Downloadable Digital Music vs Traditional Print Music
Pros and Cons of Downloadable Digital Music
This may be a topic that only a publisher would enjoy studying, but I think it has merit. More and more I see the, “print on demand” option available when I purchase music. Offering music digital copies of music seems logical for many reasons: First is convenience, seeing how our portable devices are able to store and display our music without carrying around a briefcase full of music. Having the ability to find and immediately print the music you need is another great perk. Let’s not forget the ability to stretch the dollar further when music distributors no longer have to pint or ship the product – saving you lots of money. Sounds like a win, win situation.
Not exactly. There are several issues that come to mind as a music director and publisher. The first is a matter of time. The burden of printing the music falls on the church ministry. Understandably, this may not be an issue for small instrumental or singing groups but for choirs this would be a significant amount of effort.
Another concern for printing choirs music would be storage. Most churches will not be able to print choir music in the traditional octavo format, forcing church ministries to print mostly on 8.5×11 page format and increasing the amount of filing space needed. Will this bring to an end the traditional “octavo” size (6.75 x 10.50) of published choral music? Having an understanding of print publishing, I think not.
If the size of the page didn’t matter, the standard would have changed years ago. I read once that the size of the page had to do with the ability of the eye to scan the printed page and how easily the page is to handle by the singer. Loading the page with more music is not in the best interest of the singer. For readability sake, there is a limit to line length, staff height and number of systems per page.
Expense is also a factor. Printing is not cheap. The saving spent on the download maybe out-weighed by the cost of paper, toner, and staples. Depending on the ministry, choral folders
Then, there is a matter of testimony. Even though the digital purchase includes a license to print the music, to the average church goer it may appear as if copyright laws are being violated.
As long as the digital music has to be converted back to print music before it is used in our churches, there will always be a downside. Maybe iPads for the choir will be in the budget soon so downloadable music can be used without reprinting the digital music.
Jennifer Matheson
March 12, 2014, 1:00 pmAnother problem with downloading music is the quality of the page after printing. I can think of one publisher in particular, who I won’t name, that offers many downloads but the quality of the download is similar to a poor photocopy. Very disappointing.
In spite of all this I have to admit to loving downloadable music, and am far more inclined to buy something if it comes in a digital format for several reasons.
Shipping expenses are on the top of the list. I live in Canada. Most of the Christian music available seems to be published in the United States. I don’t know how much it costs to ship music within the USA, but once they start to ship music outside the USA, the shipping charges soar. Shipping is usually ridiculous at best, and prohibitive at worst. It’s worth your while if you have a very large order… sort of. And forget ordering just one book. There have been several books I would have liked to preview for our music ministry, but didn’t because one little choral book would have cost over thirty dollars after the exchange and shipping. I guess what I’m trying to say is your claim that printing costs may outweigh the savings on shipping could very well be true for a church in the USA, but isn’t necessarily the case worldwide.
Storage space is a subject near and dear to my heart at the moment, because we’re about two cantatas away from outgrowing our church’s music storage space. The neat thing about downloads is, they can be stored electronically. If space is such an issue that you don’t have room for 8 1/2 by 11 pages, the paper copies can go. It’s unquestionably wasteful, but it can be done if space is really so hard to come by.
As a pianist, most of my solo music comes in books bigger than 8 1/2 by 11, and that doesn’t really bother me. Having to turn pages on those little octavos, though… that bothers me! I am arguably the world’s worst page turner and confess that I have grievously mutilated many an octavo either by accident or design in the process of making it to the last page. So I love it when I can just print out something in a size where I can put it in a binder and know the pages will stay in place and turn easily. There are other solutions, but I find that easiest and best.
As a mother of young children, I also love that if my music is commandeered by a toddler in the name of a different sort of art altogether, (yes, this has happened to me) I can reprint the destroyed page, song, or book. Admittedly, I’ve never had this situation arise actually in the church, but conscientious musicians do take things home to practice. And things happen. (After all, I’m not the only musician in our church with toddlers at home.)
I’ve struggled a bit with the point about testimony, but we live in a digital content world now, and while someone could possibly make the erroneous assumption that copyright laws are being broken, I find it hard to believe that anyone knowledgeable enough about music publishing to consider the possibility of copyright laws being broken, would not also be knowledgeable enough to consider the possibility that the church obtained permission from a publisher or purchased a download, but that’s getting very subjective, I suppose. Not using 8 1/2 by 11 pages that look as though they could be photocopies would effectively prevent church musicians from using even their own compositions and arrangements, which is probably taking things too far even though the situations are identical from a “testimony” point of view.
This is turning into a ridiculously long comment. Time to stop! But thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking article.