> Several years ago my wife, myself, and two others were Christmas > Caroling at a local store. We performed our four-part arrangements > from books cobbled together with photocopies. Yeah, that's a definate > "No-No." > Anyway, a (over?) zealous individual from the audience (er, a customer > of the store) took great pains to get a look at our book, presumably to > confirm they were photocopies. He smilingly asked for our business card > and then contacted the local ASCAP organization.
I have encountered this one in the context of choir parts - as I understand it there is *no* obligation on anyone (in any country) to perform from original copies. You had better have the originals, but you don't need to use them every time. > Regardless, I'm now very wary of showing my book. I've never seen any Scottish band playing from anything *but* a folder of xeroxes. They all do it at every gig. Most such bands include a composer, and I can't see any publisher who tried to make trouble over this getting any new work ever submitted to them again. A typical five-piece ceilidh or SCD band will get through more than 50 tunes a night, from all sorts of sources, mostly in-copyright. They aren't going to be carrying 250 books around, and a composer whose publisher insisted on that sort of logistical hassle wouldn't get played. =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
