Klarinet Archive - Posting 000015.txt from 2010/09

From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Pros and Cons of Free Sheet Music
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:02:47 -0400

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 7:28 AM, retiredprof55 <retiredprof55@-----.com> wro=
te:
> I am sharing an excerpt from my monthly newsletter with this group with t=
he hope of stimulating some dialogue.
>
> Have you ever walked into a music store and come across a bin of free mus=
ic? Perhaps, but more often, it might be a bin of >music at half price beca=
use the music has not sold well. What about finding everything in the sheet=
music department for >free? I bet your answer to this question is no. Howe=
ver, I would suggest that the internet has radically changed our >expectati=
ons regarding sheet music.
>
> With the advent of technologies like Sibelius=92 Scorch Player and PDF fi=
les where downloading and self printing of sheet >music is as easy as click=
ing your mouse, have we lost sight of what actually goes into the creation =
of music? Is the >availability of free music beneficial or detrimental to t=
he music world?

I don't think it makes sense to think of it in terms of beneficial or
detrimental to the music or any world. I think it makes more sense to
think of it in terms of individual people's needs (e.g. the
performer/composer). One may be in an economic situation where one
must obtain remuneration for one's work. Others may not be.

It can be a bit more difficult when you get into large organizations
such as publishing companies, where there are a lot of people with
different needs involved. This can make it difficult to adjust to
individual's needs.

On the other hand, large organizations that produce a consistent
product at a consistent price are good if most individuals (employees
and customers alike) are able to get what they need.

For that matter, if having music online for free is detrimental to the
music industry, so is oral tradition, where people sing their own
songs and pass them down without the middle man producing printed
music.

Probably more important to the music industry is keeping people and
thus the economy healthy.

After all, if more sheet music is printed at home, that extra toner
and paper for the printer will have to come from somewhere. So, the
music industry might produce musically specialized printing equipment,
and people interested in music will probably go into the printer
business and do musical stuff on the side, including donating to the
arts.

The music industry is also quite a bit different from other industries
such as those involved in food, fuel and housing. These things need
to be consistently available at a reasonable price. Music, though
people may feel the absence of printing, if they have prior experience
with it, can be transported solely through oral tradition. Yet they
will pay high prices on individual occasions for particularly nice
things, such as a well crafted musical instrument.

Quality of copy (editing and even whether music is, for example,
scanned clearly) can be important, which may deteriorate in the case
of free music. Files get corrupted. There is work involved in
producing new files. The aesthetics of the paper used is also a
consideration. Home printer paper does not provide the variety that
comes with purchased music.

I think in the case of a music store, there is also a psychological
and social element, where the music store can represent a territory of
sorts. It can feel invasive and hurtful to the proprietor to not have
some sort of transaction. That proprietor did put effort into
organizing and caring for the store. It can also feel awkward for the
"customer", especially when conditioned to "pay" for things. I think
this is illustrated in differences in behavior between small
communities where everyone knows one another and large cities. Also
in a protectiveness small communities can exhibit against outsiders.
Less money is exchanged when people know one another.

Oliver Seely has a good point that it takes a lot of work to download
a whole score and individual instrumental parts. Printing things
drives me nuts. Plus I can be a bit of a perfectionist and put way
more work into something than it really needs. On the other hand, I
could imagine a school orchestra having a subscription to a music
clearing house site (something like sciencedirect), where students are
required to go download their parts as "homework" before the first
rehearsal. This could work for a national orchestra too. It would
save time with music distribution during rehearsal. However, the
digital divide would have to be accommodated; for example library and
computer lab facilities may need to be augmented to accommodate extra
printing. Things could get really fancy with "kindle" music stands
(if they haven't already).

-Jennifer

> To read more on this subject, please go to my newsletter at http://www.co=
oppress.net/page9/page15/page50/page50.html
>
> Dr. Sy Brandon, composer and arranger
> Professor Emeritus of Music
> Millersville University of Pennsylvania
>
> retiredprof55@-----.com
> Website =A0http://cooppress.net

Miscellaneous thoughts I did not incorporate into the above:
Community members or employees that are part of that community can
serve as the interface for individuals who cannot adapt to the large
company's system.

That is one of the things that frightens me about the supreme court's
ruling in the states giving corporations person-hood such that they
can make campaign contributions. It will make it more difficult for
individuals to get their needs taken care of; especially if that
individual has a submissive and self deprecating personality. If they
are not good at expressing their needs, or do not know what their
needs are, they will either acquire that skill by sink-or-swim
learning or end up on the streets.
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