Martin Cooke Posted January 3, 2010 Share Posted January 3, 2010 Since I have the resources at my fingertips, I would be happy to consider further, at least, the idea of collecting a group of descants and/or last verses harmonisations together and distributing them within our group. It seems to me that we could have two variations - (assuming that some of us are interesting in both last verse species). One - a small volume of these submitted by and composed/arranged by members of the forum. And, two, a small volume of these submitted by the forum but composed or collected by members of the forum. So, for example - if someone had something rather special available - say an unpublished descant by Howells, or Dykes-Bower or George Guest - they might submit that. Now, what I do not know is what the copyright issues may be. I don't want to be involved in any correspondence or unnecessary labour, but am happy to programme the photocopier for a short print run and would envisage printing these into a folder A3 booklet of 20 pages or so, depending on how many submissions there were. As far as I can see, it doesn't really matter if only six people, say, submit something - I can print them off and post them - the expense is hardly going to be a problem. Might we make this into something charitable - suppose, 20 - 40 people submitted something worthwhile - (I'll come back to "worthwhile" in a moment) - might they send me send a £5 note to go to one of my school's charities of the term? We're just about to do something for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, for example - they came here four times last year - does that sound reasonable? I would need to receive works in pdf format (I don't yet have Sibelius) - which I can print readily and simply on to A4 paper. Coming back to quality - I used the word "worthwhile." I am, of course, referring to the quality of the submissions. Does there need to be any editorial control? Is that getting a bit heavy? If it IS deemed to be necessary, would someone volunteer to do it - pcnd, for example??? Can I also ask if John Mander has any concerns about this? As far as I am concerned, this won't go through the forum at all - people can submit things direct to my email address and we don't need to call it a Mander Forum Volume of Descants and Last Verses, do we?!!! It seems to me that step one would be to gather opinion about idea One or Two, and, at the same time, for folk to reply to indicate any submissions they would like to put forward. Shall we see where we get to for a few days? I imagine that fellow members will either leap to reply immediately or the thing will die in the water. What have you got?!! Martin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 3, 2010 Share Posted January 3, 2010 Well I'm not sure I'd have anything to submit - I use the Rawsthorne book plus occasionally the blue RSCM book which contains the well-renowned How setting of Lo, he comes (I even make them up sometimes, or more commonly adapt the Rawsthorne settings) - but I would certainly be interested in seeing what others have put together or use, and would be happy to make a charity donation of the amount suggested to do so. I'm sure that others may be in a similar situation to me, not having anything in particular to offer but wanting to view the finish article. I certainly hope that this doesn't 'die in the water'! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I still think somekind of online album would be more easily shared by forum members, who would perhaps need a password to be able to access it. pdf format would seem to be the best way to present. Perhaps the password could be obtained by making a 'donation' to a charity. Pehaps some editorial control would be necessary, if only to pick out obvious bloopers and uphold some kind of tidiness in presentation. The idea is too good to let it go dead in the water. Sorry that I'm not clever enough to know how to host it. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Allcoat Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I still think somekind of online album would be more easily shared by forum members, who would perhaps need a password to be able to access it. pdf format would seem to be the best way to present. H Does not Sibelius allow uploading and sharing for nothing? N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnd5584 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Does not Sibelius allow uploading and sharing for nothing?N Would it not also require that those wishing to download items should possess a compatible copy of Sibelius, in order to be able to use the files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Would it not also require downloaders to possess a compatible copy of Sibelius, in order to be able to use the files? Indeed, I think the only format accessible to all would be pdf - as on www.cpdl.org H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davidb Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Assuming these are being made in Sibelius or Scanned in... How about setting up a Yahoo "Group" for distribution of such content? I'm already involved in one for Railway Photography and it works well as a means of passing images around, and of course we can then add in new stuff over time. Sibelius can easily save in JPG format too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 hmmm...I've tried handling jpeg images of music before and it doesn't reproduce very well and re-sizing can be a disaster. I still think pdf is the way to go. It's much easier to handle, the file sizes are small which is convenient for downloading/emailing etc and reproduces like an original. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnd5584 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 hmmm...I've tried handling jpeg images of music before and it doesn't reproduce very well and re-sizing can be a disaster. I still think pdf is the way to go. It's much easier to handle, the file sizes are small which is convenient for downloading/emailing etc and reproduces like an original. H I would agree with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Allcoat Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Would it not also require that those wishing to download items should possess a compatible copy of Sibelius, in order to be able to use the files? No. This is not the case. Sibelius has the excellent facility called SCORCH which is a free programme devised by them to allow non-users of the the composing programme to see the results on the Web. You can print any of the music once you have loaded the free programme from the site. Quite simple I would imagine to chose and print. There are thousands of scores already 'up there' waiting to be printed/saved by any interested parties. I have used it in the past with no trouble at all. Best wishes, Nigel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveBarker77 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Assuming these are being made in Sibelius or Scanned in... How about setting up a Yahoo "Group" for distribution of such content? I'm already involved in one for Railway Photography and it works well as a means of passing images around, and of course we can then add in new stuff over time. Sibelius can easily save in JPG format too I'm usually a bit of a lurker on here learning from all of you who post regularly. However, I was particularly taken by the ideas on this thread so have set up a Google Group as an experiment to see if it's the sort of thing that you all had in mind. You can find the group by heading to http://groups.google.co.uk/group/last-verse At the moment I've set it to allow anyone to join so that you can get on it straight away, and I've uploaded one of my own descants I wrote a few years ago but if you like the idea then we can set it to be a little more restrictive about membership; I don't think that we can force people to make a donation, but perhaps rely more on conscience! I agree with others about being pdf files, although this group will allow anything so if you've only got you favourite descant as a hand written image that you've scanned in then that will be fine too - you might even find someone is kind enough to set it in Sibelius for you! So will this work or would some sort of website be better? Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vox Humana Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 If anyone wants a free a pdf creator, I thoroughly recommend pdf995.* There is also a very useful companion programme, pdfedit995, that provides various bells and whistles (such as combining pdfs, extracting individual pages, converting pages from pdf to jpg). * It is a very unobtrusive programme. Once installed, pdf995 simply appears as an additional printer. If you select it as your printer it will print the file to pdf format instead of printing it to paper. As far as I know it will work with any programme that has a print function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 If anyone wants a free a pdf creator, I thoroughly recommend pdf995.* There is also a very useful companion programme, pdfedit995, that provides various bells and whistles (such as combining pdfs, extracting individual pages, converting pages from pdf to jpg). * It is a very unobtrusive programme. Once installed, pdf995 simply appears as an additional printer. If you select it as your printer it will print the file to pdf format instead of printing it to paper. As far as I know it will work with any programme that has a print function. Anyone lucky enough to have an Apple Mac will find this sort of flexibility with pdfs built in to the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 You can find the group by heading to http://groups.google.co.uk/group/last-verse So will this work or would some sort of website be better? Thank you, Steve. It seems perfect for the task! I was surprised and impressed that my first download used the alto clef! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 http://groups.google.co.uk/group/last-verse So will this work or would some sort of website be better? Steve Brilliant ! Can it be indexed by tune, with some sort of indication of whether it is just a last verse harmonisation, a descant or both ? Thank you for taking the trouble to set this up. At last...something of real practical value. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notebasher Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Brilliant ! Can it be indexed by tune, with some sort of indication of whether it is just a last verse harmonisation, a descant or both ?Thank you for taking the trouble to set this up. At last...something of real practical value. H Yes thanks for doing this, it does work, even I can print off from it. Fantastic! R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnd5584 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 No. This is not the case. Sibelius has the excellent facility called SCORCH which is a free programme devised by them to allow non-users of the the composing programme to see the results on the Web. You can print any of the music once you have loaded the free programme from the site. Quite simple I would imagine to chose and print. There are thousands of scores already 'up there' waiting to be printed/saved by any interested parties. I have used it in the past with no trouble at all.Best wishes, Nigel Although Steve Barker has already put up something which looks fine - and it is not even necessary to download any programmes in order to use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Allcoat Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Works a-treat! Bravo. N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveBarker77 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Brilliant ! Can it be indexed by tune, with some sort of indication of whether it is just a last verse harmonisation, a descant or both ?Thank you for taking the trouble to set this up. At last...something of real practical value. H I've renamed some of the files so that the name of the tune comes first followed by either Last verse or Descant, then the composer in brackets, and if a descant the first line of the hymn. I'm happy to rename any that are uploaded with other filenames - it's a quick job. Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to use the search function on the page to search for files, only posts to the group and there aren't any (yet!). We could use the 'discussion' element of the site to leave reviews - perhaps more useful when there are lots of files uploaded. Incidentally, if anyone has Sibelius files that they want converting then if you upload them I'll convert them as I notice them. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vox Humana Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Yes, wonderful, Steve. Thank you. Hope we have some members willing to share. Not much activity so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Coram Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 If only I had a music notation programme - Finale Notepad isn't free anymore, alas - since I have about 30 million last verses. Anybody near me got the facility for playing straight in from a MIDI keyboard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 If only I had a music notation programme - Finale Notepad isn't free anymore, alas - since I have about 30 million last verses. Anybody near me got the facility for playing straight in from a MIDI keyboard? You could write them out by hand and scan them to pdf for uploading to the new site... At ten minutes per last verse that's about 10x30,000,000/60/24/365 years of writing. That's only 570 years without a tea break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 Steve, I couldn't find a way to upload a file to the Last Verse Group. I hit the +Upload File button - what's supposed to happen after that ? H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveBarker77 Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 Steve, I couldn't find a way to upload a file to the Last Verse Group. I hit the +Upload File button - what's supposed to happen after that ? H When you hit the '+Upload File' button it should have changed to a 'Choose File' button which, when clicked, will open a standard windows File window. Hope that helps! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headcase Posted January 6, 2010 Share Posted January 6, 2010 When you hit the '+Upload File' button it should have changed to a 'Choose File' button which, when clicked, will open a standard windows File window. Hope that helps! Steve No - a Choose File button doesn't appear for me. I've tried using IE7 and Google Chrome. Any ideas ? H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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