Klarinet Archive - Posting 001022.txt from 1998/09
From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Pledge Drive Stats & the future ...
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 18:59:28 -0400
Here it is the end of day 7 of the (seemingly never-ending) pledge
drive. We now have 1510.00 pledged from 40 people, and 565.00 has
arrived at my home. The following pledges arrived in the last 24 hours:
Paul Gollum, Jason Hsien, Bill Ayris, James P. Reed, Ray Widegren, Fred
Sterns, and Bill Edinger.
I promised I'd let you in on my plans for Sneezy. Here's the list of
things I have planned over the next couple of years, besides the
"normal" expansion of the pages:
1) Integration of the Composition and Discography Databases
As it is right now these two databases are separate. What I intend to do
(and have started) is combining both into one searchable entity. Looking
up a composer, composition, publisher, or whatnot will bring up all the
information on that selection - the "who, what, where, how" parts. The
recordings will be listed, along with artist, with the publisher. Makes
life easier.
2) Expansion of both the Composition and Discography Databases
Ken Shaw has given me an extensive Discography listing that needs
normalization and integration; however, it's a great start (over 3000
pieces listed). Michael Bryant has sent me updates. Someday this whole
thing is going to be a reality.
3) Integration of printable & MIDI music along with the Composition &
Discography Databases
One of my pet peeves is the lousy printing available to us, especially
of music that is long out of copyright. The notes are wrong, the
printing barely legible, and the price astronomical. Oliver Seely has
started the drive towards reasonably good printable music, and I (along
with Eric Dannewitz) have converted them to PDF format. Most of the
pieces that Oliver has worked on are usable as is, but as some of you
know music editing is a difficult & painstaking art form. I'd like to
start a free library of music that's out of copyright, and which is in
really good usable form with playing notes and the like. I've started a
little bit, since the Neils Gade Fantasy Pieces I'm working on is out of
copyright (and I needed the accompaniment anyway); I should have a real
nice usable copy ready in about a month. Others can do the same & we can
keep them available on Sneezy. If I pay for a piece out of copyright
then it should be because the paper is great, the fonts better, etc.
Which brings me to:
4) Photocopies (scans) of rare works
Why not store good scans of rare works on sneezy? It'd be nice to see
the old printings or manuscripts. Nowadays the equipment required to do
this is rather inexpensive, and sneezy can be a central storehouse. It
would also make it easier for people to create usable scores from the
originals (see 3 above) and debate whether or not Hayden really wrote
that piece :)
5) A repository of knowledge
There is scholarly work going on in the world which concerns our chosen
instrument - but many of us are outside the academic stream, and never
hear about these things. If material can be made public (by the
copyright owners) then more of us can share in the discovery and
excitement. Already on sneezy are in-depth treatments of the Nielsen; I
want more!
I tend to think of the amateur and professional clarinet community as
the same kind that exists in astronomy; both are considered to be
important parts of a whole, and both support each other. Real work is
done on both sides; the amateurs do the work that they can afford to do,
and the professionals leverage off of much of that.
All that's really needed today for us to really help each other is a
reliable computer, a connection to the Internet, plenty of storage
space, someone crazy enough to feed and care for the computer, and, most
importantly, a community behind it. We're slowly getting to the computer
and storage, we've got the connection, the crazy is already around, and
the community is there.
Pledge if you can. The Sneezy Pledge Page is at
http://www.sneezy.org/PledgePage.html . If you can't get to the page,
please drop me a line.
I'll be in the Clarinet Chat Room this evening at 7:30 EDT (if you want
to figure out what time that is in your time zone, just go to
http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet/SneezyClock.html) and at 4:00 PM tomorrow
(along with the "regular" Sunday gang). Drop on by and give me your
thoughts. The Clarinet Chat room is at
http://www.sneezy.org/cgi-bin/chat.pl . Email from anyone out there is
also welcome at any time.
Cheers,
----
Mark Charette@-----.org
Webmaster, http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet
All-around good guy and devil-may-care flying fool.
"There can be no freedom without discipline." - Nadia Boulanger
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