From: John Alexander Blyth
Subject: Re: Copying music for auditions
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

This is long.

I work in a music library (my "day job" but actually it's pretty good) and
also compose, and also perform. We have notices about copyright taped to our
photocopiers; there are really cheap editions of frequently used music; we
have fairly generous opening hours: yet I am faced with a photocopy culture.
People would rather photocopy an assigned chapter of a library book than
just sit down with the thing for half an hour which I don't really
understand; or they need one song from an otherwise useless anthology or
opera, which is completely understandable.
Occasionally someone will ask me about photocopying, to which I
reply: that's between you and your conscience.
As a completely obscure composer however, I would be glad and
flattered if people would make multiple copies of my music, so long as they
let people know who wrote it! That doesn't mean I think "professional"
composers should do the same, merely that I have no sympathy for them!
As a singer I like to have my own copy of the music that I sing, if
possible, even although the libraries here may have multiple copies, though
this is by no means a hard and fast rule: I'm the baritone soloist in an
upcoming Brahms' Requiem, but it is being sung in English, and I would only
wish to own the German vocal score, so I use the library's; recent opera
excerpts required a scene from Don Pasquale, but since I don't really intend
to learn the whole role, and since I had to note down a whole mess of stage
directions, a photocopy was the only reasonable choice. On the other hand
copyright has expired, not just for that work, but even from the edition I
copied from!
As a music student studying guitar, I amassed a huge pile of
photocopies, since I wanted to be familiar with as much music as possible
and was genuinely poor - it would not have been possible for me to have
obtained this music by any other means. I even had a friend make copies of
scores from a distant library. I would not have said:"I don't want to know
about this music until I can afford to buy it." However I now have actual,
bought, scores of a lot of that repertoire, and ironically enough play
guitar a lot less than I used to.
I also think that the existence of photocopying and the internet
have changed the reality of music publishing in ways that we can only begin
to grasp.
It's certainly a lot cheaper to make music available, even if good editing,
proofreading and binding are as expensive as ever.
john

At 21:44 11/01/00 -0800, you wrote:
>This issue raises an interesting question - what is one supposed to do when
>music is out of print? .....
... In addition, composers don't
>earn as many royalties and have a harder time making a living, so there's
>less incentive for people to compose and try to publish their work. And,
>unfortunately, there's no real solution at this point. The behavior (of
>photocopying music rather than buying it) has already been taught and
>justified to the majority of the music-using populace (at least, it was at
>my university).
>
>Thoughts?
>
> - Richard
>
John Blyth
Bass/Baritone (as opposed to Bass-Baritone) etc.
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada