When I was in Worcestershire this weekend, I found a fantastic bookshop which sold secondhand sheet music. If you're in the area and get chance to go, I can thoroughly recommend it:

The Malvern Bookshop
7 Abbey Road, Malvern, WR14 3ES, tel 01684 575915, Open Mon-Sat 10-5, closed Thur/Sun

They've got loads of secondhand sheet music and good prices too - I got Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, transposed for Bb clarinet and with piano part, for £1.50

The owner said he got supplied by someone called Austin Sherlaw-Johnson, who has an outlet in an antique shop called:

Antiques on High
85 High Street, Oxford, tel 01865 251075, Open Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5

I haven't been to the Oxford shop but apparently they have a whole area devoted to secondhand sheet music.


Austin Sherlaw-Johnson also has a web site - www.austinsj.co.uk - on which there are catalogues of music. The catalogues aren't up to date unfortunately (they only go up to Cat 16 and I've got a hard copy of Cat 19) and they're not searchable, but they give an idea of the scale of music available and the prices.



ANY OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GOOD SHOPS FOR SECONDHAND SHEET MUSIC, ANYONE???


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Places recommended in this thread (up to Post No 31)

Arundel
Cromford Meadows (Derbyshire)
Eastbourne
Eccleston (Lancs)
Frodsham, Cheshire
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Guildford
Harrogate
Hay on Wye
Keswick (Lake District)
Knowle (nr Solihull, West Midlands
Leeds
Longfield (Kent)
London - Leicester Square (Travis & Emery, Cecil Court), Edgeware Road
Malvern
Oxford
Reading
Uppingham (Leicestershire)

For address and/or further information, enter the name of the town in "Search Topic" at the foot of the page


Web sites:
www.oxfam.org.uk/shop

Carlton Antiques

Oooh, didn't know about that shop in Malvern... not far away!

I don't have any specific recommendations, but two general ones: eBay, and charity/2nd hand shops in general. Actually the last time I bought 2nd hand music in a real shop (as opposed to eBay) was in Malvern!

For Londoners there's:

Travis & Emery, in Cecil Court, just around the corner from Leicester Square tube station. They also offer mail order and list some of their stock on the Abebooks website.

There's also Bell Music Shop in (ironically!) Bell Street, near Edgeware Road tube station.

That reminds me - the Oxfam shop in Keswick in the Lake District had a fair bit of sheet music, enough to keep me occupied for about an hour anyway when I was there in May

Yes you did know about it Sarah.....I recommended it here about a year ago and you got all excited then as well

Sadly (but happily for my bank balance!) I don't go to Malvern most weekends any more so my sheet music collection is not growing at the moment.

The Oxfam bookshop in Malvern occaisionally has some little gems amongst the sheet music - I got a couple of recorder quartets there for 25p each!

For second-hand music and music books - a great place is Hay-On Wye where the big puzzle shop is. Can't remember the name but an eagle eyed musician would soon locate it!

I also like Arundel and a stacked book shop in the old High St in Eastbourne which literally has music, old programmes and all-sorts stacked floor to ceiling. How they manage to keep a stock-take or do any dusting I'll never know.

This is the secondhand shop I go to every time I go to Hay (about every couple of months). I've had some fantastic bargains there. It's a bit further down the road from the puzzle shop.

Hah - oh dear, says it all. Please remind me about it at regular intervals...

(Is one allowed senior moments (or senior years...) at 28?)

The Malvern shop is great - went there last Saturday and managed to spend some money! I've also found some in the Oxfam shop in Malvern. The Guildford Oxfam bookshop has a small amount of music - mostly woodwind when I have visited, but I suppose it depends what people clear out.

Yes - I can picture it now - it's on the same side of the road. I found some old Tobias Matthay volumes in there - very interesting! I will definitely go in again if I am in Hay

A place in the north which is good for sheet music is Bygone Times in Eccleston, Lancs. Not so much a shop, more an experience It's an old mill, split into loads of separate "shops" and one of them sells sheet music. No nicely classified categories like at Malvern, just all stuffed on to shelves in no order whatsoever. But if you like adventure , there's some good finds to be had.

Reading has an Oxfam music shop, about half CDs and records and about half sheet music.

Would your pocket stand a trip to Malvern in the near future, Sarah? - I've never been to that shop!

Oooh I should think so

If you're going, it would be worthwhile ringing them first to find out when the best time to go is. I think he said he gets his new stock in the first week in the month, but it's worth checking. I remember him saying that as soon as he gets his new stock in, everyone "in the know" descends like vultures and cherry-picks so it's worth going at the right time. Although to be fair, it was the third week in the month when I went and they had masses of stuff then.

The owner is interested in learning piano but he says he hasn't got time at the moment - I'll leave him in your capable hands Sarah

If you go soon, do tell him that you were reminded of his shop through this forum and remember me to him - I told him I'd be putting a mention of it on here

Anyone got any recommendations for shops in the East Midlands area? I love a bargain (love sheet music even more!)

Another shop you might like to visit in Malvern is right at the other end of town to the bookshop. It's called Carlton Antiques and they sell sheet music, postcards and stamps as well as furniture etc. Most of the stuff I wanted there was in protective bags and they weren't very happy about me taking it out of the bag to have a look at Apparently some people buy the music for the covers not for the "squiggly bits" inside He also couldn't understand why anybody would want to play a "clunking great thing" like a piano when smaller instruments were available that you could carry around with you... Hey ho

Anyway a selection of their sheet music can be seen at www.carlton-antiques.com and their address is 43 Worcester Road, Malvern WR14 4RB, tel 01684 573092. I thought their music was expensive, possibly because they aim at "front cover" collectors rather than music collectors. But they did have some plain-cover music (sounds like adults-only ) hidden away which was cheaper.

[Thanks skylark - this will not be a quick trip!
Have to wait till after wimbledon tho' - got to get the priorities right.

Or Yorkshire? I can't think of anywhere locally....

Will do.

The owner of the Malvern shop also promised me that if there was something specific I was after he'd ask his supplier to look out for it

I think he responds quite a bit to the volume of music for a specific instrument he sells......the ammount of recorder music kept going up whilst I was able to visit regularly.

For those further north I can thoroughly recommend Albamusick in Glasgow (also now an outlet in Edinburgh). There is absolutely stacks of stuff there and the owner, a retired professional musician, is very helpful and will look out for stuff if he doesn't already have it. He can often supply odd parts for chamber music sets if you have lost one.

I daren't go in too often as I am running out of space at home!

I can vouch for that!
d

Apparently there's an Oxfam shop in Harrogate which is really good for secondhand sheet music. I was in my local Oxfam shop in Leeds yesterday asking if they had any, and they said they give it all to Harrogate. Harrogate has some good schools for music so apparently it sells well there. (If anybody wants to go, apparently the Oxfam shop is down the hill to the side of Bettys)

Perhaps someone could organise a "Forums Music Exchange Day" (like the play days) and we all could dig out those long-forgotten scores, books and sheets from lofts and cupboards for a grand bring-and-buy.

Dangerous!! Very, very dangerous!

Lets do it!

The shop in Malvern is excellent, we used to live almost next door to it and its fatal. I collect old hymn books and he always had a surprisingly good selection. Also, the organ music selection is excellent.

For those in North Kent/South London, I can highly recommend "The Bookshop" in New Ash Green, Longfield (01474 874194). They have a good new book/CD supply, and some second hand bits and pieces as well.

What I'm most impressed with is their ordering service. I ordered a load of books last Saturday, and I had a call on Wednesday to say they were in! Whereas, about three months ago I ordered a supply from a shop in Bluewater, and they haven't ever rung to say they have the books .

I found one in Uppingham. It's a bookshop on the high street and was a bit of a maze but at the back there was a small room full of second hand music. Mostly piano and vocal scores and strings as far as I can remember. I was looking for trombone music and there was a box for brass music on the top shelf.

Uppingham is in Leicestershire isn't it? I've added all the new shops mentioned to the list in the first post.




yes it is really good...

I got some music from a second hand book shop for flute and clarinet in cromford meadows, derbyshire but it can be a bit hit and miss . They had lots of piano music at the time though

That one's top of my list too, and I live in Berkshire! It's tiny, like a musical Aladdin's cave, stacked from floor to ceiling (step ladder provided) with music, and spilling over onto a table outside too when they're open. Cecil Court is a narrow alley-way running between Charing Cross Road and St. Martin's Lane.

Last time I was in (probably round about the end of July) they had a good selection of miniature orchestral scores including a number of Haydn symphonies, and they usually seem to have quite a lot of vocal scores at very reasonable prices. I've had the occasional chamber music find, though I haven't yet seen much ensemble music at any one time. A lot of fairly elementary teaching stuff turns up, and on one of my visits they had quite a stack of organ music. Of course it's hit and miss with any charity shop's stock, but worth a visit if you are in the area. Oxfam used to have a general shop in Reading that sometimes had a few bits of music, then it changed to a book shop which usually had at least some music, then finally the two separated, I think about a couple of years ago, so there's now a book shop AND a music shop.

going to Hay on Monday - guess which shop I'll be making a beeline for?

Have fun!

I've just discovered that Oxfam have started selling online

At the moment they don't have a lot sheet music on the web site, but by next Spring, they're expecting to have 120,000 miscellaneous items listed.

The web site address is www.oxfam.org.uk/shop.

The Oxfam shop in Harrogate has a really good stock of secondhand music (although the clarinet stock is a bit depleted now ), and they've got a special offer on at the moment - buy one, get one free

It's just down the hill to the left of Betty's.

I hope they've still got that offer on tomorrow, I'll try to go then. I've been to that Oxfam a few times and generally find something to buy but I also find a lot of the music seems a bit expensive.

Do you know if they have any oboe music? (I intend to spend the Friday before your Leeds concert with a friend who lives in Harrogate).

Aw I never thought to look for oboe music I'm afraid They had two magazine files for clarinet music (about 40 items) and about 10 magazine files for piano music. They also had a copy of the AB theory workbook for each grade up to G6. Lots of other music too, plus quite a lot of general music books.

The Harrogate branch of Oxfam is a bit of a centre for sheet music - my local branch sends any music they get over to Harrogate and I think many of the other branches do too. So it would be worth popping in if you get chance kerioboe as the stocks are constantly being replenished. I'll probably call in again before Christmas so I'll look out for oboe music

I discovered a wonderful secondhand bookshop today - it's part of a small antiques/crafts complex just outside Frodsham called Lady Heyes. There are a few units selling "collectibles" and some of those have baskets of sheet music, but the bookshop is something else. I wish I'd asked if I could take a photo of it... the book shelves filling the apex of the building are around 15 feet high Fortunately the section on music books is more accessible, and there's loads of sheet music as well. The sheet music is all mixed up (in a complete mess actually) but if you allow enough time to browse through the music books and sheet music you could be there a good couple of hours. Allow a day or two if you want to have a look at all the rest of the books

Here's the link if anybody's interested... http://www.ladyheyes.co.uk/

The web site is very misleading because it doesn't actually mention the bookshop - I'd spent ages looking round the other units and it was only when I was driving out that I saw the Cheshire Books unit. By that time I'd nearly run out of time but I just managed to buy a few pieces The Cheshire Books shop has its own web site and it says they have 100,000 books in stock

http://www.cheshirebookcentre.com/

The Oxfam bookshop in Knowle, just outside Solihull in the West Midlands, usually has a large selection of sheet music

I was there a week or two ago and they had several boxfuls of sheet music - a mixture of classical and light music, not really any tutor or exam books. I got 14 pieces for £6.


I discovered a place in Leeds today that I didn't know existed - The Bookshop at Kirkstall corner (by the new Morrisons for people who know the area). They had a couple of boxfuls - some grade music as well as original classical and quite a lot of viola music. They had a 4-volume boxed set of Mozart's works for piano - brand new, Urtext, for £12, wow!

I can hear Solari frantically heading north, as we speak!

There's a ban on buying any more books I'm afraid - I have a rule that I should be able to play at least 1 piece from each book... I now have about 6 that I can't play one whole piece from...

Liszt Consolations (hopefully this will be resolved soon)
Bach 2/3 part inventions
Bach Little Preludes and Fughettas
Chopin Nocturnes (I can bash through a page and a bit of one of them)
Chopin Mazurkas
Chopin Etudes (working slowly on Op.10 No.1)

That's off the top of my head. May have missed another 1 or 2.

I must admit that now, with music available to order at the click of a mouse, it must be harder to resist the temptation to buy yet another piece/book. Since I bought the vast majority of my collection before I had access to the internet (I still haven't bought any sheet music online) what I now choose to buy is relatively obscure repertoire and that I prefer to see beforehand in hard copy.

When I taught, I started my summer holiday by visiting Blackwells in Oxford, sitting on the floor and making my way through the piano music from A to Z, pulling out what I thought I'd like to tackle over the next six weeks. That choice generally took me a couple of hours.

I still make sporadic visits there, because I very much enjoy coming across something that I would never otherwise have thought of or even met. I have always gone with a limited budget in mind though.

I have a notebook in which I jot down pieces that I come across inbetween visits. That way, I don't return home having forgotten the one piece that I intended to get. I don't think I'll ever shake off the bug!

As well as their practical function, I also like some of the books as a bit of furniture. The Henle hardbacks are absolutely gorgeous

I like pulling a random book from the shelf for sight-reading practice too. Often I end up having an aneurism when I hit something with tonnes of double flats and the like but force myself to go through it (they terrify me, although double sharps are never a problem!)...

There's already exist threads and a poll on which are preferred, sharps or flats. For me, flats - bring 'em on.. With sharps, I start to forget the extra ones after 5 of them (although I suppose that still gives me some scope). I was playing through Mallorca by Albeniz; the central section has 6 sharps (F#major) and I keep forgetting whether the 'extra' sharp is B# or E# - it's the latter, but midway through the melody it doesn't pay to have doubts!

I prefer flats too, but I just don't like double ones! How odd...

It's the sharps that deter me from tackling Chopin's Barcarolle. Again, F#major (although fsharpminor might have transposed it by now!). I love the piece to bits, but the sharps and double sharps - ouch!!

so we ought to let the original thread resume iits rightful place ....