Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you still buy scores?

Heh...

First of all, I've been away for such a long time... Sorry about that. I've had a thesis to deliver, a move to Greece, several gigs, and other stuff which kept me away from the Internet alltogether, apart from very specific forums, where my post count dropped from 10000000 a day to 1 a week or so!

So...

This is NOT about piracy! Thanks

As a pianist I used to buy a lot of scores... Scriabin stuff, Prokofiev, Sattie, good editions of Beethoven and Bach, Mozart sonatas Twice... Other smaller pieces, concertos, etc...

As a composer I haven't bought that many things. University gave me access to tons of stuff, so... :-/ and it's not much about studying every day and keeping notes, etc, but it's about analysing, which takes less time, so there's not exactly a "solid" reason to go on and buy stuff in study scores. Plus the Messiaen/Ligeti scores cost the earth (orchestral stuff).

As a teacher now (in composition and in piano), I tend to provide info on where to buy the best editions for crucial stuff (Bach/Beethoven, or some theoritical books like Persicetti/Kurt Stone/etc), and I provide the rest from the Internet, or lend scores to people to study.

IMSLP has given me free and most valuable access to various scores, which until now, and as a student myself I had to buy! Some of my scores used to be there, until I run into some copyright issues and had to remove them! (and since then I'm VERY cautious when Creative Commons is mentioned).

And we can carry on to the question then

Where to YOU stand?

I believe that as a composer I could write some beautiful piano music (easy or harder or extremely hard), and I can provide examples (in mp3 for now)
www.nikolas-sideris.com/stuff/CUDE.mp3
www.nikolas-sideris.com/stuff/unique.mp3
www.nikolas-sideris.com/stuff/seawatching.mp3
www.nikolas-sideris.com/AGS/Chocolate.mp3
www.nikolas-sideris.com/AGS/perniciosus.mp3 (piano by Krystian Benetzanou, a great pianist!)
(some are not solo piano, but they feature piano extensively).

Would you buy scores? Do you buy scores from relatively (<-EXTREMELY) unknown composers? Would you enjoy to see some normally published piano music in real printed paper, instead of PDF files?

Any comments are most welcome.

I love your compositions. They're beautiful....

I think I like CUDE and seawatching best, I probably could only play seawatching.

I don't buy from unknown composers because I wouldn't know where to look.

I have purchased about 75% of my music in music stores or online, real books, usually with a CD. But recently joined Piano Street and get music from them, also from musicnotes.com,just because they offer a free sample first page, and have gotten music from some of the free sites. I prefer real sheet music on high quality thicker paper, the visual appearance is important to me.

If I had the ability to buy from unknown composers I probably would, I would of course have to be able to hear the music.

Extremely well thought comments! CUDE is VERY difficult, close to impossible (for very specific reasons which I can't get into right now...).

The comment you make about not knowing where to look is linked to marketing and advertising, which is something to be considered... But musicnotes and pianostreet are both very good ideas...

Lastly the idea of listening to the piece before buying it is also brilliant!

Thanks for the comments!

"Would you buy scores?"

Oh, yes. In fact, I'm due to visit my favorite music store any time now.

"Do you buy scores from relatively (<-EXTREMELY) unknown composers?"

Aren't most of them pretty much unknown these days? Oh--- sorry, didn't mean to be so dark. But no; I usually buy the books because I want to learn some particular work (or try), and I like collections because I usually find at least something I can play. Collections also often feature less-well-known composers, though; people the editors want to give the chance of some exposure.

"Would you enjoy to see some normally published piano music in real printed paper, instead of PDF files?"

Well, I like both. I've lived through the era of 8mm home movies and record players, carbon paper and mimeograph machines, and now into a time where ordinary CDs are apparently going to be phased out in favor of SACD (or pure electrons). So to me, there's nothing like hardcopy. I agree with Nikalette that the paper and binding, print quality, and editorial value are important (and too often not so great), but I like the online sites too. Usually I scan pages from my scores and print them out, so I can mark them up all I want... and find them without rummaging through the books.

Whenever I want to learn something, I buy the score. Much easier to read notes with the oversized sheets.

It seems to me that the trouble is getting your name out along with giving people a "reason to want to buy" your music. In my opinion, a good way to start would be to just start cranking stuff out and publishing the recordings on YouTube. You'll start getting feedback and when you have enough interest, you can get the most popular ones published and then link from the YouTube videos to the sheet music website. However, you might be able to leverage your contacts to do better than the 100% anonymous approach.

Clayton -

If you're thinking of composing for profit, it seems like a questionable strategy to artificially restrict your market to the tiniest number of pianists. Just a friendly observation.

Clayton -

Thanks for the feedback so far.

In this thread I try to separate the marketing/advertising strategies involved in such a move and the actual fact of buying a score from a contemporary composer.

While a student and a teacher I do disctinguish between the 'necessary' scores that one needs to own... (Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Rach, etc...) and those which would be geared to pure pleasure. It's impossible to hit the market as a 'necessity' score, but maybe there's a nitch there for a pure pleasure market, if this does happen.

Youtube is definately a channel to invest to, as well as forums, banners, specific website, flash videos and concerts as well.

Yes, I still buy scores... I LOVE looking around in music stores. I also love to visit second-hand shops now and then because that's where you find real bargains and sometimes scores you wouldn't find in music stores. I like to be surprised...

Do I buy scores? You wanna see my music room? Short answer - yes, I do. I would buy anything I thought was interesting for myself or my students. Especially new music. Hearing a sample, or looking at the score would probably be essential, unless it was recommended by someone whose opinion I valued.

You say "It's impossible to hit the market as a 'necessity' score" - but if you managed to get some of your works included in the syllabus of one of the examination boards, it would attain necessity status!

It would be such fun to play one of your pieces for friends and have an interesting story to tell about the unknown composer.

Heh...

CUDE (full name is "The City Under Different Eyes", but it's too long to keep using it again and again, was written as a part of my thesis for my PhD in composition. It's linked to some ideas about recording vs music, and how one could perceive a recording as a different medium of art, or a different art altogether and how a composer could utilize ideas and aesthetics without being bound on the technical issues of a lice performance...

This is why it's so hard (close to impossible).

Chopinaddict everyone else: So it does seem that you are still bassing your buys on 'traditional' means of going in the music shop and looking through scores. It also seems that you'd like to listen to the music before buying it, if possible (although I would argue that a somewhat good level pianist would be able to visualize parts of the music, at least being able to "listen in their head" and see if they like it).

currawong: If I could manage that, it would be extra cool I think!

Nikalette: This is also part of the idea I had. I've had a few good friends provide a very thorough analysis of the pieces (some of them, not all), so along with other "trivia" (for me, but not for others) information, maybe captures of the handwritten scores, etc, would make the package more complete.

I believe that for someone to buy a printed score it needs to be... well made and to offer additional stuff to just a PDF.

The City Under Different Eyes.... What a great name....

If I'm hesitating over whether to buy a score or not, print size and quality are what will tip me over the edge. If I'm going to have real difficulty reading it then it would have to be very exciting music for me to cough up the cash for it.

And by the way, welcome back, Nikolas. I always enjoyed your posts.

Thanks Nikallete. (And thanks currawong! I actually did miss this place... but PhD deadlines hit me very hard!)
Yup quality plays a crucial part in printing.

Buying scores? absolutely. If I know a specific piece that I'd like to get, I will find it online from one of my preferred publishers if it's in their catalog, or a set of pieces such as Mozart/ Beethoven/ Haydn Sonatas. If I'm looking for scores for students, I'll usually go to a music store to get it, since it's faster and there's always plenty of scores geard towards learners at stores, especially method books and simple pieces by well-known composers.

Occassionally I'll find something that looks interesting for myself while I'm perusing the scores and pick it up there, but most of my shopping for pieces to prepare for performance are done online.

Unknown composers I don't really buy the scores of unless I've seen their work somewhere else first and liked it. On one occassion I simply had to ask for a copy of a score (yes offered to pay) from the composer backstage and he just said to have the one I was perusing. Though on that occassion I was also page turning for the pianist who was to premiere the piece with a cellist, violinist, and narrator, so I knew how it sounded...

I don't think most pianists, even good ones, are able to listen in their head with any degree of accuracy, at least not enough accuracy to know if they would like the music. Doing that requires a fair amount training of a kind that pianists usually don't get. I think they might be able to sort of have an idea of the sound of the piece if the notation is fairly standard, but I think it would be exceptional to find the pianist who would be able to tell if it was music they would like just from looking at it.

I think, at best, most would be able to get some idea of the idiom, and possibly spot elements that seem interesting, and if there was an obvious tune, possibly they could hum it, but I don't think that they would have more than a vague idea of what it sounded like unless the music was extraordinarily simple, and most music just isn't that simple.

Oh you're right... I didn't mean to actually listen accurently in their head (this is why I put the "" on). But I do believe that one can see if something is interesting to begin with or not. :-/

Also, I hardly think that anybody (or lets say 1% of the whole piainstic population) would march into a music store, look at a new piece, from a composer they've never heard and buy the score. I do hope that I would introduce the pieces to the potential pianists and then they would buy it.

Some random comments:

1) I buy new music all the time.

2) I play a LOT of new music, often written by student composers or composers who have recently graduated. I would say that about 99% of it is either unnecessarily difficult, awkward, or poorly/confusingly notated. Too many composers make a habit of editing their own scores, and very few of them do it well.

3) Composers should take a lesson from Bartok, Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky. All of them wrote music of extremely high quality that is easily accessible to student, amateur, and casual pianists. The albums for the young by Tchaikovsky and Schumann, as well as the Beethoven sonatinas and bagatelles, and Bartok's Music for Children, Roumanian Folk Dances, Ten Easy Pieces, etc.... Very, very few composers writing today are interested in or good enough to produce quality music for casual pianists. (Lowell Liebermann is a notable exception. His Album for the young is excellent.)

4) Nobody's really figured out a good method of digital delivery for sheet music yet. People don't like installing Scorch or Finale Reader to use their services (and most of the stuff on Finale Showcase and SibeliusMusic is garbage anyway.) Composers don't like offering pdf scores because they're too easy to pirate. Lulu ( www.lulu.com ) looks promising, but you still need a way for people to browse the scores. (And listen to them being performed - MIDI recordings, even good ones run through a nice sampler, rarely sound adequate.)

5) Composers don't seem to think about technique anymore. They write the sound they want without thinking about how it's to be played. Fur Elise isn't just popular because it sounds good, it's popular because it *feels* good under the hands. Same with Knecht Ruprecht. Same with Chopin's waltzes.

6) On a related note, just think of all the intermediate and early-advanced literature we have by Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Grieg - dozens and dozens of works by each composer. There's something to be said for quantity - it gives people a range of music to choose from. Like Berg? Tough, there's one sonata, and if you can't play it, you're out of luck. Like Grieg? Cool - there's a ton of stuff to choose from in a variety of difficulty levels, styles, tempi, and moods.

John,

Great comments all around!

some replies (no numbering really).

Some of the points you make, I agree. I do belong to the 'academia', which is producing a great variaty of composers. I do find that it also "kills music" much more than piracy does! (LOL anyone?). But it still remains that I think I'm one of the very few people with (very) advanced studies in composition who also play an instrument well. Most, if not all the composers I know, do not play the piano, and actually have developed a reasoning on "why it's good to not know an instrument well, when you're composing", or so! I dissagree with that and piano is my instrument. All pieces in the mp3 were played by me, except Perniciosus (pianist was mentioned, and it is a difficult piece to play) and CUDE for the reasons already mentioned.

"Bad" piano music is written by people who don't play the piano! And the notation is even worst at that!

At some point I tried to push 6 of my pieces (3 piano pieces and 3 strings). The idea was left alone, but I did have a great guy edit my music and notation! I don't think he really touched on the pianistic idioms, or the string ones like a pro performer would, but he did edit out many other things.

On the easiness of the pieces. You are right and I'm definately thinking of that.

On the variaty, I also agree! It simply makes sense.

So in all, thanks for your great comments!

Finally on the digital delivery. I don't mind PDF files too much, although piracy is an issue. But I do hope that the buying group will be rather specific and 'specialized' that piracy is not much of a problem... And either way if bands can offer mp3s, with the risk of piracy, then I can probably offer PDF files.

But I did actually check with 3 music stores in Greece, Athens today about two things: How to get published and how to get into their selves. Publishing seems a little tricky, but getting my books onto their selves does seem rather easier. The same applies for CDs apparently!

I would hope to be able to sell scores/CDs from a personal website (paypal), or through amazon and arrange shipping myself. Printing also myself.