On the Road: New York, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky!

Stanton’s Sheet Music is coming to YOU! Stanton’s will be on the road this winter attending several conventions outside the state of Ohio.

Our first stop will be in Rochester, New York, December 3-5th for the NYSSMA Convention. We are extremely excited about going back to this show for the 5th time! We are eager to see some of our favorite customers and, of course, meet new educators who we’ll be able to help. We are bringing a full selection of sheet music for Solo & Ensemble, Choral, Elementary Music, Concert Band, Jazz and Orchestra, along with some of the newest publications for music educators and college music majors. You shouldn’t have trouble finding us–we’ll be under the big blue Stanton’s balloon flying in the exhibition hall. If you are already familiar with Stanton’s, or have been reading our blog regularly, you may have learned that the Stanton’s staff loves traditions. We can’t visit Rochester without having our traditional night out at the Dinosaur—a well-known restaurant with a reputation for excellent barbecue. The Dinosaur’s bar-like interior will be crowded with everyone from musicians/educators from the convention to urban professionals and leathered bikers—all mingling in waiting for a table. It’s always worth the wait because the food is fantastic and the portions are huge. We’re hoping that all of our NYSSMA crew—new and returning—will love the Dinosaur and have a great time in Rochester!

After hosting our annual January Church Choral Reading Session on Saturday, January 9th, the next stop on the winter tour will be our inaugural trip to Grand Rapids for the Michigan Music Conference, January 21st-23rd. We are thrilled to finally be adding Michigan to our roster; we have talked about attending this convention ever since this event moved from a college campus to a convention center. We have been so pleased to be of help to music educators in the state of Michigan, and we look forward to seeing those customers face-to-face. Once again, we’ll be bringing a wide variety of music publications and resources for music educators and college majors. Since this convention is a new experience for the Stanton’s crew this year, we are open to suggestions as to what to do and where to eat. We’re sure that the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel has a nice restaurant or two, but are there other fun and exciting places to dine out in the downtown Grand Rapids area?

We are keeping our fingers crossed hoping for good traveling weather. We know the trip back from Rochester can be a little nerve racking with all of the lake effect snow hitting us on route 90 (we’ve “white-knuckled” our way back home at 2:30 in the morning more than once), but we are also hoping for good weather going to and from Grand Rapids with the snow off Lake Michigan in January. Wish us luck!

Of course, Stanton’s busy schedule doesn’t stop there. After we attend the Michigan Music Conference, Stanton’s travels to Cincinnati the very next week for OMEA, then on to Louisville, Kentucky for the KMEA convention the week after that. That’s three in a row—back to back to back! Then we still have a few small February run-outs to the Morehead Band Clinic and the ACDA Central Division Conference in Cincinnati before we can settle back into our normal routine. Keeping busy on the road is not only a fun way for the staff to get out and meet new people, but also makes the dark, chilly months seem to speed by more quickly. Come out and see us sometime this winter, and if you’d like Stanton’s to come to YOUR state convention next year, let us hear about it!

Spend Your In-Service Day at Stanton’s!

As schools come to the end of their first grading period of the year, many districts have in-service work days for teachers.  Why not spend your in-service day here at Stanton’s?  Check with your administrators, then gather all the music teachers from your district and come on in!

Now is a particularly great time to be planning your winter and holiday concert programs.  We have all our picks for seasonal concerts on display, and we’re happy to help you find exactly what you’re looking for, or offer you some suggestions.

So give us a call (1-800-42-MUSIC) and let us know when you’re coming!  If you have any special requests (musical research, repertoire choices and suggestions, etc.), please let us know as far in advance as possible, and we will do our best to accommodate you. 

For Ohio music educators, we invite you to join us on Friday, October 16, 2009 for COTA (Central Ohio Teachers’ Association) Day.  Stanton’s will be providing free coffee and doughnuts for you on that day, and free promotional items will also be available.  See you soon!

POP goes the sheet music!

Stanton’s receives many calls and emails that begin with “I’ve got a great piece of music here that’s pretty old…” and, sadly, that conversation often ends with “I’m sorry to tell you that piece is permanently out of print.” What does that mean for you, the director/musician when something is permanently out of print (POP)? Read on to find some of the most common questions and their answers:

1) Why do things go POP?
When we inform someone that a certain piece is POP, the most common response we receive is “I can’t believe it—that piece is so good!” While it is true that sometimes a piece is taken out of print due to lack of sales, this is not the only reason. Sometimes there are copyright changes, royalty disputes and other business issues that have nothing to do with sales. Even if a piece is taken out of print due to low sales, that’s not necessarily an indicator of quality. A piece that is “good” may also be very difficult, or extremely contemporary or use an unusual voicing/instrumentation, all of which could lead to low sales despite how “good” it is.

2) Why does Stanton’s show POP titles on their website?
When Stanton’s determines that a piece is no longer in print, we indicate that on our website so that you, the customer, can also have that information. If you were looking for a certain piece and simply didn’t see it listed, you may just conclude that it’s not available from Stanton’s, or that you had typed something incorrectly.
Sometimes a piece that is permanently out of print is not yet listed that way on our website. While we make every effort to keep the information on our website up-to-date, we usually don’t learn that a piece has gone POP until we try to order it and the publisher says “sorry, no.” Please call us if you have questions about the status of a particular piece.

3) How do I determine that something is POP?
As stated above, we encourage you to contact Stanton’s whenever you have questions about a piece of music. If you are interested in doing some research yourself, you can check the website of the publisher to see if they have more information. If the music is from a publisher that is no longer in business, their copyrights, or “imprints,” are probably still owned by another publisher; the same arrangement may still be in print from the “new” owner of that imprint. You can find more details about defunct publishers on the Music Publishers Association’s directory of imprints.

4) Do I have any options for obtaining this music?
Once you have determined that something is POP, you may contact the publisher to request permission to photocopy (Stanton’s can give you their contact information) if you have at least one original copy. Especially in the case of churches and schools, the publishers will often grant this request for little or no cost. The publisher will then send you a letter stating that you have permission to make copies. If you do not have an original copy, you might acquire a copy from someone else’s library by sending out a query on the ChoralNet listserv, or a similar forum. IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE PHOTOCOPIES WITHOUT THE PUBLISHER’S PERMISSION, EVEN WHEN SOMETHING IS NO LONGER IN PRINT!

5) This music is still in print, so why is it so hard for me to get it?!
In addition to “in print” and “out of print,” there are a few other ways to designate the status of a piece of music. It may be “temporarily out of print” (TOP) or “on backorder” (OBO), which means that the publisher is sold out of the music in their warehouse and will need to print some more. It also may be designated as “print on demand” (POD) or an “archive edition,” meaning that it is not something that the publisher keeps in stock, but they will print special copies on request. A piece of music might be a “special import” that is not kept in stock in the US, but that a publisher can get from their international partners. ALL of these situations may affect how long it will take to get your music and how much it will cost.

6) Is there any chance that it WILL come back into print?
No. There may be other arrangements of the same composition available, but once something goes POP, it will not come back.

Permanent means permanent.

Erich Kunzel – 1935-2009

Erich Kunzel, the award-winning conductor who headed the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra since it was founded three decades ago, died Tuesday at the age of 74.  His distinguished career is personified by his 2006 National Medal of Arts, presented by President and Mrs. Bush in a ceremony in the Oval Office at The White House.  He had led the National Symphony on the Capitol lawn in nationally televised Memorial Day and Independence Day concerts since 1991, most recently this year in a July 4th concert featuring Aretha Franklin.

Born in New York City to German-American immigrant parents, Kunzel was educated at Dartmouth, Harvard and Brown universities, and he studied with the great French conductor Pierre Monteux.  He began his conducting career with the Santa Fe Opera Company, followed by the Rhode Island Philharmonic and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra before his appointment to the newly-formed Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 1977.

Kunzel is possibly best-known for his award-winning recordings.  Beginning in 1977, he recorded over 85 albums on the Telarc label with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.  More than 55 of these albums have appeared on the Top 10 Billboard Charts.  Several Grammy Awards, the distinguished Grand Prix du Disque, and the Sony Tiffany Walkman Award for “visionary recording activities” highlight his fantastic recording career of over 125 albums.  In May 2009 he was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.

His career-long support for music education was unwavering.  As Chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Arts and Education Center, he helped the organization to build a new School for the Creative and Performing Arts adjacent to Music Hall, home of the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, which will be complete in 2010.

Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud to call Ohio our home, and we salute Erich Kunzel for his inspiring musical career and the way he brought Ohio musicians to the world stage.

How may I direct your call?

We’re always talking about our knowledgeable staff—you’ll find that very phrase on much of our printed advertising, as well as on our website. Stanton’s sales staff is separated into departments to ensure that each staff member is well informed about a specific area of the wide variety of music that we carry. So when you call and ask about music for trumpet, you’ll be speaking with someone who has first-hand knowledge of repertoire, not just a phone operator with no musical experience. Here’s what you’ll find in each department:

CHORAL DEPARTMENT (ex. 1)
Choral Music for School & Church
Elementary General Music
Classical Solo Vocal
Handbell

BAND DEPARTMENT (ex. 2)
Concert Band
Marching Band
Jazz Ensemble
Orchestra
Solos for all concert instruments
Instrumental Method Books
Music Software/Technology

POP/KEYBOARD (ex. 3)
Sacred & Secular Piano
Organ
Piano Method Books
Popular/Broadway Solo Vocal
Contemporary Christian Vocal
Guitar Solos and Methods
Music for Folk Instruments

You can direct emails to the exact department you need by clicking the links above, or press the appropriate extension when you call 1-800-42-MUSIC. If you’re unsure of which department to choose, we’re always happy to direct you to whoever can best address your needs. At Stanton’s, it is important to us that you receive the most educated answers to your questions and the finest music recommendations.

Cool iPhone App

For all of you 3G & iPhone users, here is a really cool application that you can download to your cell phone. Even if you don’t have one of these phones, check out the video anyways–someone was really creative when they wrote the program to do this on 3G phones.

We’ve tweeted the link to this video and as a result have been re-tweeted over and over.  Unfortunately, you would not be able to purchase the app off of Stanton’s website, but you can do a download purchase from the iTunes store.  Even when a thing really doesn’t have much to do with Stanton’s, sometimes we love it so much we just have to pass it along!

Composers and arrangers, take heed!

Do you get called upon to make arrangements for instrumental and/or vocal solos or groups?  Do you know all the ranges, technical considerations and the idiosyncrasies of each instrument and voice?  A string quartet or SATB chorus may not be a problem, but how about if it’s for a quintet consisting of Lyric Baritone, Oboe D’Amore, Alto Trombone, Troubadour Harp and Slide Whistle?  Or maybe you’re wondering what special effects for violins you could incorporate into your writing or the best way to notate specific percussion parts.  Now there is a concise source for all this information and more -  Alfred’s Essentials of Orchestration – A Practical Dictionary by Dave Black and Tom Gerou.

This is not a book on how to write orchestrations, it is a quick reference book that presents complete and practical ranges of all voices and instruments, both well known and obscure, as well as all applicable instrumental transpositions.  There is also general information on each voice and instrument, and the unique characteristics of each, as well as description of the dynamic and tonal qualities of every register.  Helpful tips on scoring for vocal and instrumental groups are also included.  In addition, it has sections on specific string techniques, guitar and percussion notation and brass mutes and articulations. This practical book also describes a plethora of percussion instruments, pitched and unpitched.  An alphabetical index will lead you to the exact instrument or voice that you are seeking.

It’s intriguing just to look through and find such obscure instruments as slide trumpet and reco-reco or discover the difference between “staccato volante” and “saltando” bowing for strings (now you’ll have to get the book to see what these all mean!) but on the utilitarian side, Alfred’s Essentials of Orchestration – A Practical Dictionary is a very handy guide for quick reference on details you will need when doing any kind of orchestration.  It should be on the bookshelf of every composer and arranger from amateur to professional.

Request Your “21 Day Trial” TODAY!

Did you know that you can preview music from Stanton’s before you decide to buy? We know that it’s difficult to tell if a particular piece of music will fit your needs without actually reading it through, so similar to checking things out from a library, you can “borrow” resources from our store using the “21 Day Trial” program!

Each of Stanton’s departments has slightly different guidelines about what/how many items can be sent on “21 Day Trial,” but in general we can send printed sheet music that is currently in stock. You can request items for trial by phone, email, fax, online or in person—any of the ways that you can place a regular order—but make sure that you specify “21 Day Trial.” You can list the music you’d like to peruse, or you can give us some specifications (like “Christmas piano solos,” “SSA choral music on the theme of friendship,” or “new publications for 8th grade jazz band”) and Stanton’s knowledgeable staff will find some suggestions for you!

We require account or credit card information so that if you choose to keep the music we can charge you accordingly, or return the music within 21 days of your invoice date and you’ll never be charged! (You’ll just have to pay return shipping to get the music back to us.)

Contact us NOW in July when we have more time to spend considering your unique trial request. When all the other teachers are dragging themselves into the store first thing in the morning on a Saturday in August or September, you’ll continue to sleep soundly knowing that you’ve already received a package of music, specifically chosen for you, that will be waiting whenever you choose to wake up and read through it…

Complete Band Director Workshop at Capital

Stanton’s Sheet Music will be attending the 2009 Complete Band Director Workshop, and we hope that you will be too! This comprehensive workshop for junior high, middle school and high school instrumental teachers is held each year at Capital University in the Columbus suburb of Bexley, OH.

The four-day event offers practical solutions for your everyday problems, as well as a great opportunity for earning educational credit. To meet the challenge of establishing a well-balanced instrumental music program, we need to expose our students to a variety of instructional and performance opportunities. From the first-year teacher to the seasoned pro, this workshop has been designed to enhance the positive experiences of dealing with the concert band, marching band and jazz band. Composer James Swearingen is the workshop director/clinician, with special appearances by Larry Clark, Rob Grice and Tim Lautzenheiser.

The application deadline is Tuesday, June 9, 2009 and enrollment is limited to 60 participants, so register as soon as possible to reserve your spot! For more information, contact James Swearingen.

International Trumpet Guild Conference

This is a milestone day for Stanton’s Sheet Music: you’re reading the first blog posting from an iPhone!

Enough of that–The real reason for the blog is that we’re at ITG in Harrisburg, PA. (BTW, that’s David in the photo) Arriving on Wednesday at the Harrisburg Hilton, we set up a massive display of trumpet music. If it said “trumpet” we brought from the store. We’ll be here through Saturday at 12:30pm so if you’re in the Harrisburg, PA area come see us. For more information on ITG, check out their website or read our previous post.

We “practice what we preach,” as well! Sales associate Ben Huntoon will be performing on the Festival of Trumpets on Saturday. The grande finale will be Carmina Burana performed by mass trumpet ensemble in the statehouse rotunda. Eeoww!!!