Ron: Converting old prints and manuscripts to digital formats and media is *not necessarily* the best solution, for a couple of reasons.
First, there is the question of "extraneous" marks and flyspecks that you may ignore today when making your transcription, but next decade someone may discover are really fingering or ornament signs. Second, by using computer technology, you buy yourself the problem of updating frequently both the file formats and the media types. How many of you still have available the means to restore the backups you made with FastBack onto 5-1/4 inch floppies in 1990? Are the floppies still readable even if you have the drive and software? I have recently encountered a distressing problem with a recording -- although it is only about 15 years old, it will no longer play in any of the players in my possession. The CD, disk 1 of Monteverdi's Second Vespers for Santa Barbara done by the Sixteen (with Nigel North, theorbo), Hyperion CDA66311/2, was certainly not abused; it has spent most of its life on the shelf in a back bedroom and has been played only a relatively few times. Nevertheless, the aluminium mirror has apparently suffered some kind of chemical degradation from something bleeding out of the label or atmospheric oxygen diffusing into the plastic. When CDs first came onto the market in 1982, the major rap expressed against them was that they are not an "archival medium" like the plastic disk or cylinder recordings that are still playable over a century after they were made, since they might be expected to have a lifetime of only a few decades. The controversy.may have died down, but my experience indicates that the point is valid. Aside from carving the information into stone, it seems to me that the best and most straightforward way of preserving our heritage as lutenists is still to create high-quality paper facsimiles and distribute them widely around the globe. In short, I do support the work of Broude Brothers, Garland, Minkoff, Scolar Press, SPES, Tree, etc. by buying copies of their books for my personal library. I would encourage you to do likewise and to recommend them for purchase to your local university library, provided they have a policy of retaining books in their collection even when they do not circulate several times per year. Regards, Daniel Heiman On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 21:30:08 +0100 Ron Fletcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hi all, > > Stewart's dilemma certainly seems good reason to make yourself some > new > performing copies of 'original' sources, in Fronimo, Django, > Stringwalker, > or whatever tab-setting program you prefer, before they become too > illegible with use, fade, or discolour. > > Save and protect your primary sources. > > Best Wishes > > Ron (UK) > > Stewart McCoy wrote > > I had fun yesterday playing music from the Welde Lute Book. The > stave lines are so faint you can hardly see them. There are lots of > solos at the start of the book, but no-one ever got round to > copying out any songs. Pity really. If you have an old photocopy or > microfilm, hang on to it, because it could become a primary source, > at least for some bars. > > Stewart McCoy. > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
