Preserving old fiddler/composer's work

Subject: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Marion
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 12:24 AM

Another thread about my fiddle teacher (see also, Should I stick with my teacher?).

What I didn't mention is that this man is also, in the words of Jerry Holland, "far and away the most prolific composer in the history of Cape Breton music." He has written more than 27000 fiddle tunes (yes, that's three zeros) and there's a few more every day.

He keeps these tunes handwritten in manuscript notebooks in a fireproof box. But he's getting on in years and is thinking a lot about what will happen with his music when he dies. He has no children to leave it to; he has a nephew but the nephew isn't particularly into music.

What Mr. Macdougall talks about doing is publishing the sheet music and putting it on the market. However, the way he talks about doing this worries me because it doesn't sound like a very feasible plan.

First, he wants to publish the sheet music handwritten. I know that if I were shopping for sheet music, I would never choose handwritten over typed (is that the word?) music, even if it were good handwriting, which his isn't particularly.

Second, he wants to publish all of his work at once as a series of books. I suggested it might be a better start to pick a few hundred of his favourites, but he says that he loves them all equally.

Third, he doesn't have names for any of his tunes - they all have titles like Z'-3847. I understand that it wouldn't be easy to come up with 27000 titles, but if he published a small group of them and came up with real titles for them it would be a lot more appealing.

Fourth, he is suspicious of publishers, believing that they are out to make a lot of money off authors and leave the authors with as little as possible. What he wants to do is have a photocopying service copy and bind his books then market them himself. He believes that there's a lot of money to be made selling sheet music; I believe that he could lose a lot of money with this project.

So, Mudcatters, do you have any suggestions? I have a feeling that the solution would be either technological or academic.

There must be "wordprocessing" software programs for sheet music; does anyone know any good ones? It might not be possible for him to enter in all his work, but maybe a selection could be named and typed. He is open to the idea of using a computer, but isn't experienced with one.

Or, is there such a thing as a machine where you can play a tune into a microphone and it turns what you played into sheet music?

Or, maybe some ethnomusicologist could study his composition as a master's project and preserve it that way; or maybe some kind of institute for folklore would be interested in taking it on. If anyone thinks this sounds like a realistic idea and has any suggestions for who to contact, please let me know.

Thanks, Marion

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 02:10 AM

Oh, boy, Marion! Now, I really envy you! He must be so interesting.

There are programs where you can play a tune on a midi keyboard (electronic music keyboard) and the program will turn out sheet music for you, but not one, that I know of, where you jst play into a mic. There are Mudcatters who know a lot more about this than I do, though.

As for publishing sheet music...we and my brother, who is a classical composer, produced everything about hsi work for over 20 years and while classical is a lot different, still the costs of producing it yourself, far outweight any profits, unless you are very well known and there is a proven, ready market for your stuff.

I think you have already figured it out to some extent: it'd be best if it was technologically produced a small bit at a time or if an institution would take an interest in archiving and producing. Both will take funding, obviously.

Good luck! While you are fortunate to have him as a resource, I think he has found himself a wonderful student, not only of the fiddle, but of his entire musical legacy.

Please keep up posted; this is so interesting!

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 10:23 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: GUEST, ~S~
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 11:12 AM

Marion, it sounds to me like he is going to do whatever he himself wants to do, without regard for feasibility... my first reaction, reading this, was really quite wrong of me, but it was, "Steal the box now!!!"

As I continued to think about this, though, it reminded me of a dear friend. His legacy was, in part, his stories. I was privileged to have a chance to copy-edit them for him. Now he's gone and his widow and I are discussing what to do with them. She always wanted to do more with them than dear Jack did. In his case, the blind spot was that no one else WOULD want them, they'd be just for family.... but Joan and I always agreed that they should be available for others-- publish!! Jack knew this and simply left them to her.

So what I think may be a practical solution is for you to look around for someone he can leave them to, who will handle them properly... like you describe towards the end of your post? This way you could encourage him to do what he himself wants to do with them now, while protecting the whole body of work for others to enjoy later. For instance, the lack of titles... a music editor or conservator could group these and title the groupings, see? To make them more attractively accessible?

And I would look at local sources for the person or organization, first, to work with on this... and branch out from there to seek someone whose field of study is the area you are in.

Another example-- our landlord, a "simple dairy farmer..." His legacy was a full, photographic memory of The Battle of the Bulge, from the ground, with complete understanding of the military strategies he was caught up in. So before he died, Walter was prevailed upon by friends he trusted, who just happened to work with the county historical society, to sit down and tell the whole thing on video. Just Walter, a map, and a pointer, with his story told in complete statistical detail from memory, personal anecdotes woven in!!!

Wlater died. We have a copy of that video. Now I wish I had one of your teacher just playing through his body of work. Of scourse it would be a series. But from it... the whole project could unfold into print, see?

Or... steal the box NOW!! Scan all that is in it, then give it back! (Mudcat conspiracy, scanners all over the world humming... no, that's the movie The Firm I'm thinking of....)

~S~

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From:
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 12:32 PM

Marion, I agree that you should try to convince him to get them published.

A couple of comments

1 - I agree, you would need to get a real title to the tunes.

2 - You probably would not get them all published at once, so you should try to convince him to select say, the first twenty or thirty, that appeals. Add to them, the story about how or why the tune came about.

3 - Are you both Cape Breton resident at the moment? I would suggest you talk to two self-publishers, Joey Beaton and Paul Cranford. They could probably help him to get set up doing so.

Hope that helps.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 12:40 PM

While there are plenty of things that will allow you to input directly through a midi keyboard, they tend to display the music exactly as played, so you often get a completely unusable score of mind-numbing complexity.  Better to go the "word processor" route, I would say.  There are links to a number of notation programs here:  Music Sequencing and Notation.  From inexpensive shareware to professional stuff; as ever, it depends on the quality and flexibility you want.

So far as publishing goes, the "do it yourself" route is quite manageable nowadays; a small first batch done at a (good) copy bureau and ring or comb bound should be enough to test the water.  If there turns out to be a demand, you can always produce more as required; if not, then the financial loss needn't be very great.  It would probably be worth having the front covers printed (rather than photocopied) separately , though, on decent card; not everyone judges a book by its cover, but it can make all the difference in getting it noticed in the first place.  Obviously there are economies of scale involved, so it might be worth having a larger batch of covers done to save money; a question, really, of working out how many copies you need to sell to cover the initial investment.  The big problem -beside sorting out a hundred or so tunes for the first volume; obviously, to attempt to publish them all at once would be a financial disaster- is marketing the things, of course.

So far as posterity is concerned, I'd be surprised if there were not a number of academic institutions who might be interested in "inheriting" the material; web publishing would be another possibility. Malcolm

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: poor lonesome boy
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 07:21 PM

If this is about preserving a legacy in music, the best way is recorded, right? What I'm saying is forget that whole publishing route and get him to sit down with his little box and start playing every tune he can into a tape deck or even an old four track. They'll be rough as hell, but you and other disiples down the road would have an audible version of his creations to learn for as long as the cassettes hold out, and then you could record them yourselves, and so on. If this is about putting his name on his legacy, then have him do an easy copywrite of the cassettes for fear of future pirates... like mailing them to himself. I'm not sure if that's still works as a legitimate copywrite, but it's better than nothing. Either way, I'd say let him play until his fingers bleed and then learn all you can. The legacy lives on

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 08:22 PM

A lot depends on how old he is and how healthy. Make sure he looks after himself! And not just for the music.

But getting everything photocopied, or scanned into a computer, no matter what it looks like is a priority (a hell of a big job too, it sounds). Publishing would be great, but preserving is more immediately important, because accidents can happen, and once it's gone it's gone.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Feb 01 - 10:10 PM

My first thought was like whizzy-wigs--but that is nasty!! Would he let you borrow the box long enough to hit a copy machine?

Or, if you have to be really sneaky, get a pocket mini cassette recorder......and go to the powder room a lot.

If Publishing is the ultimate object, perhaps the best bet would be to get a University or a grant involved, if he will deal with them.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Marion
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 10:48 PM

Thanks for your thoughts all. It's a tricky thing. Even if I were to research and find a way of recording/publishing the collection that seemed the most practical to me, it would be a hard sell to persuade my teacher to consider other options.

For example, Paul Cranford could be a great ally - he is very into collecting and publishing "unknown" CB tunes - except that he did once publish a tune of Mr. Macdougall's and added slur markings to it so now my teacher won't have anything to do with him.

Maybe I can get him to leave the box to me :). Although I'm not terribly anxious to word process all those tunes either, unless somebody's going to give me a master's at the end of it.

And for those who are wondering, he's not THAT old - 75 - and his mother is living so I guess he's got good longevity genes.

What is web publishing?

The idea of recording the whole lot, on tape or video, is interesting. It would still be a huge project, but would be a lot more enjoyable than going through the paperwork. Which do you think are more durable, tapes or videotapes?

Marion

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: poor lonesome boy
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 11:01 PM

videotapes are sturdier, but you'd be counting having a machine to play them for a while, and the different sizes look to be going the way of the 8-track. What would be really great was if there were some kinda hand-held digital recorder you could use. That way you could download it onto compact disk, onto a website, any ol' computer you wanted and make perfect duplications as you needed them. But that's a pipe dream. I don't think there even is such a recorder on the market, let alone reasonably priced. Try a good mic and a Fostex four track... Always does the trick.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: sophocleese
Date: 05 Feb 01 - 11:43 PM

Does he wish to preserve them or publish them for income? If he wants an income, possibly even just covering costs, he would do better to find a decent publisher and a sympathetic editor. Its hard cutting and pruning but out of 27000 tunes there are going to be lots that aren't very good. If he's not willing to distinguish between good and bad he's going to need someone else to do it for him. If he wants everything kept, warts and all, then he's looking at preserving a large body of work, not necessarily publishing: which is going to take time and effort either to record or to copy. Check out local musuems and libraries for information on how they preserve their things. If he's going to record do it sooner rather than later.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: English Jon
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 04:04 AM

I have just finished editing a book of English tunes. It's not quite ready for publication yet, I need to extract a digit and tie up the last bits:

I suggest:

Typeset in Sibelius. Nothing else comes close. Failing that, Personal Composer for windows is the best budget solution. Handwriten is great for facsimile, but I presume you want a working score, rather than an historical curio.

Think of NAMES for the Tunes. This is Soooo important if you want them to absorb into the tradition. If Foxhunter's jig was just called Tune #23478/a or whatever, people wouldnt distinguish it from #23479, etc. (Keep the numbers as well, ie opus numbers for chronology)

Maybe start a thread "Suggestions for tune names" and pick the ones you like best?

Do them a few at a time. Batches of 100 or so. (Even if the selection is pureley on a numerical basis 1-200, 201-300, 301-400 etc), people can afford small books. Less customers for a "complete works" costing $200 or whatever. There is a lot of work in editing 27000 tunes.

This enterprise is unlikely to be profitable but: The material should be preserved.

I can do some of the editing/score preperation for you, if you want, (but not the whole thing, obviously. It would take my entire life).

This is a LOT of work, but it's very important.

Hope these suggestions are usefull, mail me if you need anything.

Jon

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: GUEST,PattyClink
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 09:55 AM

For the love of God, ask him to see that they are photocopied ASAP, and the copy stored in another building or vault. Maybe a small copier or printer/scanner/copier could be bought, and batches of 100 done and dropped off at a relative's for safekeeping (if he's by the shore, maybe the alternate location should be 'high ground' or mainland. Nothing else you help with is as important as keeping them from going up in flame, flood, or garage sale with no copies.

Agree with the advice about talking to the local self-publishers. They know what they're doing and can help him shape his plans.

Maybe he could break them up by style or time, start with 'volume 1-hornpipes' or 'volume 1 1995-2000', or maybe you can encourage him to let another fiddler pick 'player's favorites' for volume 1, then move on to the rest.

There is such a thing as a 'literary executor'. He could appoint one in a will and instruct the executor to publish and forward any profits to designated heirs.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 02:47 PM

How computer savvy are you? Have any nerdy friends? Think about this approach. I've used it myself and it works like a charm.

Materials needed: Scanner, PC with CD burner, Adobe Acrobat Exchange

Scan each handwritten page into a separate file. The scanner will let you chose a file format and resolution. I've had good luck with PCX at 300 dpi, but you can experiment with different file types and settings until you are satisfied with the on-screen and printed results.

Adobe Acrobat Exchange (not Reader) will let you import the PCX files and you can then save them as PDF files. Now you have 1 PDF file per page. Exchange will then let you combine the individual PDF files into a single (large) PDF file which becomes functionally equivalent to a book. You can add a title page, table of contents, etc. A standard CD can hold a PDF songbook containing several hundred pages.

Since the PDF format has become a de-facto standard, the resulting PDF songbook can be read on any PC with a CD player and Abode Acrobat Reader (available free on their website).

Acrobat Reader will also allow the printing of individual pages or the whole book if hard copies are desired.

A CD can be much more quickly and cheaply duplicated and distributed than a paper document.

Added advantage, no dead trees.

I used this method to turn a group's large unwieldy paper songbook into a CD. The possessors of the CD are free to view the songbook on screen or print a hard copy.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 08:32 PM

Hi Marion, I agree with all that its a great idea to preserve the tunes, your story reminds me of Graham Townsend a great Canadian fiddle player and tune composer, he died a couple years ago and sometime later many of his compositions were lost in a house fire during which his widow and granddaughter perished. As far as digital recorders are concerned the Sony mini disc recorder is a high quality hand held recorder although I dont know how easily it can be transferred onto cd as it uses a special compression. They run for about $300 Canadian, I do see a lot of musicians using them. (interesting to note: much of JS Bachs music was lost when it was used to wrap sandwiches in later years) petr

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 09:46 PM

G'day Marion,

The sheer scale of preserving 27,000 tunes is mindboggling! To just play 27,000 tunes of (say) 32 bars - plus speaking their name (or number) would require at least 300 hours of recording medium. The time taken would have to be at least twice as long - 10 to 15 working weeks just playing tunes ... without rest or recuperation.

I think the first thing to do is to get a record of the dots - his handwritten tunes, complete with his numbers. As I am a photographer (working in a small training/publishing section), I think in photographic terms, and I would set up a copy stand (two lights on stands and a 35mm camera loaded with slow, fine grain black & white film on a frame that holds it above the music where it can be adjusted for height and focused - preferably with a high quality macro lens like a Micro Nikor).

Even this record would need at least 750 36 exposure films, which would have to be developed (probably by a keen amateur to keep costs down?). These films could then be scanned in bulk to produce CD-Rs full of images (no need to clutter them with a useless Acrobat PDF file - they can be viewed, printed &c directly from the TIF, PCX or GIF file on the CD-R). A good detailed GIF of a music page runs to about 30 kb, so you could fit nearly all of them on a CD (absolute murder to find, but you have them captured for posterity).

You could also go the direct digital route - with a digital camera capable of high quality macro work hooked up and feeding the images straight into a computer. You should use the tune numbers as a file name (the only present retrieval method!) and a good recent model computer with a few Gb spare and USB input connections should handle it easily.

With a bit of juggling and a few files to give background and help, you could fit them all on two CD-Rs ... a bit less resolution and they could be published on a single CD. A short run of real pressed copies (500 looks like the current lowest economical number for pressing from a matrix), complete with a simple cover, in card and labelling would probably be possible for little more than US$1,000 in today's competetive climate.

But you (or friends) would have to do all the groundwork. This beats hell out of the cost of producing at least 50 - 60 books of closely spaced tunes ... and might just be a goer, if you were to interest enough people to subscribe in advance to cover the initial costs. No matter how you cut it, it is a BIG job!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 06 Feb 01 - 09:58 PM

G'day again Marion,

I forgot to say that just feeding the digital photographs into the computer and typing in numbers would take pretty close to 6 - 8 weeks! You could only manage such a project as something you tackled whenever you had some spare time - probably over months.

However, it would: publish all his work; publish it all in his handwritten versions (unslurred!); make the entire corpus available for study, learning or teaching; be an act of publishing - and so secure copyright; make the material available to performers who might perform it or record it, generating royalties; act as a resource for an eventual publication, if only of selected favourites.

Some sort of grant or academic assistance - or help from an interested group (Cape Breton Fiddlers?) could make this project possible. Any music group would be a possible subscriber to a project that eventually delivered this complete collection of one great performer's work.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: English Jon
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 04:02 AM

If you do it in Sibelius, you can scan the dots, and there is a kind of "Optical Character Recognition" type thing that effectively reads handwritten manuscript and transcribes it into proper legible typeface.

Obviously, you still have to check it, but that just means reading the two versions side by side, or even playing the midi off the computer whilst reading the original manuscript.

Cheers Jon

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Marion
Date: 07 Feb 01 - 10:44 PM

Thank you all. This is very interesting. Maybe with some outside advice and funding I could be involved in the project. I'll probably keep refreshing this for a bit to collect ideas, then approach my teacher with them and get his OK to research them further.

I must admit, when I imagine recording the whole lot onto cassette, it seems like it wouldn't be that big a step forward - like what's the difference between a box of papers under his bed and a box of tapes under my bed? What would I do with them that would constitute "preserving them for folkdom?"

I should also admit that I've contributed to the titles-vs.-numbers problem; I commented once that Beethoven's sonatas are officially just numbered and the popularly known titles are nicknames that have developed. So now when he talks about numbering his tunes he always says that it worked for Beethoven. In vain do I point out that everybody knows what "Moonlight Sonata" sounds like and only a few nerds know what "Opus No. whatever-the-hell-number-it-was" is.

Marion

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: English Jon
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 04:35 AM

If you can record onto DAT or minidisc or something else digital you'll have a better Archive. Cassette is not really good enough as it has a theoretical life of about 40 years after which time it starts to corrupt. It also suffers every time it is played, and is prone to damage. Digital media is better because multiple (lossless) copies can be made, so backups can be made every 20 or so years before the tapes have had a chance to decay. Also, DAT etc tends to have a longer shelf life than audio cassette anyway. It would be great to record this guy playing his own material - it would give a much better idea of playing style etc than simply producing manuscript books. Again, I can record this for you if you want, but I am in the U.K. Alternatively, If you can get DATs recorded I can master them for you if that's any help?

Good luck

jon

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: wes.w
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 09:28 AM

A couple of fairly stupid 'non academic' ideas strike me here, but they might be phood for thought... but whatever you do try to ensure his work gets preserved somehow.

...he is suspicious of publishers, believing that they are out to make a lot of money off authors ..
Perhaps something like the Mudcat could be used to market the tunes in exchange for a suitable and acceptable donation/cut to all concerned?

... he wants to publish the sheet music handwritten... Your very own unique tune for only $10 or $15 framed with accompanying certificate saying only you may play it royalty free? (others have to buy a whole typeset book and pay per play .. at least in theory)

eccentrically yours ..wes

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 11:38 AM

wes, what a cool idea! Like the people that 'sell' you a star, naming one in the catalog for your beloved. maybe people could sign up on the 'net or on a mail order form, describing their intended, and the composer would then pick out something suitable in style and name it for them. One by one all 27,000 could get named.

My music teacher, knowing few people with truly irish names, named a 'slide' for me once. What a kick.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 11:52 AM

Marion, I've asked Sandy to take a look in here. He's had sooo much experience at preserving the works of traditional artists. I'm sure he'll have some suggestions to go along with the great ones you've had already.

Rick

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 09:54 PM

G'day again Marion,

Keep in mind:
Scanning to "Music OCR" (and checking copies -
Playing tunes to cassette / DAT / Mini Disk / &c -
Photocopying and sorting into (a lot of!) boxes -
Framing copies and selling -
playing tunes in at a keyboard and checking out the over-literal MIDI -

TIMES 27,000!

TIMES 27,000!

Every second that any process takes is another day's work in the total project of capturing 27,000 individual tunes!

I proposed the photographic image to CD solution because it is probably -
the only way one or two people can deal with that immense number of tunes -
and publish in the author's handwritten versions, without emendation -
get them all into a single accessible record of manageable size -
clearly publish them, so as to secure copyright to the author -
create a merchantable product that can be sold to interested musicians ... and not just wealthy institutions (if there are any of them left!).

All the other ideas are greate way to personally access a small body of work, a few tunes you would like to learn, &c. This is a colossal project ... and requires clear thinking and fast solutions ... and probably won't be done by a folkie (unfortunately).

Regards,

Bob Bolton (not a fiddler ... and half a world away from Caoe Breton)

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Feb 01 - 09:56 PM

Dang!

That double posted ... and I slipped up on some html ... and the odd spelling ...

Regards(les)s,

Bob Bolton

It was a job for la joeclone!

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Marion
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 11:46 PM

Bob:

"Every second that any process takes is another day's work in the total project of capturing 27,000 individual tunes! "

Yikes - you're right. I thought I was in touch with just how large the collection was, but then I did the math and found that you're right. However, the tunes are written 4 or 5 to a page - so if I were trying to produce a CD-ROM, I could let each page be an image so there would only be about 6000. Of course, if I were to undertake the project I would have to break his fingers so he wasn't making any more tunes in the meantime.

Jon: Thanks for your offers of help. Once I have a clearer idea of what the technological options are, I may be seeking you out (I must admit I don't know what DAT or master mean). I hope your own project will come to a successful end soon.

Rick: The more I think about what you told me on the phone ("You should collect the tunes in your teacher's repertoire because there may be 3 or 4 tunes that he and nobody else in the world still plays") the less sense it makes to me. This may sound a little heartless, but... if that's the case, maybe there's a reason that nobody plays those tunes? There isn't exactly a shortage of Scottish fiddle tunes that don't catch anybody's attention; I don't think it's that sad if some of them go extinct. Anyway, how would I know which 3 or 4 out of all the repertoire are the ones that need preserving, unless I also familiarize myself with the obscure repertoires of every other CB or Scottish fiddler?

All: Thanks for your suggestions so far. I will continue to ponder on them, and I'm going to a lesson tomorrow God willing so I'll run a few general ideas by Mr. Macdougall.

I'm getting the impression that there are two basic routes that can be taken: publishing or preserving.

Publishing would mean taking a very small number of tunes (relative to the total, anyway) and cleaning them up to be marketable: typing them, naming them. Self-publishing through a photocopying service might be viable or at least not too big a financial risk if done in judicious quantities and with the counsel of others who have done the same.

Preserving would mean finding some way to reproduce the whole collection into a more permanent form (or at least having more than one box in existence) in a lower quality way: basement recordings or copies (paper or digital) of the autographs. I think Bob Bolton's argument that putting images of the autographs onto a CD-ROM is the most feasible way is convincing. And I can think of a few local organizations I could approach to talk about funding, use of computer stuff, or advice on who to ask for those things. I don't know much about scanners, digital cameras, or CD-ROMS at this point, but I have no doubt that we could learn them. Maybe if I did produce a CD-ROM I could include some sound files of Mr. Macdougall playing. I wonder whether scanning in the notebooks or using a digital camera would work better.

So I guess where I go from here is to see whether the publishing route or the preserving route is what Mr.Macdougall wants. And if, as I suspect, what he really wants to do is publish scores and put them on the market, then my task will be to convince him to make them as marketable as possible and to not lay out too much money at the beginning. If he does want to make preservation of all the tunes a priority, I'll have lots of learning to do about the techniques for preserving written or recorded music.

These are my thoughts now, and I'll let you know how the next discussion with my teacher goes, but I still hope for a lot of help from you guys! Especially you, Mr. Paton, if you are reading this.

Thanks, Marion

PS One more thing that worries me - Mr. Macdougall says that he never deliberately composes tunes bar by bar - they spring to his mind spontaneously and whole. The fact that they "come to him whole" makes me wonder how many of his "original tunes" are actually tunes that he's heard in his life and is remembering, or even tunes that he wrote two years ago and is remembering them again. Don't they say that in old age one starts recalling old memories more easily?

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 12:37 AM

Marion, your last point there, about "remembered" or "previous" tunes is very valil. I do find it difficult to believe that he has "written" 27,000 tunes......."Cole's" has just over a thousand, and Captain O'Neill only managed to collect 1,850 and part of those are O'Carolan tunes........let's do some more math.

75 years x 365 days = 27,375. That is a tune a day since the day he was born......I doubt that. Even if we say he has only written tunes since he was 10 yrs old, that is still 23,725 tunes......if he started writing tunes when he was 20, that is 490 tunes per year.....more than one per day. I think you better find a free copy machine, and get these things copied. Then you can worry about his memory, titles, etc.

Marions' Favorite, Student's Favorite, MacDougalls Favorite, Teachers Favorite, Marions (Jig, Reel, etc), Teachers (jig,reel, etc), MacDougalls (jig, reel, etc.) Cape Breton's MacDougall, there are lots of possiblilites for titles, but I sure wouldn't worry about that yet.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 01:48 AM

DAT is Digital Audio Tape, as far as I know. It comes looking like a smallish cassette.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 06:30 AM

G'day,

Marion, I must admit that I did consider that there might be several tunes per music sheet ... and chose to work with the raw figure 27,000 for its sheer mass! Photographing (or scanning ... but it is slower) only 6000 sheets does make a CD full of quite sharp GIFs (or whatever format chosen in 1-bit, 300 dpi bitmap image) a feasible answer.

It would still be a major project, but it would preserve and disseminate the written material, publish it officially, make it avalable for study and playing, make it possible for any purchaser to print of a facsimile of your teacher's music sheets ... Would it be bought and appreciated is the critical question?

See who can be enthused by the music and the project ... and help (financially, materially and energetically!

Best of luck,

Regards,

Bob Bolton

(And profuse thanks to la joeclone ... even if she left Cape Breton dubiously spelled ...)

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: Marion
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:44 AM

I was just in Cape Breton and visited Mr. MacDougall. He's retired from teaching, but has a steady gig - 12 two-hour sessions a week - at the Glenora Distillery on Route 19 during tourist season.

He's still determined to publish and sell his sheet music in the way I described in my first post above - and he still intends to get started on it very soon - but now it's more than 31 600 tunes. Oh well.


Marion

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:07 AM

*smile* Good to hear he's still going strong, Marion, thanks for the update!

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From:
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:43 AM

Marion. Out of curiosity, what's his full name/patryonimic and where's he live? Cape Breton is kind of a big place.

I'd like to suggest perhaps someone like Paul Cranford would be a good person for him to talk to. Check him out at Cranford Publishing

He might be able to help convince Mr. MacDougall to do things in a better way.

Subject: RE: Preserving old fiddler/composer's work
From:
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:57 AM

I realize that he and Paul aren't on the best of terms, but he is STILL far and away the best respected publisher. If they could perhaps talk!

How about Joey Beaton if Paul is not likely. Joey has published a number of books of fiddle tunes over the years. Done well as far as I can tell.