Re: Do we really offer the future?

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Federico (et al.),

>> I've thought for a long time that the right way to go is to seek
>> public funds for engraving public domain contents

> Me too.

I think it’s telling that most of the non-publishing music world is going in 
exactly the opposite direction: schools are adding “musical entrepreneurship” 
courses, programs, and degrees all over, in an attempt to teach musicians how 
to avoid the trap of relying only on public funds; and there is a significant 
(and mostly successful) grassroots effort to abandon the dying “not-for-profit” 
model of musical organziations in favour of a model where pleasing the paying 
audience actually matters to some extent.

> I started thinking about bringing LilyPond in music schools. Even though I 
> never tried because of lack of time, I can imagine two major issues:
> 1. LilyPond is not considered as a professional tool because it's not used by 
> the publishing companies. In general schools teach what the market asks. 
> That's why I think that this effort by Urs is important.
> 2. Text input. Frescobaldi is doing a good job here, but still.

From the [many] discussions I’ve had with music schools large and small, the 
second is *far* less important than the first. And rightly so: all other things 
being equal, higher education should be teaching students skills and tools [!!] 
which they can immediately apply to their careers. Unfortunately, as long as 
Lilypond is a pariah amongst publishers, it does a disservice to students to 
teach them Lilypond at the expense of other things.

Cheers,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden