Silver Clef Music

One new music publisher, Silver Clef Music, really is out in front, and I hope they are successful. They specialize in sheet music for school, community, and church groups - particularly bands, choirs, and orchestras, and for solos and ensembles of musicians from those types of groups. David Miller started this publisher of printed and digital sheet music to be part of the solution and the vanguard of the future, rather than part of the past.

Copyright laws at the heart, really leave reproduction rights and restrictions up to the owners and the publishers of music as to what is and is not permitted. Traditionally if you copy a piece in any way, xerox, hand copy, transcription, digital, you were in copyright violation because the publisher prohibited it. In practice, people violate this too much, and with the 21st century, it is harder for these copyright laws to be followed. Silver Cleff gives more practical and modern permission while still holding copyright and hopefully getting fair compensation for the sets they sell. Here is their short description:

We offer copyright permissions unique to the instrumental music world . . . . When you purchase music from Silver Clef, you also get the right to make as many copies as you need for the instrumentation or voicing of your group. If you have 32 horn players, just print 32 horn parts. If someone loses their music, or marks it up in ink, just print more. No problem.

The only thing you're not allowed to do is to give (sell, lend, transport, telepathically deliver) it to another group. Let them buy their own copy. But you'll never have a lost part again. You'll never have to forgo playing a wonderful Silver Clef arrangement because all the trombone parts are missing, or because all the viola parts have crumbled to dust.

Hopefully other publishers will follow this lead as we go further into the digital age. It is so practical and wonderful to have a .pdf file containing all the perfectly done parts for each instrument, or voice, and print it out when you need it without feeling like you are doing something wrong. Or in the future, maybe those parts will appear on a networked digital screen stand rather than being printed at all.

Just one more wonderful thing that Silver Clef is doing. They have started "Project Sousa", the "Project Gutenburg" for the music world, making whole arrangements of public domain pieces available to the public at no charge. The first music they completed were John Philip Sousa's own band pieces and marches. FREE! All in pdf! Amazing.