A few notes

The ACCOMPANI ME library is a collection of classical accompaniment audio tracks, recorded by amateur, student and professional musicians.

Audio tracks are organised by solo instrument on the FIND ACCOMPANIMENT page. This page will expand to include other musical instruments as the collection grows.

The library is designed for musicians who don’t have an accompanist available.. but want to learn how their piece fits with the accompaniment, practice for a rehearsal or a performance, or play along just for fun!

Of course, recordings can never replace the experience of working with live musicians. Nonetheless, they are a useful practice tool and can provide a very satisfying experience by allowing you to complete your performance in the privacy of your home.

Although every recording is subject to the musical interpretations of the contributor, we ask that accompanists keep the music as true to the original edition as possible.

ACCOMPANI ME is a community project and we encourage all advanced musicians to contribute a recording to our library.

It doesn’t matter if you produce a professional recording in a studio, or a simple recording using a microphone in the basement. All recordings of a reasonable quality will be accepted.

Our only request is that participating musicians are approximately ABRSM Grade 8 standard or above. This should ensure a minimum level of musical proficiency.

There is plenty of repertoire for solo instrument with piano accompaniment.. so if you are a pianist, your contributions will no doubt be very popular!

For those of us that don’t play the piano, how about recording half a duet? Or if you enjoy using audio editing software, you could assemble two parts of a single-instrument trio.. or three parts of a quartet.

Chamber music groups might like to contribute recordings with a ‘missing-member’. This would spread a lot of musical enjoyment by allowing our home musicians to play in an ensemble, when they may not otherwise have the opportunity.

We also appeal to orchestra committee members to spare us a thought during rehearsals. Maybe you will have the occasional opportunity to record a movement of a concerto, when the orchestra is rehearsing without the soloist? If so, it would provide a rare treat for our musicians to practice privately with a full chamber or symphony orchestra!

Lastly, kindly note that computer-generated accompaniments are not suitable for the library, unless this was intended by the composer! We prefer to keep all music in its original style - recorded by human musicians, playing traditional musical instruments.

If you are in need of a specific accompaniment (or an accompaniment played specifically!) please visit the REQUEST ACCOMPANIMENT page and post your request in the ‘COMMENTS’ box. Perhaps somebody in our musical community will be able to record it for you!

Once you have recorded your accompaniment, upload it to a public audio platform and provide us with the website location (URL) by filling in the form on the SUBMIT ACCOMPANIMENT page.

The recording must be available for anyone in our community to stream or download. Please also ensure the link you provide takes us DIRECTLY to the recording itself, as links to pages with more than one audio track cannot be accepted.

The choice of audio platform is up to you. However, for the sake of a consistent user experience, we strongly recommend SoundCloud as the host for your audio files.

Please respect all copyrights! Copyright information can usually be found inside the front page of your sheet music.

If there is any doubt, we recommend that you contact the publisher and obtain their permission to make your recording. This is often accomplished by a quick, simple email.

Should you wish to avoid copyright issues altogether, you’ll find a wide collection of music in the public domain that can be used without any limitations.

Whether you charge for your recording or not is your choice. We anticipate that most contributions will be available free-of-charge.. but also expect some recordings of a high professional standard to charge a small fee for each download.

The ACCOMPANI ME website is a free service and the list of accompaniments is kept up-to-date by volunteers, for the love of music.

• Never record anyone without their permission;

• Respect all copyrights, including any performance restrictions imposed by the contributor;

• Adhere to the terms and conditions of the website where the recording is hosted;

• Have fun!!