paperless

[bloke]

One of the freeway philharmonics with which I play made an announcement on Facebook that they are going paperless, and within the announcement they state that they are sending out postcards with additional information about it... yes, really.

[russiantuba]

I’m curious about copyright laws regarding this (and rentals).

[MiBrassFS]

“This message will self destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

[bloke]

I believe they were referring to tickets and programs, Dr. Green.
============
Regarding Dr. Green's interpretation of "paperless", I don't know if rules have changed regarding copyrighted music, but some orchestras are nearly coercing me into buying a tablet so I can upload music that they've already converted to PDFs on their musicians websites onto my own tablet.

I've checked the pricing on tablets (the only ones which are large enough whereby I could reasonably easily read off of them). I'm not interested in spending that amount of money to make an employer's job easier. I'd be glad to make a good effort to work with a 14-inch (though 16 would be more like it, were those available, as 14 is minimally acceptable) tablet were one supplied to me - and were the librarian to load the music on it every month. In other words, I'm not interested in spending any additional money nor doing any additional time/work beyond that to which I've agreed to do and have traditionally done in the past (particularly not with the reduction of rehearsals and other budget cuts and other requirements which have subtly been added on over the years, and not even adding the fact that money is worth half as much as it was into the equation). Preparing all of my passages, knowing when to play them, showing up for all of the contracted times, supplying very expensive and very fine instruments rent-free to these orchestras, playing those instruments well, and furnishing/wearing the (impeccably cleaned) clothes they require me to wear are the things I'm accustomed to doing and supplying.

[Mary Ann]

I hope you understand that you will eventually be out of a job. Resistance is futile. Maybe you'll be ready to give it all up by then anyway, and move into a 55+ assisted living trailer court in a big city.

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

I’m curious about copyright laws regarding this (and rentals).

There are a handful of digital services available, such as nKoda for distribution of digital sheet music and Newzik for orchestra management of digital sheet music. Some composers and publishers only provide music in PDF format, and many rental works are also available digitally (through something like nKoda).

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

One of the freeway philharmonics with which I play made an announcement on Facebook that they are going paperless, and within the announcement they state that they are sending out postcards with additional information about it... yes, really.

This is exactly how they should handle it, it's not ironic. You would expect them to use the previous form of communication to update you of the change to the new form. That way, anyone who previously only received paper notifications and didn't have an email address on file with the symphony would have the opportunity to provide one. To not do so would mean those individuals would just abruptly and inexplicably stop receiving notifications from the symphony.

[bloke]

To this very day with my customers, I get no results from the emails - even when they have interesting pictures and catchy subject lines. I get a little bit of response from mailed fliers, and I get nearly 100% positive sales from in-person visits. This is why music stores still have road salesman to this day, and why grocery stores still mail out their weekly specials.

It's the same with me: I delete emails without reading them, I might take a look at a flier that's mailed, and - if someone knocks on my door - I'll talk to them for just about as long as I have time to do so.

Getting back to symphony orchestras, the very worst thing that many of them do is their websites. Those few who are still interested in orchestra concerts want to know what's going to be played. It's often very difficult to glean that information from an orchestra's website.
Orchestra websites seem to be focused on donors, and that's rarely the type of people who are attracted to those sites.

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

Getting back to symphony orchestras, the very worst thing that many of them do is their websites. Those few who are still interested in orchestra concerts want to know what's going to be played. It's often very difficult to glean that information from an orchestra's website.
Orchestra websites seem to be focused on donors, and that's rarely the type of people who are attracted to those sites.

That's never been my experience, but I pulled up about a half dozen orchestra websites to check, including orchestras in your area. All of them have upcoming events on their home page, with at least the next concert, if not more right there. Season schedules are at most one click away, usually in the homepage navigation bar.

I really haven't been able to find any examples of "very difficult" websites to find concert information on, so if you have some specific examples you would like to share, I'd be happy to look at it.

[russiantuba]

[quote=bloke post_id=97817 time=<a href="tel:1728529890">1728529890</a> user_id=82]
Getting back to symphony orchestras, the very worst thing that many of them do is their websites. Those few who are still interested in orchestra concerts want to know what's going to be played. It's often very difficult to glean that information from an orchestra's website.
Orchestra websites seem to be focused on donors, and that's rarely the type of people who are attracted to those sites.

That's never been my experience, but I pulled up about a half dozen orchestra websites to check, including orchestras in your area. All of them have upcoming events on their home page, with at least the next concert, if not more right there. Season schedules are at most one click away, usually in the homepage navigation bar.

I really haven't been able to find any examples of "very difficult" websites to find concert information on, so if you have some specific examples you would like to share, I'd be happy to look at it.
[/quote]

I think he might also be referring to pop up ads. I went to several symphony orchestras and got annoying pop ups.

For example, I’m rehearsing with a smaller group in Cincinnati in a couple weeks and have been playing right across the river several times with a pro tuba quartet. If I wanted to catch a CSO concert as part of this, I would pick my phone up and go to the website. This is not what I want to see. I tried a few other smaller orchestras and got similar pop ups.

[bloke]

I typically find that concerts are named via the main piece or composer or they list the guest soloist but I have to dig to find which (typically) three pieces are to be performed on every concert throughout the entire season. Maybe I don't click like other people click and therefore miss what I should see...(??)

The worst ones are those which are labeled something like "Winter Contemplation", or something like that. You click on there and then you see the soloist but you still don't see the three pieces they're going to play.
I feel confident that I'm not the only one who's clicked around orchestra websites and it's taken several minutes to find anything about what's actually going to be played on the concerts throughout the year. I don't just want to know what's going to be played next week. I'd like to know what they're playing (again, everything they're playing) on May 23rd, etc.

Of course, the worst-described concerts - as far as specifics are concerned - are the pops concerts. They rarely list any of the pieces they're going to play, even though those are the concerts that most people are going to know the pieces.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm not buying a tablet to read their charts?

[russiantuba]

This is exactly how they should handle it, it's not ironic. You would expect them to use the previous form of communication to update you of the change to the new form. That way, anyone who previously only received paper notifications and didn't have an email address on file with the symphony would have the opportunity to provide one. To not do so would mean those individuals would just abruptly and inexplicably stop receiving notifications from the symphony.

I originally thought it was regarding the music, but since it is the programs, I am going to take the notion that they wouldn't mail out postcards of the programs in the past. Most people use their phones or a computer to check this information, and signs in the lobbies at the doors for the usual patrons saying starting on XYZ season, we are going to go paperless, would be more effective.

Then again, I hate it when tuba conferences and other events go digital--its another reason to be on my phone not focused on the music to read program notes. Talk to any composer about digital programs---they don't seem to be fans either!

[bloke]

If we go completely paperless with everything, the world's going to be taken by pulp wood trees. They will become the new kudzu.

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

This is exactly how they should handle it, it's not ironic. You would expect them to use the previous form of communication to update you of the change to the new form. That way, anyone who previously only received paper notifications and didn't have an email address on file with the symphony would have the opportunity to provide one. To not do so would mean those individuals would just abruptly and inexplicably stop receiving notifications from the symphony.

I originally thought it was regarding the music, but since it is the programs, I am going to take the notion that they wouldn't mail out postcards of the programs in the past. Most people use their phones or a computer to check this information, and signs in the lobbies at the doors for the usual patrons saying starting on XYZ season, we are going to go paperless, would be more effective.

Then again, I hate it when tuba conferences and other events go digital--its another reason to be on my phone not focused on the music to read program notes. Talk to any composer about digital programs---they don't seem to be fans either!

Well, I originally assumed that Bloke was referring to marketing materials, which typically exists in both digital and physical formats. But since Bloke chose not to provide enough information to start, we both made incorrect assumptions.

So did the symphony also go paperless with marketing? If they did, see my previous post about why sending out postcards wouldn't be ironic.

If they didn't, then it's particularly unironic. They went paperless in two areas (ticketing and programming), but it is business as usual in others (marketing), and so they are notifying patrons like they always have.

Re: mailing postcards of of programs - I think the norm is for symphonies to mail postcards of an overview of the upcoming season, with only the larger orchestras mailing more detailed program books. The symphony is probably not going paperless with these though, because these are marketing materials. They are probably going paperless with the bulky, full-detailed season program books often made available to patrons at events. Depending on how many they turn-over, the program book is probably one of the most paper-intensive costs of a symphony.

[bloke]

Getting back to the sheet music version of this, my understanding is that the largest tablets made these days are generally only 14 inches diagonal, which is the size of a piece of typing paper. From what I hear, the ones that are that large are not inexpensive. Having run through two 3- hour rehearsals today playing through seeming endless pages of a film score, that size is just not large enough for the amount of details and information written on a page of sheet music, these days. I find myself writing accidentals next to notes (because fonts on a piece of paper or screen that size are so small) along with other things whereby the font is really too small to easily notice things in real time. Additionally, really well-engraved music of the past was not on white paper and wasn't printed with dot matrix printers. Truly full size older sheet music is so much easier to read. I realize that my eyesight is not what it once was, but it's still better than quite a few other people's. Also please realize that I still work on instruments where the details are considerably smaller than print and music notes. The difference is that I don't have to instantly react to details that I'm examining on instruments as I do with sheet music.

[tadawson]

Run landscape with a partial page view, and it's bigger than the paper. Foot pedal to scroll down at a comfy speed, and a lot of apps can have repeats, DS, DC, Codas flagged and follow them. (Just getting into this myself). Readers don't need much resource, so find a suitable used/refurb tablet for under $200.

[bloke]

I understand all about tablets and I understand younger people's desire to have things be electronic or digitized, or more complicated in other ways that don't need to be. I'm just not interested in owning another electronic or complicated thing that can't be accomplished in a simpler way which was already invented. Most of my friends spend a good bit of money on theirs, they often sport cracked screens that they've had to replace or they're just letting them be cracked, they drag around extra stuff to go with them such as cords, chargers, special music stands that hold them, covers for them, and all that jazz. I'm at a point in my life where I'm still able to do everything I want to do and more, but I'm interested in having less things and less complication. Younger people are interested in (and always have been in) busy-ness, trends, and creating problems for themselves. The previous sentence doesn't just refer to gadgetry. I was young once.

A PDF scan on a screen still isn't as easy to read as the way that music was engraved prior to dot matrix or even laser printers. One of the most important things about written down music on staffs for classical and other musicians is that it needs to be be very easily readable at real time speed. I'm not saying that it's not a tablet is not a clever tool, but I've already got paper and this tool and the type of paper on which music is printed on today is inferior to that which preceded it. 11x14 music printed with a press was and is easy to read. The next classical concert features rental music. I was handed the folder yesterday, and it made me smile.

I don't mind being thought of or characterized as an old fogy who is resistant to changing with the times. That's the duty of old fogies, isn't it? Those things having been said, all new technologies come with trade-offs, and I believe that most anyone can think of trade-offs involved in most all new technologies. Again, youngsters are always attracted to bright shiny objects. The automobile industry depends on this truth.

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

Old technologies also have significant trade-offs, which a vast majority of people simply ignore and forget exist. Paper is by no means perfect, and no one is saying that tablets are perfect either. As you said, it’s all about trade-offs. You can’t have an honest discussion about the value of those trade-offs and how we prioritize them if your default response is “OlD tHiNgS gOoD, nEw ThInGs BaD”.

This isn’t an argument for unhindered and unthinking progress for progress sake. It’s for having an open enough of a mind to give change a fair chance.

[bloke]

Okay. The good things about actually printed with a press sheet music is really easy to see, it was made on quality paper - some of which is well over 100 years old and still being used by orchestra libraries, printing press print stands out and is easy to see - in addition to being large, and everything about dot matrix or laser printed or tablet music sucks compared to this including being only 8-1/2 by 11, none of that cheap paper is going to last a hundred years and none of those tablets are going to last 100 years.
Even argumentative people - who just plain-ol' don't like me, and mostly prefer to attempt to reverse-troll about most anything (even latching on to a humor-oriented thread such as this one) - aren't going to be around 100 years.

bloke "Leave trolling to the professionals, particularly if no sense of humor."

humor aside:
I really believe the reason that the old tiny march editions worked was due to a combination of actually being printed on printing presses and also the fact that most of that music (being sing-songy and predictable) being extremely easy to memorize, regardless of which part an instrumentalist was playing. I bet there are a whole bunch of older people reading this that can play a whole bunch of old war horse marches without the sheet music.

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

Wow, if this was a "humor thread", you have a horribly bad sense of humor. It's apparently worse than your ability to stay on topic of a thread that YOU started.

A vast majority of professionals orchestras, if required to print music, print on a minimum paper size of 9"x12" 60lb paper. Many exceed that and print on 9.5"X13" 70 or 80lb. These are comparable quality, size, and weights to your precious 100 year old parts.

Setting a standard of tablets lasting a hundred years is ridiculous. No one has, no should have, that expectation.

You've listed some of the positives of paper music. Congratulations, I'm very proud of you. Now take a look at my last post, think for five seconds, and come up with the list of negatives of paper music (including your precious 100 year old parts).

I'm not trolling, I'm responding to your posts, which despite the original post being about paperless tickets and programs, you've decided to fixate and ramble about tablets (again).

Oh obligatory tuba comment. Since most orchestral tuba parts typically don't require full pages of constant playing, tadawson's recommendation of using a tablet in landscape mode (something I've also told you about before) is incredibly legitimate. You would need to "turn the page" by tapping the screen or using a bluetooth device more frequently, but you would likely have ample time to do so.