Gateway Sheet Music

02/19/2026

All set up and ready to go tomorrow for the Arkansas All-State Conference. Feels good to be back here again, I've been coming to this event for over 25 years now, with the one exception when the event was cancelled last year due to weather. I've made many friends and contacts here over the years and I hope to be able to continue doing so for years to come.

01/29/2026

Set up and ready to go for the directors attending the conference here at Margaritaville at the Lake of the Ozarks! I'm hoping that plenty of directors and students will stop by to see what we have to offer and make my trip a little lighter on the way home Friday night.

01/27/2026

There we go, is all set up for the All-State conference at the Lake of the Ozarks. It's a little tight at the moment, but will be expanding into the adjacent space on Thursday so there'll be plenty of room for people to come and browse. All the solo and ensemble literature is on the Missouri State List (MSHSAA), and all the new Band music is 30% off.

It's been a great first year, and we're looking forward to doing even more next year and having an even bigger display to bring to our conferences. Stop by and say hi, and let me know how I can help you and your school music program.

01/23/2026

Missouri band directors - Gateway Sheet Music will be attending the MMEA conference at the Lake of the Ozarks next week, and we have plenty of solo and ensemble music for you to peruse and purchase! If you live in the St. Louis area and need music for your students, come on by and take a look at the State List music we have in stock.

In addition, in-stock new band titles are 30% off at the MMEA convention! Grab a few titles for your spring concert, or be prepared in advance for your next year's students. We accept school billing as well as credit cards, so stop by our booth at MMEA and chat with wind band expert Jeff Girard about our inventory and how we can help serve you and your school. See you all at the Lake!

01/03/2026

📣Band directors, welcome to January! This is Jeff Girard with your reminder that EVERY SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY is opening at the same time and ordering music. The normal turnaround time on sheet music orders will be a few days longer than usual - some of the larger publishers can get up to 5-6 days behind on filling orders.

I do have ways around this, so let me know your time frame. If I say it will take at least 2 weeks and you need it sooner, tell me and I'll lay out some options for you based on who the publisher is and what music you're ordering.

Looking forward to helping all of you; Scott and I have been preparing for this month ever since Gateway Sheet Music opened in February. Bring it on, I'm ready!

Send a message to learn more

12/20/2025

And just like that, the Midwest clinic is over for us. I admit, it was nice not to have to break down 20 booth spaces worth of materials this time around.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by and said hello, and in particular a special thank you to those who did not know about the demise of Midwest Sheet Music and my move to Gateway Sheet Music. I hope I can continue to help some of you in the months and years to come with any sort of wind band help, whether it's research, finding literature, or helping with programming. It was great seeing some of my old friends and comrades again, and it fills me with new hope going forward with this new enterprise. I look forward to seeing many of you again next year. Safe travels home everybody!

12/17/2025

We're set up and ready to go at the Midwest Clinic. Hope to see some of you here soon!

12/17/2025

We are the US distributors for Maecenas Music. If you have a band capable of intermediate to advanced works, stop by our booth at the Midwest Clinic and ask me about their publications. If you're not familiar with any of their most popular works, like Awayday, Paris Sketches, and Yiddish Dances, ask me. They also have a number of new works, including Trad Session and Monsters by Stephen Mcneff, which is a follow up to one of my favorite band works of all times, Ghosts.

I've got flyers with information on many of their newer charts, including QR links to listen, view scores, and purchase. Come pick one up and talk with me about their selections. Not enough directors in the US are aware of Maecenas Music and what they have to offer, and I'd like to do my part to change that.

12/06/2025

Here's two contest and concert suggestions for Intermediate Band from Jeff Girard at Gateway Sheet Music.

If you’re a high school director who hasn’t picked out all your contest music yet, or if you work at a college with a smaller band department, I have a couple of suggestions to consider here. I meant to post about this a while ago, but I was still getting my feet on the ground at the new business here.

Rosso Galante has started to make a name for himself by establishing a sound all his own early on in his career. Two of his pieces that came out this fall I particularly latched on to, “Wistful Wind” and “Vertical Terrain”.

Wistful wind is a lovely Grade 3 ballad, while Vertical Terrain is a Grade 4 work with a bold opening leading to an exciting rhythmic intensity. In both pieces I greatly enjoyed his use of color, the shape of his melodic phrases, the cinematic sounds achieved in peak moments, and the use of harmonic rhythm to compliment the melodic line and keep the harmony from feeling static. His use of non-chord moving tones (suspensions, retardations, appoggiaturas, etc) are very tasteful and if I was conducting, I would be teaching my group how to lean into those tones and resolve them musically. There are plenty of places in both pieces to teach players to look up to watch how you might stretch or push time, shape a phrase, and balance different lines.

Even in the published recordings I was hearing places where I would want to shape the phrase a little differently, or emphasize a particular sound more. I can hear different ways directors may want to shape the music, which I find a good quality in a musical work. If you’re working with an intermediate band and you want a chance to teach concepts that aren’t just about “reading the notes correctly”, I think either of these pieces would be a good fit for you. Even if you aren’t normally a fan of Galante, I still encourage you to listen to these two pieces if you work with a grade 3 or 4 ensemble.

Let me know some of your thoughts in the comments below. First comment has links to the two pieces on our web site – which you can buy in physical or digital format. Hmm, I might have buried the lead here, the digital access is going to be tomorrow’s announcement…

12/03/2025

For 28 years now I have been asked if there is a full score available for “Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper” by Weinberger, arranged by Bainum. For 28 years I have replied, “No, it’s condensed score only, sorry”.

UNTIL NOW!

Introducing the critical edition of “Polka and Fugue by Schwanda the Bagpiper”, as edited by Devin Otto! I met Devin at a CBDNA national conference many years ago (Atlanta, maybe?) and we were talking about band music that needed updated, full score editions. We talked about Schwanda and I mentioned to him how many times every year I get asked if there is a full score available for this. I gave him some information on who to contact and what might be involved in tackling such a project, and he took off with it. It’s taken a long time to do the work and clear all the editorial and licensing hurdles, but it is done!

This is the definitive version of the “Polka and Fugue”. In addition to a full score and freshly typeset and corrected parts (including separate percussion parts), Devin has included meticulous background notes and historical information about the piece. The music is sold in a “hybrid” format, in which you get the full printed score and then access to PDF parts to print as you need.

This is a great chance for you and your students to rediscover one of the greatest concert fugues ever written, transcribed so well that you’ll be hard pressed to imagine that it was originally for orchestra. If you’re attending the Midwest Conference, come take a look at our booth and see about picking up a copy for yourself. I’m already imagining how much more I can pull out of our ensemble musically now that I’ll be able to see how all the lines are scored and how all the instruments’ dynamics are marked. This is a great chance to dive deeper into this masterpiece than ever before. Purchase your copy today at Gateway Sheet Music!

EDIT - as of today, the separate score is not yet available. It should be ready soon if you just want the score alone, but I advise you to purchase the entire piece since there were plenty of minor corrections made in the parts. I've already learned that when the parts don't match the score precisely, I can lose a lot of rehearsal time struggling to find out why I'm not hearing what I think I should be hearing. :)

12/01/2025

Big news - Gateway Sheet Music will be exhibiting at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago!

That's right, we've made arrangements to come and exhibit in Chicago in just a few weeks. We'll be bringing a selection of concert band scores, concert band sets, and solo/ensemble materials for you to peruse and purchase. More importantly, Jeff Girard will be there to meet and greet all the directors. If you worked with him before, you'll know he is a fountain of information when it comes to wind band literature and knowledge.

We'll be in the same place that Midwest Sheet Music used to be before they closed their doors, so come on over to the far end of the publisher's block and greet us! With your help, we'll be able to grow this business to the point where we can bring even more literature next year. We look forward to seeing you all there, and as always let us know what we can do for you, because here at Gateway Sheet Music, "We Know Our Sheet"!

10/30/2025

Child's Garden of Dreams - NOW FOR SALE AND NOT RENTAL!

You can follow me at Gateway Sheet Music on Facebook and Instagram to keep up on the latest in sheet music information. I've got plenty more information to share with everyone.