Richard Smith wrote:
Since, from the tone of the list recently, the "religious war" between
Finale and Sibelius seems to be waning as both packages mature and since
world wide communications and data sharing have become so instant, I
have some questions for the list. What are your thoughts and why?
1. Have we gotten to the point where .PDF is the best way to deliver
music to clients and publishers or should editable data files
(Finale, Sibelius or others) continue to be expected.
I think the answer truly is "it depends." These days clients (at least
those I have worked with) range anywhere from 'I will never ever ever
have a computer' to 'I've gotten the files almost the way I want them
but they just need a professional engraver's eye to complete the
layout.' So for those individual clients, sometimes the data files are
what they are hiring us for and sometimes they are hiring us for printed
output with no data files and sometimes they are perfectly happy with
PDF files -- all they want is to be able to easily have it printed at
Kinko's or some other print shop. Publishers may well have inhouse
experts they wish to do the final layout to have all their publications
be consistent with each other in appearance, so they would continue to
want the data files. Other publishers, such as the small flute
publisher I have a number of works with, only want printable files so
they only want the PDF files.
2. Should publishers publishers out source engraving work as needed
or is in house engraving a better choice?
That also depends on the nature of the publishers. There have always
been small niche-market publishers as well as huge publishing houses who
can sign the big names in composing, and for the different sized
publishers there need to be different answers. Warner Brothers (well,
actually, Alfred, since they bought the Warner Brothers print music
division) and Hal Leonard will always need to have in-house engravers in
addition to their freelance external engravers, while small publishers
don't need to have anybody on-staff to do engraving. Freelance
engravers work just fine if the publishers maintain close communications
with them. Other publishers make their consistency only through the
covers they use and the appearance of any explanatory notes, but the
actual notation they are less concerned about, so as long as it looks
neat and is legible, they have no such concern as a "house style."
3. Do e-mails and attachments (along with occasional phone calls)
make long distance (even international) work practical.
Definitely -- PublisherA located in San Francisco can use EngraverB
living in Dubai if they choose with communication expenses zero (above
their internet connectivity expenses) as well as data exchange being
instantaneous. No longer does there have to be any face-to-face contact.
4. Should publishers who want to do editing and final engraving in
house be reasonably expected to have software and engravers for
both Sibelius and Finale?
Again, that depends on who the publisher is. Some publisher such as
Boosey & Hawkes or Hal Leonard can dictate the way the music is
submitted, while other publishers need to be more sensitive to what the
composers/arrangers they publish can offer. In the case of small
publishers who need the composers as much as the composers need the
publishers, they need to be versatile and able to work with whatever
files are submitted. In the case of Hal Leonard or Alfred or
Boosey&Hawkes, they can easily say "submit the music in form X or take a
hike."
5. How many publishers expect engraving to be done (usually) by the
original composers/arrangers?
That, too, depends -- the flute publisher I work with requires that the
music be submitted already computer-engraved and ready to print.
However, if they really want to publish a specific composer or
composition, they will sometimes split the cost of having a hand-written
work computer-engraved and other times will simply put the composer in
touch with me and let the composer and me negotiate the terms to engrave
the composition.
Many of us work in very different parts of the music preparation or
publishing fields and may have quite different perspectives. Since our
requirements can be very different, I thought your responses might
provide an interesting discussion.
Richard Smith
http://rgsmithmusic.com
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--
David H. Bailey
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