 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Nelson
Date: 2021-12-05 14:58
Hi,
Slightly away from clarinet specific topics but recently, I started looking after the presidential duties of our community orchestra following the passing of our long-standing president.
Over 30 years we have accumulated eight four-drawer, nearly full filing cabinets of scores/parts. We are running out of room and we have to move the lot.
May I ask how non-professional orchestras are approaching the question of
'is it worth *storing* public domain music?' with much non-copyright repertoire symphonies overtures suites etc readily available on the www. I am encouraging 'the player prints their own part' approach when a work is chosen for an outing saving us money copying. Looking at one example, we recently played Mendelssohn's 'Scottish' and back into the filing cabinet it goes for another five years...taking up much needed drawer space (11cm for one work) and so on through the classical/romantic periods. The reason for moving is that the property is required for other council purposes and they have suggested scanning the holding and retaining on external hard drive but our parts are battle-scarred and it's just not possible to scan the lot with pages stuck together, torn etc. And why scan standard rep and available non-cop parts now anyway. Some players are moving to tablet but a minority.
The slightly painful part is chucking out the old hard copies of these great works...some containing fingerings, emphasised repeats, etc. We used to hold (pre IMSLP) our own personal copies at home but for some reason that approach was abandoned...I believe lost parts came into it.
Have others gone through any kind of culling process?
Thank you
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-12-05 15:16
Hi Nelson,
I know about two situations that might be useful for this. I will explain in case it helps.
A friend of mine recently died and he was a tenor singing coach, with many chests of drawers full of printed music. His music is being shipped to one of his students to keep. The student also teaches tenor singing.
Also, the other situation: I used to volunteer as the desktop publishing person for a community orchestra, a bit like the one you describe. In that orchestra, the conductor transcribed the works of the orchestra into sibelius. He then adjusted them for the specific players that we had at any given time. The actual old printed copies were not needed any more, although, for all I know, he may have had full scores in his house.
Here is how that worked, in case it helps:
- Conductor arranges music in Sibelius. (He had special skills at this stuff - it must have been very time-consuming I think.)
- other conductor checked the music and got all the details tidied up, including making sure there were no page turns in quite sections.
- Files sent to me by Wednesday for processing
- I checked the headings and page numbers and serial numbers for the arrangments.
- I used scripts that I had written in Manuscript language, which is the scripting language in Sibelius, to batch process the files into pdfs, for all the different sections.
- I uploaded them to GitHub, which is a version control server on the internet. This is where the scripts were actually stored long term, so we needed no physical storage space, but still had years worth of scores available when needed.
- Some other scripts written by our drummer caused the files then to be imported into our orchestra website so the players could download and print them.
- I sent the email newsletter to the players with the links
- They printed their parts and brought them on the Sunday night.
In the few weeks before a concert we would get a few extra people coming in and I used to also send out complete sets for individual players (e.g. complete set of basson parts). This was very quick to do, because I had named the files so that I could filter them out and compile them into single files with Acrobat.
Some players brought their music on a kindle or tablet, but it was mostly paper.
I really loved that job. It was great.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-12-05 15:18
I forgot to say, but if you are transcribing truckloads of music into software, I think Dorico is actually much quicker than sibelius. We always used Dorico now for actually writing music, and only sometimes transfer across to siblius via an XML file if we want to do something like adding horn fingering automatically or doing other scripting stuff. The scripting in Sibelius is great.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-12-05 15:49
As a person who grew up on paper (context) I would urge anyone or any group looking to "move on from paper" to at VERY LEAST, put some effort into finding individuals or groups who would appreciate having those filing cabinets of material. Back in the day, one would seek out specific editions not only for the "more correct" notes, dynamic markings and phrasing markings, but also because some printings are much easier to read due to the care taken on HOW the notes are printed across the page. One only needs to deal with crappy Sibelius (and I mean the renderings where the person who put it together doesn't really care about the "ergonomics" of print) or Finale to realize that this is no small issue.
I can't tell you how often I ponied up the dough for a Peters edition or Breitkopf & Hartel just for the smoothness of the printed flow over the perfunctory Kalmus versions.
Whatever you guys decide to do with your "old sheet music," PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, find someone to take it off your hands!!!!!!!
.........................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2021-12-05 18:32
Nelson wrote:
> May I ask how non-professional orchestras are approaching the
> question of
> 'is it worth *storing* public domain music?' with much
> non-copyright repertoire symphonies overtures suites etc
> readily available on the www.
One reason for using original published editions for performing and rehearsing is print size. As I've gotten older, this has become more of an issue, and I still have good vision with just the correction in my contacts. Most of the published music before the advent of computer printers was printed on pages that are larger than the standard letter size paper - 8.5"x11" - used by most printers, at least in the US. So the notes are smaller and worse, the flats, sharps and naturals and the text instructions - dynamics, tempo changes, etc. - are all smaller than the originals. I'm much more comfortable reading the larger format.
This isn't true, of course, of some newer music that is created in music software and published on wide-format printers using tabloid (11"x17") sheets folded into booklets of letter-size pages. But that music is actually formatted for that page size with music characters of normal size. And it's all new enough to be protected by copyright unless the rights holder has released it for free public use.
I also agree with Paul about some of the re-engravings on IMSLP and their disregard (unawareness?) of page turns as well as lack in some cases of accuracy. At least, when you use a time-worn original of a Beethoven or Tchaikovsky symphony, the errors have been pencil-corrected by previous players.
Some of the older published music is printed poorly and is hard to read even at larger sizes, but Xeroxing it and reducing it to letter-size paper doesn't improve the clarity.
As to tablets and other electronic music displays, all the ones I've seen people using are even smaller than letter-size paper, making the size of the notation, for me at least, even more of an issue. I practice often from IMSLP copies on a laptop, but I wouldn't feel comfortable performing that way.
My vote would be to use original published music whenever possible regardless of its copyright protection status.
Karl
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2021-12-05 21:13
FWIW My community orchestra asks members to print their own parts from imslp. For those pieces, we just store the scores (and whatever miscellaneous parts are handed in when the set concludes). Saves a lot of sorely needed space.
The originals from music we purchase is never distributed, only photocopies - the photocopies are collected and stored.
And on occasion, we actually toss some music - either because it's dreadful or too many parts are missing and can't or shouldn't be replaced.
Our budget and long rehearsal schedule prevents us from renting music or buying several hundred US $ music.
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2021-12-05 22:06
My orchestra had the same problem. We have a lot of unusual or obscure repertoire so it’s nit on IMSLP, so worth keeping. The immediate solution to the space problem, as we’d lost the storage space we had when moved rehearsal venues, we was to distribute the library amongst six or so members.
On the paper size issue, it’s not just the size of the old paper. I agree the old larger size sheets are better to read, but that is partly countered by the fact a lot of the paper those old parts has yellowed. That can make it hard to read under some artificial lights.
As an aside about old parts, our conductor once brought in a photocopy of a flute part used by a well-known English professional orchestra. The piece had, over a long period, always been played by that orchestra on the day a monarch had died. There were quite a number of pencil scribbles as players recorded the monarch’s name, the date etc. One of those flute wags had written on the part “Not feeling too well myself”. Also, we often find with music hired from Germany a player has recorded the concert date, orchestra and conductor on the part. These things provide nice talking point, raise a smile etc. On the downside, you see parts where a player without an A Clarinet has written the Bb transposition over every note. Unfortunately, these are the sort of things I expect we’ll lose as we move to digital.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-12-05 23:32
That's a really nice story to hear JTJC. I love that the monarch's names were written in. It reminds me of the tuning dates pencilled on the sides of the middle C key on our piano, which were all during WWII.
The upside of the switch to digital, in my experience, is that children are composing more often, and more easily, and I think that's a great thing.
It's become a really easy thing for a child to bash a tune into the free version of sibelius, and then have it played back. It's a glorious way to learn.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2021-12-06 02:07
Whatever works for the individual, but please don't throw good stuff out.
I have professionally published and printed editions of things from 30 years ago. I use them. A lot of people do.
Everything I've printed was junk and got thrown out. I hardly ever used it because it was on flimsy unbound sheets. I can't keep it on the stand because it's always flying off and getting lost. It doesn't even want to stand up straight. The only time I really ever used it was for a specific performance. It's too expensive to get it bound.
By that measure, buying the music is far more environmentally responsible than printing it out. 20 people can use the exact same part over the years. If you figure how many times it gets printed but not used, misprinted, and re-printed, electronic versions actually consume reams of paper. Also, a lot of scotch tape. One professional copy is good for 100 years or more if taken care of.
Professionally published music comes on larger, heaver sheets that have folds, etc. It's more durable, it looks better (at least the old stuff does), and easier to read. I can't stand (no pun, ok pun) reading music on the ipad, and I don't want it falling on the floor and busting into a million pieces. I'm way too clumsy.
The trashing of our libraries (literally), music or otherwise, is an inestimable cultural loss. Digital copies can be deleted with a keystroke, are often incomplete or poorly done, and are hard to organize. Lots of good stuff never gets scanned. Files can get corrupted. I have a 30+ page bibliography that I did that is corrupted. Over time file formats change, and sometimes old formats become impossible to open, or are displayed incorrectly. Re-formatting and migrating data becomes a huge problem. Digital music copies aren't really practical for everyday use, at least until everyone throws away their Manhasset for an "Apple iStand". (No, there is no such thing...)
IMSLP is great for a lot of things. I think that digital archives are awesome, like this one: https://confessio.ie/#. It's a great way that a lot of people can access rare copies like manuscripts. However, they can't be a one-to-one substitute for the real thing.
I'm only saying that they aren't strictly interchangeable.
Also, contemporary engraving has no style.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2021-12-06 02:40)
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2021-12-07 14:06
Attachment: MuseScore_comparison.jpg (616k)
This is a sad situation, but I really hope the printed parts can be saved. Can't you find a dozen orchestra members willing to store part of the collection each?
I certainly second the many comments above that the traditionally typeset parts tended to look much better, and are worth keeping on those grounds alone. I really don't understand why parts from Sibelius etc. look so terrible. You'd think they would have made a study of good traditional typesetting and want to emulate its positive features (just as Donald Knuth did when he created the TeX system for computer typesetting of mathematics). I don't use Sibelius, but I did the attached exeriment with MuseScore. This seems to share the standard problem, which is that its default output is so anaemic: the lines are all thin, and the noteheads are too small. In MuseScore, you can change this, but they don't make it easy: the places to make adjustments are buried, and you have to resort to some dirty tricks to persuade the system to do something it doesn't really want to do. But the 2nd half of the example shows you can get an effect more like traditional music printing, and I personally find it easier to read. How hard is it to make similar adjustments in Sibelius?
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-12-07 16:54
I see what you mean about the formatting John. It is definitely possible to fiddle about with that stuff. When I was doing it for my volunteer job, I found some references online about what the ideal size for everything was to ensure readability. I wondered if there is a page somewher that says what the absolute ideal is? That would be really useful.
I do also love the proper printed music. I went to a concert at the proper orchestra here a while back and they had rented music on their stands and it looked lovely. Our orchestra didn't have that kind of thing, because our music was written to accommodate the widely varying skill levels of the regular players. I think it just depends what different orchestras need.
It sounds as though finding some storage is the answer for Nelson's orchestra, if it can be found.
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