Publishing

Publishing James L. Zychowicz (bio) Music publishing remains a vital part of the art because of the ways in which it reflects new works, developments in technology, and avenues of commerce. Given the scope of the field (see the outline in Figure 1) it should be no surprise that music publishing continues to adapt itself by using and developing processes to reach audiences, and twenty-first century culture is particularly strong in offering various options to a field that has been characterized by black-and-white pages bound in some fashion. Even with the self-fulfilling prophecy that rises periodically about the decline of classical music, an examination of contemporary music shows growth in the styles and sub-genres that composers use to express their ideas.1 Rather than a death knell, those modes of expression point to various new and, perhaps, underused formats that may result in increasingly more publications,2 and it remains for dedicated musicians to explore those avenues. (Figure 2 lists selected formats in music publishing.) In this regard, the digital culture of the twenty-first century has options that involve both traditional and innovative media, with the plurality of choices expanding the reach of music publishing. If the end of the twentieth century showed the potential in nascent digital culture for future developments, the early twentieth-first century stands apart for the ways in which technology has changed music publishing profoundly. The print-based focus of the late twentieth century has shifted to multiple platforms that include print and digital versions of its publications. Some innovative publishers also have titles conceived digitally from the start to take advantage of the benefits of the online milieu. With the choices that exist, music publishing has the potential to engage its audiences in ways that had not existed when print was still the focus and also to explore the ways in which technology can serve the art form. [End Page 82] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Music Publishing Overview: Types of Conventional Publications. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Music Publishing Overview: Selected Available Formats. In this regard the operational definition of music publishing as the art of bringing music products to the public, which George Sturm put forward in the forward-looking assessment of music librarianship at the opening of the end of the twentieth century,3 remains valid, and it is a matter of understanding how publishers do this. In the decades since Sturm published his essay, the print paradigm that guided many aspects [End Page 83] of music publishing has given way to a multi-faceted environment in which print and digital technologies coexist. It is important to recognize that technological developments have always shaped publishing efforts, as the print culture transformed the manual transmission of music notation into editions for large audiences. Music typesetting's reliance on programming has facilitated the ability to re-set music for various platforms, as witnessed by some of the efforts in the Creative Commons (https://freemusicarchive.org/curator/Creative_Commons/) that it makes available, along with scans of prints at sites like IMSLP.4 The photographic reproduction of earlier editions associated with Dover Publications5 and other firms has been augmented by individual efforts that bring new editions of earlier music to sites like IMSLP and others.6 As a result, the availability of multiple editions online offers choices that bear consideration as libraries and their patrons evaluate the editions available, with musicians needing more information to make decisions about the materials they use. A similar situation exists with musicology and other writings about music, as the formats available more regularly include both print and digital versions. As the choices increase librarians will need to engage their faculty and students to determine the best formats for their needs. Access and immediacy build a case for digital materials, but networks are not always immune to downtime, and with digital materials the risk of not having access remains a consideration. The database-style publications that were issued on disc, for example, build a case for understanding the developing nature of digital technology, as removable media gives way to cloud-based resources. In music publishing...