen to the first 25% of a track.
Mind you, it's a really cruddy website design. Over crowded, too many windows, and a bizarre login that seems to lead you to and fro between windows when you're trying to listen for the first time in a session.
For 12 quid though, can't complain...