Hi.
On Mon, 20 Apr 2015 09:52:54 -0400, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
Hi Federico (et al.),
I've thought for a long time that the right way to go is to seek
public funds for engraving public domain contents
Me too.
I think it’s telling that most of the non-publishing music world is
going in exactly the opposite direction: schools are adding “musical
entrepreneurship” courses, programs, and degrees all over, in an
attempt to teach musicians how to avoid the trap of relying only on
public funds; and there is a significant (and mostly successful)
grassroots effort to abandon the dying “not-for-profit” model of
musical organziations in favour of a model where pleasing the paying
audience actually matters to some extent.
I started thinking about bringing LilyPond in music schools. Even
though I never tried because of lack of time, I can imagine two major
issues:
1. LilyPond is not considered as a professional tool because it's
not used by the publishing companies. In general schools teach what
the market asks. That's why I think that this effort by Urs is
important.
2. Text input. Frescobaldi is doing a good job here, but still.
From the [many] discussions I’ve had with music schools large and
small, the second is *far* less important than the first. And rightly
so: all other things being equal, higher education should be teaching
students skills and tools [!!] which they can immediately apply to
their careers.
This cannot be the overall guiding rule, if "progress" has any value at
all.
Is the sole expectation, of students attending music schools, to be
hired by a publishing company?
Personally, I think that it is equally wrong to teach (how to become
dependent of) proprietary products, the more so when a free (and more
fit to the task!) alternative exists. [Cf. M$-Office versus LaTeX for
typographic quality and consistency.]
Unfortunately, as long as Lilypond is a pariah amongst
publishers, it does a disservice to students to teach them Lilypond
at
the expense of other things.
I might be wrong, but I think that the vast majority of music engraving
software users don't make their choice based on what a publishing
company
uses.
LilyPond is at a disadvantage mainly because of marketing reasons (and
aversion to changing one's viewpoint on certain tasks).
As Urs mentioned, LilyPond would be a serious alternative for new
publishing houses. Teaching it is offering business opportunities
for people so inclined.
Best,
Gilles
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