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Topic: Publishing (Read 2964 times) previous topic - next topic

Publishing

Just curious...Have many of you had any arrangements or compositions published by companies and sold to the general public?  I just recently became interested in this and was wondering how I might go about seeing if I could have something of mine published.

Re: Publishing

Reply #1 –
Not being a musician (singing in a choir apparently does not count), I wouldn't know. But from browsing various sources, it seems that nowadays, most electronically-developed music is either (a) created as a pastime, often by "real" musicians, or (b) created for the purpose of demonstrating musical expertise, such as for a university project, or (c) created for the purpose of accompanying some other product, such as a computer game.

The last category is work-for-hire that would not normally appear as a separate publication. The other categories are self-published.

Any comments from the "real" musicians out there?

Re: Publishing

Reply #2 –
Computer games would be the best way to go with using NWC to publish your music. I'm making a video game, and so is my brother, and thus, being the musician of the family, I write music for both of our games. Noteworthy Composer is a great program for that purpose. MIDIs are used for most downloadable computer games. I've written 260+ music files with Noteworthy, and my brother is using about 22 of them for his game... so it's definitely the right program for the job.
If you're interested in publishing your game with a video game at all...respond.

Re: Publishing

Reply #3 –
In Reply #1, Robert wrote:
Not being a musician (singing in a choir apparently does not count), ...

and:
Any comments from the "real" musicians out there?

I strongly defend the idea that choir (and solist) singers are musicians, because they obviously do music. Maybe you could have begun your message with Not being a composer instead of Not being a musician. Don't you think so?

Too bad, the opposition singer/musician is well established, at least in France. Last week, I heard an advertisement for a "big" concert (of Verdi iirc). They said:
- 120 musicians!
- 114 choir singers!
- 4 solist singers!

If the conductor is considered to be a musician too, then the orchestra is rather small: 120 - 114 - 4 - 1 = only one instrument...

Re: Publishing

Reply #4 –
Let me clarify my remarks... "Not being a musician" applied to me personally, based upon the artistic judgment of other members of the choir. I am sure they think of themselves as musicians ;)

Re: Publishing

Reply #5 –
In the UK singers belong to Equity, an actors Union. Musicians (i.e. intrumentalists) belong to the Musicians Union.

Many years ago when the BBC tried to cut down on its Symphony Orchestras the MU went on strike but the singers did not follow suit! Perhaps they are two different breeds.
 

Re: Publishing

Reply #6 –
To return to the original question...

Most of the recently composed, published-for-sale music I encounter is in the context of church choir. In most cases, the copyright notice shows that the work was originally composed as a commission. That is, the church of St. Ethyl of the Refineries, to commemorate its 50th anniversary, hired hymnast Jack Bumpers to write an SATB arrangement of a psalm. Something like that. After the initial performance, the work was then acquired by one of the established music publishers, for sale to whomever wished to purchase the music or perform it.