No more books?

[Barry Say]

John's comment about finding files on digital storage devices is very true. The same could be said of finding tunes in the books in a library. I cannot see the benefit of spending money to circulate more tunes which most people will not play.

The situation has changed massively in the last fifty fifty years and, quite frankly, we now have more tunes than we know what to do with. I think it is very important that the contents of manuscripts and books from former times are preserved and made easily available to those who would see after them. Rather than sending a few researchers off into the dusty recesses of libraries and storage vaults to return with gems (or perhaps the baubles which catch their eye) we should be encouraging all pipers to look outside the preselected menu provided by piping books and look to the wider world for inspiration as our forebears did.

And when a piper finds a gem, they should play it until they can show its brilliance to others. When we hear their playing we too may understand the wonder in the tune and perhaps we will want to play it too. Written music has its place, and without the books and manuscripts of the past we would would be far poorer, but the tradition to be passed on really resides in the playing of a musical community.

Barry

(...... leaves soapbox to do something more useful)

[Julia Say]

Matt told me some years ago that he had material for a "Pink" and "Purple" volume in the Pipers Pocket Series. Negotiations to publish these jointly - or something, I am just thinking out loud here - could probably be initiated, if Matt was amenable.

I'm delighted to have flushed out a few bibliophiles, if nothing else: this is feedback I can use.

However, a couple of cautionary points:

1. economic times are tight. Booksales have dropped considerably in the last 12 months. People are economising (so am I!), and possibly turning to the Interweb as a free source - I don't blame them. Each future publishing project (see sep. thread for CMTB) will have to be examined carefully, on its merits / likely sales.

2. There is a school of thought, led, or at least articulated by Old Tom's Rant of this parish, that there are enough tunes already circulating and that players need rather to be encouraged to explore the ones already out there in depth, rather than spend 5 mins with each. An extreme example of this was a piper of a few years experience who was heard to say of a particular collection "I can sight read, I've played through all of those, I need some more new tunes" (or words to that effect).
I find myself with considerable sympathy for Old Tom's position.

Part of the NPS' role must be to publish things that nobody else is likely to. Both now, and if it becomes a charity, projects can be undertaken that might not make commercial sense, but will get information "out there" at a level that will cover costs.

Since I wrote this Barry has posted. Whilst much of what he says he is correct, the facts are that pipers will not - generally - go looking in dusty MSS (electronic or otherwise) and picking likely tunes off the page. That is an acquired skill and a matter of taste (and time) for such research.
I agree that they will play them if a piper gives an inspiring performance, and in my experience, they will then seek out (often by contacting the NPS sec.!) where a particular tune may be found.
Providing easy to read "dots" for such enquirers is a society service, as far as I'm concerned, whether it happens in print, in course music, in indvidual enquiry, or by sound/video files, as some folk are now doing.

Julia

[Barry Say]

In an earlier posting I said:

How long before people are carrying their music on a Kindle or iPad or whatever?

Well try this one:

https://market.android.com/details?id=u ... rrony.aabc

I wont be buying an Android, I have no need of this app, but I think this may be a significant part of the future.

Barry