Re: A big advantage to lilypond

[David Kastrup]

Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Daniel,
>
> On 22.03.2016 01:46, Redwood (Daniel) wrote:
>> But I wonder: why aren’t more lilypond authors posting more of their
>> sources to IMSLP?
>
> personally, I’m often reluctant to do so, because I might want to
> distribute my typesets commercially. In my opinion, _good_ music
> typography is an art and science and worth paying for;

Except that nobody even gets a chance to pay for it because you merely
"might want to distribute your typesets commercially".

Have you considered uploading them with a payment suggestion and
mechanism?  They won't magically market themselves, and the default
workings of the world and your own inertia make it more rather than less
likely that you'll ever get to marketing them, and even then the
question is what you'll be making from it.

Take a look at <URL:http://www.thoeni-edition.ch/index.html>.  The
Edition Thoeni was founded by Maurice Thöni in 1944 and kept alive until
1980.  Thöni was quite prolific and wrote a lot of original pieces and
arrangements many of the scores in the edition himself.  However, the
current state of the edition is such that his daughter passes most of
the proceeds from the _performances_ into upkeep of the edition (I've
met her and Aegler in Zürich because my main accordion was obviously
built for Maurice Thöni and I was looking for evidence that he actually
played it at some point of time).

Making money from scores is really rather tricky ultimately and the big
editions keep themselves alive by having very streamlined processes and
pretty invasive agreements that tend to last longer than a composer's
life.

But still the prospect of "I might market this at some time for great
returns" keeps back music as well as software: how much "shareware" has
ever turned a profit commensurate of the effort to devise payment
schemes and restrictions?

So I really suggest that you take stock about what you _realistically_
will actually be marketing yourself, and how much you expect to gain
from it, versus how much it is worth to you that the arrangements/scores
actually get played.

I'd add payment suggestions (make it as easy as possible, Paypal and a
suggested sum) to the score.  Don't expect a windfall.  Probably
"enquire when custom arrangements are needed" is likely to provide the
most payback even when the source is readily available: again, you as
the author are probably most likely to turn money into adapted scores.

Particularly when you arrange your scores in a manner where creating
arrangements is mostly trivial.

> also I create an own visual style with my typesets that I don’t want
> others to easily discard. It’s a generous thing to typeset music and
> publish the source, but it’s perfectly valid to not do so and keep it
> private.

Sure.

> There’s also a technical side to it: (nearly) all of the scores I
> typeset rely on my personal stylesheets library, which I also feel
> somewhat protective about, and it’s impractical to include all of it
> in such an upload, or make a specific version containing only that
> which is really needed…

Well, LilyPond needs better schemes to organize personal stylesheets,
just like LaTeX has ways to organize document classes and styles.  But
again the main question is what you are trying to protect your
stylesheets from.  Other people working with them?  If there is actual
money in that, who would people first contact when needing custom work
to be done?

Yes, most of the work done using your scores and library is going to
bypass you.  However, you don't make money from work that is not done at
all either.

Many private people are hogging their "Intellectual Property" since they
see the valuations popular artists get for it.  But you won't get
anything from keeping it unpublished indefinitely.

> And lastly: even if I can obtain a ly source file from somewhere on
> the web, I sometimes have to rework the entire code, before making any
> use of it (and then I wonder if I’d been better off to just input it
> myself). Sometimes the coding is objectively sloppy, convoluted, or
> difficult to read; sometimes it’s just because of different coding
> styles, or approaches to representing the music[1], which can pose
> extremely annoying obstacles in sharing code. And the python-ly
> (Frescobaldi) formatting tools only get you so far (great though for
> doubling durations, or absolute->relative, or the like).  Which is why
> I very much think we need higher standards in that area…

Where will the high standards come from if people are protective about
the good stuff in their personal scores and stylesheets?

It's pretty hard to change your bank accounts with typesetting.  Just
try it seriously for a few years instead of going "I might want to do it
at some point in life" indefinitely.  It's easier to change the world.

All the best,

-- 
David Kastrup