Re: Joy of Klez--unsolicited praise

[Allen Davis <adavis...>]

Lori,

It might not work for everyone, but have you considered publishing the 
arrangements as online MIDI and pdf files -- those who paid a fee could get 
a password to your web site, listen to the score or individual parts 
(keyboard sounds only I think), and view/print out the music -- score, and 
individual parts. There would be no recording costs, and no printing costs, 
not to mention no distribution expense or hassles. You could market it via 
email, or through sources like Tara. For an additional charge, you could 
customize -- transpose selected parts (using one click of your music 
software) for instruments not scored in the original arrangement to 
accommodate just about any band. And you could add new arrangements as they 
became available, maybe charging per arrangement rather than by collection.

We're actually doing something like this for our newly formed Western Mass 
Jewish Chorus, Makhela. Working with ChoralTutor.com, we're putting the 
score and parts of (purchased ) music we're learning online for members to 
listen to and learn from, and eventually will also  work with the 
publishers for the right to display the music in pdf format (that will show 
the printed music) as well so that users will be able to follow the 
bouncing ball and learn their parts! It won't be possible to print from 
these files, and for our purposes (in terms of copyright) that is an 
important safeguard. But since you would own the copyright, you could 
enable or disable that function at will.

Just a thought -- having such a service would be great for our klezmer 
orchestra, and would help enable the formation of many others!

Allen






At 04:36 PM 1/7/03 -0500, you wrote:
>I just want to thank everyone who wrote in for the great feedback 
>concerning Joy of Klez.  We wrote it in response to the requests of 
>several amateur groups who asked for arrangements, but have not really 
>heard anything since it came out, and had no idea if it was getting out to 
>the people who needed it or if it was working for them.  We're really 
>happy that "it works."
>
>We would like to publish more arrangements, but I can't figure out a way 
>to do so economically, especially if it includes recording a studio CD to 
>accompany the book.  There ought to be some way to be able to get 
>arrangements and recordings into the hands of people who need them for a 
>reasonable price.  It cost about $5,000 to launch this book/CD, which I 
>seriously doubt we will see coming back at us.  Maybe someone else has a 
>more innovative idea as to how to do it--or perhaps there is an 
>organization or individual that would like to underwrite a project like 
>this (ha!).  Anyway, thanks again for the words of encouragement--it means 
>a lot.
>
>Lori at MAX