[814jazzer]

Two questions:

1. (For composer / arrangers): Have you gotten into PDF distribution of your charts? If so can you discuss the ups & downs of your experiences?

2. (For all saxophonists!): Have you purchased downloadable sheet music? If so, can you discuss your experiences, touching on what's cool, what's a pain, and what you'd like to see?

Thanks!
~ Rick

 

[69193]

Two questions:

1. (For composer / arrangers): Have you gotten into PDF distribution of your charts? If so can you discuss the ups & downs of your experiences?

2. (For all saxophonists!): Have you purchased downloadable sheet music? If so, can you discuss your experiences, touching on what's cool, what's a pain, and what you'd like to see?

Thanks!
~ Rick

I've downloaded individual pieces of sheet music. I do like that it's convenient and I can see an excerpt before I pay/download. If I want it now...I can go online, download a piece, and print it out without leaving the house.

What I don't like...speaking from the perspective of an individual that only needs one copy/horn selection...is that it's far more expensive (from a $/song standpoint) than going to a music store and buying a book with 50+ songs included. Granted that's not an option for every piece.

I'm sure that for someone like a band teacher that needs a selection for multiple horns and the ability to store the music for a later date and print multiple copies, downloaded music is a better value. I remember the size of the room my high school band teacher had just to store music. PDF's give them the ability to store the music electronically and not have to catalog/store large amounts of paper copies. Just my $.02.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Your PDFs will get pirated and fileshared.

Having said that, my physical publications and sheet music get scanned then pirated and fileshared. It's just that PDfs make it slightly easier for the scoundrels.

To counter Sterling's point about the cost, yes buying per song is going to be expensive, it pointless changing less than £1, especially with commissions going to Paypal or Credit Card merchant interfaces, but what I do is bundle a dozen arrangements to together and charge £6 or something. Include parts for all instruments, Eb, Bb, C and bass and that way people get very good value.

Besides if they are originals rather than covers then that's most likely what they want rather than one specific chart.

You mention composer/arrangers though. If you are doing arrangements as opposed to your own stuff, then you need to get the permission of the publisher, and that is a big can of worms.

 

[69193]

Your PDFs will get pirated and fileshared.

Having said that, my physical publications and sheet music get scanned then pirated and fileshared. It's just that PDfs make it slightly easier for the scoundrels.

To counter Sterling's point about the cost, yes buying per song is going to be expensive, it pointless changing less than £1, especially with commissions going to Paypal or Credit Card merchant interfaces, but what I do is bundle a dozen arrangements to together and charge £6 or something. Include parts for all instruments, Eb, Bb, C and bass and that way people get very good value.

Besides if they are originals rather than covers then that's most likely what they want rather than one specific chart.

You mention composer/arrangers though. If you are doing arrangements as opposed to your own stuff, then you need to get the permission of the publisher, and that is a big can of worms.

Yup. I understand that. Your way around that makes it reasonable. I wouldn't mind paying that amount at all.

 

[Jazztenor87]

I've dealt with lots of downloadable sheet music. A worship music website I used had password-protected PDFs that seemed to work well for them.

As someone said above, it is pretty expensive to buy individual tunes through someone like musicnotes.com. And they only let you print it, not save it to PDF. This creates extra hassle for the buyer, but is an extra step sheet music pirates would probably avoid.

 

[tflanster]

Wikifonia - hundreds of free lead sheets.

 

[Pete Thomas]

And they only let you print it, not save it to PDF. This creates extra hassle for the buyer,

I can understand making it not saveable to PDF, as that would not normally be necessary as making digital copies would be against a normal copyright licence anyway. Obviously you need to print parts for yourself and /or the musicians and singers in your ensemble.

But this is the way it works with normal digital publishing, e.g. kindle books. I can't make PDF copies, but having bought a book, it's available to me on my computer or my iPad or any future devices I register with Kindle. I think that seems fair. Allowing people to make PDFs is almost asking for piracy.

So, if I had the means, I would do exactly the same rather than selling PDFs and just accepting the inevitable piracy as a fact of life.

 

[Dragon]

I arrange and write out parts for my band (on a computer) then instead of printing out the parts on paper I print them to a PDF file. Then I can email the parts to my players and they can print out the parts. This saves me a ton of paper plus if they damage or lose a part they (or me) still have an electronic copy of the part and can print it out again. However, I do not sell or otherwise distribute any of my arrangements or parts; they are strictly for my band.

So PDF's work great for me. the other advantage I found recently, if a new player joins the band, I can send him the lastest parts and he prints them out. Again, saving me time, hassle and paper.

I do the same for all the lead sheets that I use in other bands. Write them up, make PDF's then print them out for myself. Now I got a permanent, clean record (copy) of the tune.

 

[bobsax]

Interesting conversation.
I do a lot of original sax trios for my students and thought it might be interesting to see if other sax players or teachers would be willing to actually pay for them.
I don't think piracy would be a problem and if people did share, so what. A few sales would be better then no sales. It's a different world then it was. Sharing is part of the dynamic.

Anybody use Sheet Music Plus?https://digitalprintpublishing.shee...ail&utm_campaign=20121029_Octoberdigiannounce
It seems like a bit of a rip-off compared to doing it yourself on your own site or ebay etc.
comments? enlightenments?

 

[Mal 2]

Personally I'm not trying to sell the arrangements, and don't really mind if they get copied and played. I'm pretty sure that any performance would be significantly different from my recordings anyhow. If it isn't, what's the point?

I just host them wherever, it's not like they take up much space or bandwidth compared to recordings. Currently they're at http://hydrogen.servegame.com/quartet/ -- which is really supposed to be a Minecraft server (and it is), but for low-demand applications like this it'll do the job. I use Bandcamp for the recordings (http://mal-2.bandcamp.com/) which I recommend because it scales well. If you're just screwing around, it'll cost you nothing and you can still get heard. If you get serious, you can sell digital files from their site.

 

[StanVI]

I've bought quite a few big band charts from http://pdfjazzmusic.com/. It's great to be able to buy a chart, download and print in a matter of minutes, rather than waiting for a week or so for hard copies to be shipped. I don't know if they have any copyright protection in place, I just use them for my band. For $20, it's pretty reasonable.