My Score

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What Type of Music Can I Upload?
• What are the Required File Types?
• How Do I Get a PDF File of My Music?
• Should I Create My Own Product ID Number?
• How Should I Price My Instrumental Music?
• How Should I Price My Choral Music?
• How do I Add a Video Clip to My Product?
• What Should I Include in the Title and Subtitle of my Music?
• What Should I Include in the Description (Annotation) Box?
• How Do I Grade My Music?
• What Should I have on my Cover?
• What is a Wrapper?
• What are Part Counts?
• How Should I Engrave My Music?
• Can I Upload my Work that is not Sheet Music?

What Type of Music Can I Upload?

My Score accepts a wide variety of submissions to sell through the J.W. Pepper network. Some of our most popular categories include School Choral, Sacred Choral, Wind Ensemble, and Solo Ensemble. While you are not limited to these categories, these are the most popular for our customers and marketing.

Currently, My Score only accepts original compositions and public domain arrangements. My Score does not accept arrangements of any copyrighted works.  

The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author, artist, composer, or publisher. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.  

Uploading arrangements of copyrighted works would be a serious violation of United States copyright law, and such infringements can result in suspension of your My Score account.

What are the Required File Types?

• All sheet music files must be submitted in .PDF format.
• Audio files must be submitted as .MP3 files.
• Cover images should be sent as .PDF, .JPG, or .TIF files.

How Do I Get a PDF File of My Music?

The sheet music notation software you use will have a function to convert files into pdf format. Look for “export” in the menus. 

You can also navigate to the "Print" tab under "File" and select "Microsoft Print to PDF" which will create a PDF in the location of your choosing.

Should I Create My Own Product ID Number?

Each of your products must have a unique identification number in your catalog. This helps in inventory and sales tracking. We prefer that you supply the number, but we will assign a number if you do not.

How Should I Price My Instrumental Music?

*-Sets include cover, score, and parts

How Should I Price My Choral Music?

Minimum purchases are automatically set by J.W. Pepper as 5 copy minimum for all digital downloads of choral pieces. If you would like to adjust your purchase minimum for a piece, please submit your request to myscore@jwpepper.com

How do I Add a Video Clip to My Product?

When uploading a new title, you will be able to include a URL to a YouTube video link. All submited video clips must be from YouTube. 

Submitted URLs cannot be a YouTube "Share" link or a timestamped link. To ensure you provide a proper YouTube link, you must follow these steps:

1. Go to the page of the YouTube video you would like to add to your product page
2. Click the share button below the video
3. Copy the link or click the 'Copy' button in the Share pop-up. Make sure the box at the bottom-left of the pop-up is unchecked.
4. Paste the Share link in the URL bar of your browser and hit Enter.
5. Shortly after the browser redirects you to YouTube, the URL changes to the proper YouTube link. The link that is now in your browser's URL bar is the link you copy.

When adding a link to an existing composition, please email the video link to myscore@jwpepper.com

What Should I Include in the Title and Subtitle of my Music?

Your product's Title and play an important role in helping customers shopping on jwpepper.com. They will also determine how your product appears in filtered searches and social media posts. This article explains how to maximize your composition's performance on both fronts.

Titles

Titles should be used as an exciting identifier to catch the customer's attention.  It should mirror the title that appears on the cover of your print-ready pdf created in your notation software. 

• Limit the name to 50–75 characters in length for best desktop readability and SEO results.
• Key attributes should include keywords that are most likely to be used in a search for the product.
• Avoid repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural. 

Do not include:

• Composer or arranger’s name unless it's part of the official title 
• Instrumentation or voicing
• Marketing speak (e.g., "best," "sale," "promotion," "discount")
• Any special characters (e.g., @, “”,–, _ &, #, (), % ñ ü )

Subtitles

Subtitles are a great way to display important details of your pieces while keeping the title of your pieces short and intriguing.   

• Create a clear, specific subtitle that customers can easily understand and aids in describing your product. 
• If customers are likely to search for instruments, include this information in the product subtitle.
• Parentheses will automatically be applied to your subtitle. (Sample Subtitle)  
• This field is not required.

Do not include:

• Parentheses 
• Publishing year
• Ensemble or instrumentation
• Any special characters (e.g., @, “”,–, _ &, #, (), % ñ ü )

What Should I Include in the Description (Annotation) Box?

The product description is an opportunity to tell customers about your composition. Ensure that your description explains the piece while being concise, relevant, clear, and easy for customers to understand. Be sure to show musical expertise, knowledge, or authority when writing your descriptions. This is not the place for program notes, composer bios, or instrumentation lists. 

Additional Tips & Suggestions 

Include keywords describing the composition's musical attributes or educational benefits and related words that customers are likely to search. For example, if you're selling a piece for Flex-Band, use similar phrases like "flexible ensemble" in the description. Avoid unnecessary repetition of titles or instruments.

The description of your product should be kept to one or two paragraphs. Previews of descriptions exceeding 150 words will be truncated to the first two lines in general search results. Clicking "...view details" will reveal the full product description.

If the product has multiple volumes, make customers aware by including all available options in the description.

Do not include:

• References to other marketplaces or distributors, with the exception of the composer’s professional website 
• Quotes from sources of copyrighted materials (movies, books, songs)
• Formatting such as bold, italics, indentations, or bulleted lists  
• Irrelevant content not aiding in selling the piece, offensive language, or personal details
• Any special characters (e.g., @, “”,–, _ &, #, (), % ñ ü)
• "Published by J.W. Pepper"
• Social media handles

Please note that special formatting, including bold, italics, underlines, line breaks, bulleted lists, and hyperlinked text, will automatically be removed from the description.

How Do I Grade My Music?

Part of what makes J.W. Pepper the leading retailer in sheet music is our system of grading each piece and allowing directors to search our catalog by piece grade. Accurately grading your piece will help directors better program for their ensembles. 

These grading guidelines are suggestions and may not accurately represent your music. Please use these guides to help make decisions on how to grade your piece.

Beginning & Very Easy

Music graded ‘Beginning’ should introduce fundamental principles and help build techniques for early musicians. Music graded for students should utilize unison lines to help students work together and learn to play as a group. 

Easy

‘Easy’ music should be written for musicians that are working on developing skills. This music should help build on basic technique and work to advance those skills. It is good to keep score instruments in groups that and not to have complex countermelodies.

Medium-Easy

‘Medium-Easy’ music should be slightly more advanced, branching into advanced parameters. These scores should continue building upon basic techniques, while introducing advanced techniques. These pieces should help musicians become more independent within an ensemble using melody, harmony, and countermelody. 

Medium

Music in the ‘Medium’ category should have similar principles to the Medium-Easy category. Medium graded music tends to be longer in length and have a wider variation of tempo. These pieces can have changing meters and explore some advanced keys.

Medium-Advanced

‘Medium-Advanced’ music should be pushing musicians to explore more technical studies by introducing extended techniques and complex meters. This music typically is longer in length, with variation of structure throughout.  

Advanced

‘Advanced’ music should be challenging and intricate, with great detail and complexity. This music can utilize extended techniques, complex meters, complex subdivisions, and have complex counter-melodies and harmonies. This music is intended for advanced ensembles, mainly on the collegiate level.

Non-catalog items are not graded. If there is a grade, the item was at one time in our catalog. Grading systems are different throughout the country. There are not official grades for any particular state or country list. Be sure the customer understands that these are the grades assigned by the J.W. Pepper catalog editors.

What Should I have on my Cover?

The cover of your music appears both in print and as the preview image on the J.W. Pepper website. Many programs can help to create your cover image. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Canva, and even your notation program all have varying functions that can be used to design your cover.

Your cover should contain basic information about the piece such as:

• Title
• Composer
• Arranger
• Publishing Company
• Website
• Ensemble/Voicing

Important things to remember when creating your covers:

• Your cover may contain images as long as they are used with the expressed permission of the artist/photographer
• Submit all cover files as either a PDF file or a JPG file
• Keep your cover image clean and legible. Avoid cluttering and difficult to read text. 
• Covers are not printed in color, but in greyscale

What is a Wrapper?

A wrapper is a card stock folder that holds a band or orchestra set together. Sometimes referred to as a jacket, this page is the 'protective sleeve' for the contents of the band or orchestra set. We print our wrappers in color on 12in x 18in cover stock. Please upload wrappers as .pdf documents.

At this time, the back cover and inside covers will be left blank. If you have additional marketing copy, program notes, or performance instructions, please include them in the pdf of the score.

Wrappers are only printed for Band and Orchestra upload categories. For all other categories, multiple parts will be professionally banded together for shipping.

What are Part Counts?

Part counts tell us how many copies of a part you wish to include in the print or digital set of your music. Here are some examples:

How Should I Engrave My Music?

Engraving is a huge part of self-publishing! The cleaner your music is, the easier it will be for performers to read your music. 

Check out a few of our quick tips to engraving and editing your music below.

• Use fonts that are more visually appealing and compatible with music notation. 
• Make sure your margins are appropriate for print. We recommend .75 inch margins on all four sides.
• Utilize multi-measure rests to make sight reading easier for your performers. 
• Check your score and parts for collisions, overlapping elements, or crowding. 

Before uploading your score, print out your music and proofread it. Here's a checklist of some common errors that are found after submitting music - 

• Title, composer, arranger and copyright information are consistent on all parts and pages, and spelled correctly
• All parts are in the correct key
• All tempos are listed
• There are no visual collisions, overlapping elements, or crowding
• There are no awkward page turns

These tips will help your publishing look more professional, and help your performers read their scores with ease!

When uploading your music to My Score, upload your part files maintaining score order. 

    Score Order is achieved by listing out the instruments separated by section (woodwinds, brass, percussion, vocals, etc...) in the order of highest sounding to lowest sounding. An example of a score order upload for an orchestra would look like: 

Woodwinds

• Piccolo 
• Flute 
• Oboe
• Clarinet
• Bass Clarinet
• Bassoon
• Contrabassoon

Brass

• Trumpet
• French Horn
• Trombone
• Bass Trombone
• Euphonium
• Tuba

Percussion

• Timpani
• Percussion

Strings

• Violin I
• Violin II
• Viola
• Cello
• Double Bass

Can I Upload my Work that is not Sheet Music?

You are welcome to upload other non-sheet music items to your catalog. Products like non-fictional books, teaching books, dissertations and research papers still must be in PDF format in order for you to properly add them to your catalog. Simply upload them as you would a music score, but make sure to categorize them accordingly so as to differentiate them from the sheet music we primarily offer on our platform.