World In Motion became New Order’s first and only number one in the UK singles chart and has proved an enduring hit, with remixes released for almost every World Cup competition since.

Christina Aguilera’s second single from her new album “Bionic” is the powerful ballad You Lost Me. Whilst promoting her new album she has appeared on several US shows, including a breathtaking performance on the recent American Idol finale. You can download the sheet music for this piano-friendly ballad, which was arranged for piano, voice and guitar in Musicnotes.com’s ever-popular Singer Pro Format. For our full range of arrangements by this much-loved artist visit our selection of Christina Aguilera sheet music.

French DJ and producer David Guetta recently achieved his third number one in the UK singles chart with Gettin’ Over You featuring Chris Wills, Fergie from Black Eyed Peas and Los Angeles-based Rappers and DJs, LMFAO. When you explore our catalogue of sheet music by David Guetta, you’ll find his other hit singles.

Keane’s first single from their number one album “Night Train” is a piano-led ballad featuring Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan. You can download the sheet music for Stop For A Minute, arranged for piano, voice and guitar. If you enjoy music by this band, why not check out more from our catalog of Keane sheet music?

Welsh hard rockers Lostprophets released their fourth studio album “The Betrayed” earlier this year featuring the singles Where We Belong, For He’s A Jolly Good Felon and It’s Not the End Of The World But I Can See It From Here. You can download the band-approved sheet music of these singles.

Until next time! Hope you enjoy these new songs from our selection of sheet music from the UK!

Are you ready to watch TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE in theatres this June? Musicnotes.com is pleased to present you with sheet music for TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE, including a band-approved arrangement of the first single entitled “Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever)” by Muse. The soundtrack for the third film in The Twilight Saga has been rocketing off the music charts! Based on your requests, we’re continually adding new sheet music from TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE so be sure to bookmark this post and check back for your favorite songs.

Songs performed in TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE are listed below. If we have sheet music or guitar tab for any of the songs, you can follow the link.

1. Eclipse (All Yours) by Metric

2. Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever) by Muse

3. Ours by The Bravery

4. Heavy In Your Arms by Florence + The Machine

5. My Love by Sia

6. Atlas by Fanfarlo

7. Chop and Change by The Black Keys

8. Rolling In On a Burning Tire by The Dead Weather

9. Let’s Get Lost by Beck and Bat For Lashes

10. Jonathan Low by Vampire Weekend

11. With You In My Head by Unkle

12. A Million Miles an Hour by Eastern Conference Champions

13. Life On Earth by Band of Horses

14. What Part of Forever by Cee to Green

15. Jacob’s Theme by Howard Shore

Official Video of Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)

Want a sneak peek at scenes from TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE? Watch the official video below for the first single from the soundtrack for this popular movie series. Below, you can watch Matthew Bellamy and his band Muse perform Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever).

Looking for more sheet music from the Twilight saga? Check out our earlier posts about TWILIGHT sheet music and TWILIGHT: NEW MOON sheet music for more information.

We have recently added a selection of Ian Dury songs that inspired the motion picture SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL; the biopic about legendary performer and cockney wordsmith. The film, starring Andy Serkis (from THE LORD OF THE RINGS) as Ian, has been greeted with much critical acclaim for its portrayal of Dury and his rise to fame with the Blockheads, as well as his battle with his disability as a result of contracting polio as a child. The soundtrack of this film features unforgettable tracks that span the career of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Now you can sing and play along with such classics as Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3) and the ode to a Rock N’ Roll legend Sweet Gene Vincent. If you enjoy music by this artist, be sure to browse our catalog of sheet music by Ian Dury.

Bright young thing Marina Diamandis released her debut album “The Family Jewels” in February of this year; it was certified silver days before its physical release, guaranteeing Marina & the Diamonds a top 5 hit in that week’s UK album charts. ‘The Diamonds’ in her band name actually refer to her fans rather than a backing band, as she says on the blog for Marina & the Diamonds: “You are my glittering army. I hope you never leave.” Marina has attracted attention for both her original fashion style and unusual vocal delivery and has been compared to iconic artists such as Kate Bush and her peer Florence and the Machine. You can download the sheet music of singles such as Hollywood, (I Am Not A) Robot, Shampain and the forthcoming new single Oh No! which are all arranged for piano, voice and guitar. For more arrangements by this popular artist, visit our selection of Marina & the Diamonds sheet music.

As well as those great arrangements, we’re also pleased to announce we’ve arranged some exciting new singles straight from the charts.

Indie pop band Scouting For Girls released their first single from their second album “Everybody Wants to be On TV” in April. It went straight to number one in the UK singles chart, knocking Lady Gaga’s smash hit, Telephone from the top spot. You can now buy the sheet music to their first number one single, This Ain’t a Love Song, arranged for piano, voice and guitar in Musicnotes.com’s popular Singer Pro format.

X Factor semi-finalist Diana Vickers released her first single entitled Once. This song literally stormed the UK singles chart in late April, entering at number one after selling over 70,000 copies in its first week of release. Our arrangement of sheet music for Once is perfect for piano, vocal and guitar.

Plan B released a second single from their concept album “The Defamation of Strickland Banks.” The song is a finger-clicking, soulful stomper that harks back to the classic Motown era. If you are in the UK, you can download our sheet music for She Said, arranged for piano, voice and guitar.

Last but not least, popular UK artist Muse has a title that is featured on the soundtrack for TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE. We’re pleased to announce that you can play or sing sheet music for Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever) on Musicnotes.com.

From now through September 30, 2010, download sheet music for “Lend a Hand” from Musicnotes.com for free. For every download of sheet music for this song, Musicnotes.com will donate $1.00 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund up to a maximum of $10,000. For more details, read our Support Nashville. Download “Lend a Hand” for Free page.

First off John, can you describe the situation in Nashville and middle Tennessee?

My own grandmother, “Granny Rich,” had to be rescued on a police boat due to the fact that her house was under water. There are 10s of thousands of people who have lost everything, and many more out of work. It was like an “inland tsunami” hit us. Unreal.

How has the flood impacted the Nashville songwriting community?

I know of many musicians whose instruments, recording equipment and so on were totally destroyed in the flood. Most writers/musicians don’t insure their stuff; it’s all they can do most of the time to keep new strings and blank paper. It’s a heartbreaking scene.

Can you tell us the story behind the lyrics of “Lend a Hand,” and why you decided to write the song with an upbeat feel rather than as a ballad?

I made a donation to the Red Cross but didn’t feel that was enough. I thought if I could write a song that might make people want to give to the flood relief, that would be a good thing. I didn’t want to write a sad song because the folks in TN are feeling like they want to triumph over this – not be defeated by it. So, I wrote a Pentecostal/Blues/HonkyTonk tune called “Lend A Hand” and decided to give it away on my website johnrich.com along with a link to the Red Cross. Giving music away isn’t a very common thing these days, but in this case it definitely felt like the right thing to do and so far we’ve had thousands of downloads and donations to the Red Cross.

How have fans reacted to the free mp3 download of “Lend a Hand?”

People are using this song on their Facebook pages, MySpace pages and everything in between. I’ve even had a church choir ask if they could perform it for their congregation.

Might you be releasing a music video for “Lend a Hand?” We imagine there could be some very stark as well as uplifting images.

There hasn’t been any talk of making a video yet, but the song is only a few days old at this point. I’d be more than happy to make a video for it if it would raise more awareness about the situation here.

Finally, how will donating to the Red Cross at Musicnotes.com and your site impact the Nashville community?

Donating to the RedCross Nashville chapter will impact the lives of countless Tennesseans who have literally lost everything they own to this flood. You can’t imagine how many people may never totally recover from their losses. Any donations made will be much appreciated and put to good use. Thanks for lending us a hand.

Musicnotes also announced 2010 digital sales are growing at a 25% rate through mid-May versus the same time period in 2009. The company is seeing both strong traffic and an increasing sales conversion rate. Growth outside the US is modestly higher than overall growth, continuing a trend Musicnotes has experienced over the past few years.

“We have recently focused a lot of energy on enhancing the shopping experience for both new and existing customers,” stated Musicnotes Chairman, Tim Reiland. “Two recent improvements – an enhanced quantity discount program and a ‘no software needed to view sheet music’ feature – have had a very positive effect on sales and have helped move our conversion rate to the 4.0% level.”

Musicnotes, which broke through the $10 million sales mark in 2009, also attributes growth to its ever-expanding catalog of downloadable songs, currently well in excess of 100,000 available downloads. Musicnotes added several key catalogs to its line-up in 2009 and that trend has continued in 2010.

“We recently released our iPad app and have additional features planned for our customers in 2010. And, of course, we will continue to add exciting new content,” Reiland indicated. “Our team is passionate about this business and looks forward to generating strong growth for years to come.”

According to the most recent data from research firm, Hitwise, Musicnotes.com continues to lead the digital sheet music retail market with a market share of over 80%.

About Musicnotes: Musicnotes, Inc. offers an online catalog of 100,000 digital sheet music titles, built on the strength of content agreements with Alfred Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Faber Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Disney Music Publishing, Cherry Lane Music Company, Peermusic, Word Music, EMI Christian, Bug Music and many others. Musicnotes is included in Internet Retailer Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Online Retailers and was selected by Internet Retailer as a “Hot 100″ site for 2009.

On the Web: http://www.musicnotes.com

This free app provides Musicnotes.com’s customers with the ability to interact with their sheet music on the iPad by synchronizing it with their existing Musicnotes.com account. Once songs are downloaded to the iPad, they are stored locally on the device, allowing musicians to play their sheet music even if they are unable to access the Internet.

The Musicnotes Sheet Music Viewer app was developed internally at Musicnotes.com. This first implementation is centered on displaying digital sheet music with exceptional quality and definition and was designed with existing customers in mind. Current features on the app include the ability to type comments on the sheet music as well as zoom in and quickly jump to any page in the song.

For future updates of the app, Musicnotes plans to offer the ability for musicians to transpose downloaded sheet music and organize their sheet music into set lists. In addition to these features, Musicnotes will also offer other tools that will enable musicians to get the most out of playing and learning songs digitally. For example, Musicnotes will release pen-and-highlight and bookmark tools that will help musicians learn how to play and perform their favorite songs.

“When we were designing this app, our approach was to view the iPad as a replacement for the traditional paper-based sheet music experience. As such, our focus was on using the iPad to allow our customers to do everything they could already do with printed sheet music, and then grow from there,” said Bill Aicher, Director of Web and Marketing at Musicnotes.com.

Anyone who downloads the app will also receive sheet music for five free bonus songs, allowing any musician the opportunity to learn a few classic songs while they try out the free Musicnotes Sheet Music Viewer app and all of its features.

“The technology of the iPad device has facilitated a better playing and learning experience for all musicians,” Aicher added. “With the iPad, musicians don’t have to carry around folders of paper, risk losing or damaging a page, or deal with other nuisances that can interfere with their performance like clumsy page turns.”

The Musicnotes Sheet Music Viewer App for the iPad is available for free from the App Store on the iPad or through iTunes. Currently, only songs arranged in the Musicnotes format are available through the app. Musicians can discover more about the app and sign up for updates by visiting http://www.musicnotes.com/ipad/.

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About Musicnotes: Musicnotes, Inc. offers an online catalog of 100,000 digital sheet music titles, built on the strength of content agreements with Alfred Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Faber Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Disney Music Publishing, Cherry Lane Music Company, Peermusic, Word Music, EMI Christian, Bug Music and many others. Musicnotes is included in Internet Retailer Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Online Retailers and was selected by Internet Retailer as a “Hot 100″ site for 2009.

On the Web: http://www.musicnotes.com

Through September 30, 2010, Musicnotes will offer this upbeat song as a free sheet music download and encourages customers to contribute a small donation to the Nashville Red Cross.

Musicnotes, Inc. will contribute $1.00 per sheet music download of “Lend A Hand” to the http://www.nashvilleredcross.org up to a total of $10,000.

After observing the situation, John Rich was quoted as saying, “I’m a songwriter, and it seemed to me that the best way to have a positive impact on such a devastating situation like the Nashville flood was to write a song about it. My hope is that this simple song, ‘Lend A Hand’ raises awareness and support for the unfortunate people of middle Tennessee who have lost everything in this Biblical level of a flood.”

“Nashville was hit extremely hard by these floods,” stated Musicnotes Chairman, Tim Reiland. “The great songwriters in ‘Music City’ and throughout the world are the lifeblood of our business – Nashville will certainly bounce back. Musicnotes, along with our customers, would like to help out during this challenging time.”

The free sheet music download, as well as the free mp3 download, can be found at the Musicnotes.com and John Rich’s official sites via the following links:

- Sheet Music: http://www.musicnotes.com/nashville/
- MP3: http://www.johnrich.com/index.php?page=emupdates

Donate to the Nashville Red Cross: http://www.nashvilleredcross.org

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About Musicnotes: Musicnotes, Inc. offers an online catalog of 100,000 digital sheet music titles, built on the strength of content agreements with Alfred Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Faber Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Disney Music Publishing, Cherry Lane Music Company, Peermusic, Word Music, EMI Christian, Bug Music and many others. Musicnotes is included in Internet Retailer Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Online Retailers and was selected by Internet Retailer as a “Hot 100″ site for 2009.

For starters, we’re offering Konstantine by the band Something Corporate for around $6.00! We blogged about this particular collector’s item and what this sheet music has meant to us.

The song Konstantine from Something Corporate has affected us on a creative level, but also on a “music lovers” level as well. Sometimes, our customers point out wonderful music to us that we instantly fall in love with and this is definitely one of those songs. Konstantine is a song that fans of Andrew McMahon’s music still talk about and continue to be inspired by. — SOURCE: Our Story Behind Konstantine by Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin.

Time for a Spring Cleaning Sale! Choose from several sheet music books and song books up to seventy-five percent off their original price. To view the music books on sale, visit on our Clearance Bin page.

Just check out some of these great titles you can pick up! Save big on Konstantine, High School Musical 3, Wow Hits 2006, Incubus – Morning View and much, much, more! Offer valid only on sheet music books and songbooks listed on the Clearance Bin page. Titles will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. Be sure to check back as new titles become available. The best part about this sale, is that there’s no minimum purchase required to take advantage of the savings. Sale does not include discounts on shipping. Sale ends Monday, May 31st.

To read more about all of our current sales at Musicnotes.com, visit our Current Sales & Promotions for Sheet Music & Guitar Tab page or learn more about our volume discount at Musicnotes.com program.

The Musicnotes Song of the Year Award is presented each year to the songwriter and publisher of the best-selling sheet music for a song made popular in the previous calendar year. In 2009, this song was “The Climb.”

The song “The Climb” was released in March 2009 as the leading single performed by Miley Cyrus for Hannah Montana: The Movie. In 2009, many musicians fell in love with the sheet music for this song in part because of its strong piano melody and emotional lyrics.

“Looking back at the years that we’ve given out this award, we can see how well the most popular song reflects an important part of popular culture,” stated Kathy Marsh, President and CEO of Musicnotes.com. “Each award speaks to a part of music history.”

Last year’s award went to the song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, which was popularized by its performance on talent shows like The X Factor and American Idol. In 2007, the award went to “Hey There, Delilah” by Tom Higgenson from Plain White T’s. That song not only rocked the Billboard charts, but it also became the most-downloaded song in iTunes history.

This past year, “The Climb” surged in popularity because of several live performances by Miley Cyrus; “The Climb” was also covered on several talent shows including American Idol and the British talent show The X Factor. This song has also won several awards including the “Music Choice: Single” award at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards.

“Receiving the Musicnotes Song of the Year Award is an exciting “first” for Disney Music Publishing and a recognition of the great song written by our Jessi Alexander with Jon Mabe,” said Julie Enzer, of Disney Music Publishing.

Musicnotes, the leading online digital sheet music publisher and reseller, has previously presented awards to Leonard Cohen (“Hallelujah“),Vanessa Carlton (“A Thousand Miles”), Linda Perry (Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful”), Evanescence (“My Immortal”), Marcus Hummon, Bobby Boyd and Jeff Hanna (“Bless the Broken Road”) and Daniel Powter (“Bad Day”).

About Musicnotes: Musicnotes, Inc. offers an online catalog of 100,000 digital sheet music titles, built on the strength of content agreements with Alfred Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Faber Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Disney Music Publishing, Cherry Lane Music Company, Peermusic, Word Music, EMI Christian, Bug Music and many others. Musicnotes is included in Internet Retailer Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Online Retailers and was recently selected by Internet Retailer as a “Hot 100″ site for 2009.

Easier Ways to Shop

One of the biggest changes we’ve put in place over the last few months is something geared toward our new customers. When you browse our site, you are no longer required to install our Musicnotes software to purchase most digital sheet music titles on the site. 

We made this decision because we heard from customers that they did not want to install our software to shop the site.  Our software is still required to print your sheet music, but now you can browse our catalog of digital sheet music and purchase it from any computer. For example, if your work computer does not allow you to install software, you can now shop Musicnotes.com during your lunch break. Then, when you get home, all you’ll have to do is log in to your Musicnotes account, go to your previous orders, and print the music you purchased earlier in the day.

Additionally, we have also enabled all of our customers to browse, preview and purchase digital sheet music from any web-enabled mobile device including your cell phone or iPad. In order to print your music you’ll need to log in to your account on a PC or Mac, but now you can purchase sheet music from pretty much anywhere.  It’s great for those times when you’re out a restaurant, hear a song and think “I really want to learn that!”

New Opportunities to Save on Sheet Music

Another thing we’ve done recently is offer you several new ways to save on your digital sheet music, guitar tab and Guitar Guru Sessions. For starters, we revisited our volume discount and now offer savings when you purchase as few as two songs in the same order.

Our new digital volume discount works as follows:

- Buy 2-3 digital titles in a single order: Save 10%
- Buy 4-5 digital titles in a single order: Save 15%
- Buy 6 or more digital titles in a single order: Save 20%

Along the same lines, we’ve also made it easier for you to find out what current sales and promotions we’re running on the site by listing them all in one place. We recommend bookmarking our “Current Sales and Promotions” page so you can see more ways to save on the songs you want to buy.

New Songs and More Instruments

One of our goals at Musicnotes.com is to provide digital sheet music for all types of musicians and vocalists — including people who play a woodwind, string or brass instrument. As a result, we’ve been expanding our weekly new sheet music catalog to include new songs that focus on choral arrangements and different instrumentation.

Due to our efforts over the past year, last summer we made some changes to our navigation on the site to allow you to browse sheet music for all major instruments quickly and easily.

Larger Focus on Transpositions

Did you know that Musicnotes.com offers you the ability to change the key of a song?  In less than a year, we’ve more than doubled the amount of songs that you can purchase transpositions for. The transposition feature for songs that we arrange are available for songs with a blue or a green Musicnotes icon. We structured these transpositions as a separate piece of sheet music rather than a calculated algorithm to ensure that your notation won’t crash when you try to interact with it. Our goal is to continue to expand our library of transposable titles, but to also continue to provide the highest quality of notation possible to ensure your sheet music is accurate.  Currently, all of our most popular songs are available for you to transpose and there are a lot more on the way.

What’s Next for Customers Like You?

Our plans for the rest of the year are to continue concentrating on the items we listed above and to add some new features that we think you’ll really enjoy. Here’s a sneak preview of our upcoming projects:

• Musicnotes Sheet Music Viewer for iPad — A few months ago we mentioned that we will be releasing an iPad app to allow you to view your Musicnotes sheet music library on the iPad. We expect this to be available within the next few weeks. If you’re interested, be sure to click through to learn more about sheet music from Musicnotes.com on the iPad.
• Enhanced Shopping Experience forYou — A lot of you have filled out your Musicnotes preferences in the past, and we’ve been using that to give you an experience more tailored to your experiences as a musician.  There is, however, a lot more that we could do – and we aim to do it. In the coming months expect your Musicnotes experience to be much more relevant to what you are looking for, both based on your preferences as well as where you are in the world. We have a few other things we’ll be rolling out, but as of right now it’s too early to tell.
• Advanced Search — If you’re a regular user of Musicnotes, you may know that our current search system is quite powerful. You can enter in any number of different key terms to get a relevant result, but this functionality is not all that obvious. For example, you can type in “gershwin summertime flute” to find a flute version of Summertime by Gershwin. We’re proud to announce that we will be offering you an enhanced Advanced Search system.  Soon you’ll be able to search for your favorite song by any combination of keywords that include: performer, composer, songwriter, genre, notation, scoring, instrumentation, etc. We think that this will allow you to find your desired arrangement more easily so you can buy and print it, and do what you come to Musicnotes for in the first place: to play the song.

So, that’s some of what we’ve been up to for the past year. Our purpose is to help you learn to play songs, and our goal is to make that as easy as possible.  We’re here to help.

If there’s anything else you’d like from us, no matter how pie in the sky, we’d love to hear it in the comments below.

We encourage you to keep reading the blog, engage with us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates.