Friends:
Responding to Don Hart, about an unsolicited request for an unpublished
score, John Howell wrote, in part:
Noel's thought of offering perusal pages but not the complete score
may indeed have merit, and you should at least ask whether that would
be acceptable. But what no one has yet suggested (and what is the
simplest way to handle this) is simply to prepare and sell a copy of
the music to this person at the price you consider reasonable.
To which I would note that my suggestion for perusal pages was based in
part on the assumption that the performer had not yet made a firm
decision on whether to buy Don's score or not, (e.g: I'm looking for
material for my next recital concert, and I have some interest in your
Opus), and further on the possibility that the score was large enough
that the expense of printing, and shipping the score (both ways, if the
artist decided no to make the purchase) was significant. In the digital
age, I see the free perusal page as the equivalent of being in a
brick-and-mortar music store and paging through sixteen scores, of which
one intends to purchase two or three. Often the prospective buyer first
pages through the scores in the files, selects the most promising half
dozen, and looks for a practice room with a piano to make a more
thorough evaluation.
In reference to John's question about whether this would or constitute
publication, or not, I'm not sure, but I would note that in the U.S.
since the mid 1970's, and in much of the rest of the world since before
that, publication is of less significance than formerly. The
significance of publication in the U.S. until the mid 1970's, was that
in order to be copyrighted, material had to be published. In the mid
1970's, the U.S. adapted the interpretation used in the rest of the
world, and on items created since the mid 1970's, copyright exists from
the time an item is placed in fixed form, either written in a score, of
recorded.
As to John's suggestion of a MIDI demo, I would advise _NOT_ sending a
MIDI demo; suggesting instead the use of an mp3, wav, or cda format
file. The latter can be played, but not opened by any notation software
of which I am familiar; while a MIDI can be opened with most the
notation packages.
ns
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