Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The Juilliard Store is online

Just sharing my experience.... Over the past few months, I've had a great experience with the new online version of the Juilliard Store. Great selection of quality classical music scores such as the G. Henle Verlag Urtext series. Prices are decent, the shipping seems high. Also, I've noticed that PayPal does not seem to be a payment option. Orders are filled and shipped promptly. Out here in the wilds of California we can shop confidently at the prestigious and cool Juilliard Store. Almost like being in Manhattan itself.

...and I am lucky enough to live here, so that I can just drop by and pick up orders from the Juilliard Store itself! No shipping costs...ever!

Our local bricks & mortar, Shattingers, just closed shop a couple of days ago.

Oh no! Shattingers was a Missouri institution!

Sad, indeed. And yet . . . folks are not making the connection that this:

. . . leads to this:


I know -- there are many other factors at play -- but NOT buying from a real music store, as locally as you can, is a huge contributor to their decline, and eventual demise.

Oh, that's too bad. I had started ordering from them after Patelson's in NY closed down. I found their service to be lacking starting about a year ago (unanswered messages, and the like), so I figured something must be up......it's sad.

I do 90% of my music buying at two local brick and mortar stores - West Music and Eble Music.

I also think IMSLP is partly to blame for the demise of so many stores. I'm always amazed at the number of students who play off IMSLP scores. (Even music majors - you'd think they'd want something of better quality than random editions coming out of an inkjet printer!)

I'm a regular at le Croquenotes, our local music shop. Croquenotes, "the note eater", means singer or composer or songwriter. Always a busy place, and always a good chat to be had.

In France it is prohibited to sell books or printed material like music at less than 5% below the catalogue price. Good thing, this has helped many independant bookstores to prosper these last years.

This amazes and saddens me as well: one's choice of edition is indicative of one's respect and consideration for the composer's intentions. Additionally, I can't imagine how unpleasant it would be to look at stark white paper with inkjet globs marring the engraving. I could get used to heavy, laser printed paper, but I do enjoy real bookbinding instead of three ring binders!

I think for professional pianists the quality of the edition, especially in regard to knowing exactly what the composer's original score looked like as much as possible, are important. But for 99% who aren't professional IMO it's far less critical and editorial suggestions about fingering, pedaling, etc. can make having an edited score even an advantage over an urtext like edition.

For the 99% amateur pianists(like myself) my personal opinion is that many other more basic considerations in playing are far more important than "how urtext" the edition is. In other words, I think a top professional playing from and following a poor edition would usually sound far better than most amateurs playing from the "best" edition(however one wants to define "best").

As long as the edition is not very poorly edited I don't think an IMSLP score is much of a negative and in some cases can be a positive. Also, for much of the major literature there are multiple editions available at IMSLP. Finally, for a big part of the history of piano playing I think most people mostly used rather heavily edited editions.

As far as three ring binders go they are probably superior to most or even all bound editions in terms of page turning ease. I can see where a bound edition is more aesthetically pleasing. I have printed at least 30,000 pages from various internet sources. A lot of it is out of print music or non standard repertoire. There are no inkjet globs whatsoever. Most music can/should be printed using the "draft" setting.

Of course, the main reason anyone prints any music off the internet is the cost saving. I do appreciate the fact that the availability of music off the internet makes it more difficult for some people to make a living.

Part of the problem that I have with copies printed from IMSLP is how some others use them!

It unnerves me considerably and makes me apprehensive enough to mar my (possible) enjoyment of a performance when I see someone trying to spread five flimsy pages across a music desk that comfortably holds only four without having given any thought to whether or not the pages will stay in place for the duration of the performance. Said pianists seem not to think that taping them together is one step in giving some stability to their music; they seem not to have grasped that these pages can be put into three-ring binders or, better yet, can be put into plastic sleeves inserted into three-ring binders.

I can't enjoy a performance if I'm worrying about whether or not half the music is going to land on the floor before the performance is over.

And even if the music does remain on the music desk, it still just irks me when I have to watch someone spend several minutes trying to overlap pages sufficiently so that the whole score can be put up on the music desk.

If they can't memorize, why then don't they just practice and learn the skill of turning pages?

Regards,

My teacher hates loose sheets and so on. She told me many times "you cannot work with this".
When it's just something printed on paper, she asks me to tape them so that it'll be organized like a regular book.
According to her an important aspect of keeping all the sheets in this format is that it helps a lot with visual memory. This seems to be a very good point to me, this plus the simple but important/necessary practical convenience.



I buy some of my music books online, some at shops. Regular shops are nicer but sometimes it's just more partical to order books online and get them by the mail. We're maybe becoming too lazy.


And IMSLP is an amazing website. I does not equal a good editions, but it's just so great to use its score for analysis, reading while listening, sight-reading, discovering new repertoire, fac-similé/manuscripts, etc.
I don't see how these way of using it (probably the most common IMHO) could cause the demise of some stores.
Sometimes "offical" contemporary editors aren't much better than some of the old editions you find on IMSLP (I have some music sheets of Salabert which are really poorly made... no-PD work (albeit the composer is deceased), they do what they want you'll buy it from them anyway..).

Of course you do. To state the obvious, if printed music were available only through music stores, or from the licensed publishers, this would ensure a “chain of profit” that remains within the music industry. In an overly-simplified statement, it keeps musicians’ money circulating among musicians.

Faithful replication of scores, high quality printing, and high quality binding are certainly not cheap. By making certain that those worthy publishers receive a due profit from our expenditures, we help ensure that quality printed music will continue to be available. By purchasing from a (bricks & mortar) music STORE, we do our part to ensure that the next time we feel like browsing, the lights will be on, and the doors will be open.

Ed

My two cents about printed music and copies.

I like downloading scores from IMSLP, but I also own printed sonata collections; like the complete Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven sonatas.
But when I want to practise a sonata I own in a book, I usually make copies of them and tape them together. This way, they stay on the piano, on the page I want them to be.

And if I feel like practising a piece which I don't own in print, and the composer has been dead for at least 70 years, I don't see a problem with using online resources like IMSLP. After all, I'm just an amateur.

About brick and mortar stores that don't stay in business: We live in a market economy; and if musicians are not willing to pay for the services the stores provide, then the stores need to adapt, or leave.
Just like the music industry that has been complaining for decades about piracy (tapes in the last century, mp3 today). Yet the music industry still exist. Because they adapt. And those who don't adapt don't need crocodile tears; they need better business plans.

Do you really think I'd buy the music sheets for an Haydn symphony (or all the symphonies or whatever) just in order to listen to them while reading ? (:
I don't analyse/listen to while reading/etc. contemporary music because the sheets are really expensive. If I could, maybe I'd have four times more CDs of contemporary music and many sheets of my favorite pieces I discovered because of how free and accessible to everyone the music is.


The fact you have to buy sheets (sometimes very expensive) in order to know the music better is actually, in my mind, only helping this music to stay not well known, not well understood, etc.
Let's not forget that if you could only buy sheets from editors, some of them wouldn't care about giving you a good product (because you'd buy it from them anyway). I actually feel like that for Mompou's Suite Compostellana (it's for guitar). Very poor work from the editor (and it's being published since the 60's), but I had to buy. Erk.


Actually, without being able to download free (and perfectly legal, don't forget it) sheets on internet I don't know if I'd be playing classical music today (and hence buying sheets, CDs, etc.).
AND let's not forget that you can photocopy sheets, too, it's not like it's just IMSLP.
Maybe music sheets should be "protected" the same way some video games are now protected : you buy your copy, your register it on the web, and then you won't be able to even lend it to anyone. Forbidden to share. How nice.

I think another factor in the decline is a lack of accurate modern music in sheet music form. I don't mean modern classical music. There is absolutely no reason for a person interested in Pop, Rock or Jazz to enter such a place. Most of it is not even in the right key. Even the fairly recent "note for note" series...aren't. Physical store fronts can't just sit on music forever. The prices at Shattingers were comparable to online prices.

For me, it's mostly about supporting the industry.

I don't really care so much about IMSLP not being urtext or print quality or anything like that.

What bothers me are artists who refuse to financially support the arts. It drives me CRAZY. They claim to love this or that pianist, but will only listen to them on Spotify or Pandora or YouTube - where the artist receives very little financial support. They claim to love a Rachmaninoff concerto, but complain about not being able to find a free copy online. (Meanwhile, they have no problem ordering a pizza that easily costs as much and is quickly gone in 30 minutes.) I know someone who, when getting married, chose a DJ over live music to save a few hundred bucks. (I'm all for being frugal, but with the average wedding costing upwards of $25,000 these days, choosing to save a few hundred bucks on music says more about a person's values than budget.)

And I mention students specifically because they are often quick to complain about the fact that they can't get a job and nobody supports what they do. It all seems hypocritical and self-destructive to me.

It's maddening that so many people seem to believe that, given a choice, the less expensive choice is always the best. Personally, I wish more people would choose to patronize and support the arts financially.

Ah, good discussion on musical scores. I became a convert to the G. Henle Verlag editions some years ago while in Munich on a business trip. Walking around on a free day, I came across a sidewalk music store. On display was the G. Henle edition of the famous Mozart theme and variation collection. The quality of the paper and print was way better than anything I had access to before this. So I purchased it on the spot.

Sadly, out here in California, it was almost impossible to find these editions in nearby music stores.

Late last year, I found a copy of the Henle Bach WTC Vol.1 on eBay. Edited by E.-G. Heinemann. Preface and all notes printed in English, German, French. Fingering and Notes on Execution is by Andras Schiff, himself. His commentary is outstanding. And the volume is an absolute pleasure to use.

Finally, in Jan/Feb (or so) of this year, The Juilliard Store came online, browsing through their website we see they offer pretty much the full line of G.Henle Verlag editions. My latest acquisitions are the two volumes of Mozart Piano Sonatas.

We are happy.

And it's cheaper than flying to Germany!

Cheers from Palm Springs CA.

I understand but I thought the same until I purchased the Wiener- Mozart Piano Sonatas and Variations from the Julliard Bookstore for $156.00 and its by far the best edition i have ever studied. Great fingering, comments. The structure is similar to Coopers Beethoven in that the score is easy to read and play. Paper quality is excellent. The book stays open. Pages turn easily so I becoming a fan of Wiener editions. The Schubert Wanderer, Bach Goldberg Variations, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. We should all begin to follow this publishing company.

Why the sudden interest in Juilliard's bookstore? Henle and Vienna Urtext have been available for years at Hutchins and Rea, Eble Music, JW Pepper, and Sheetmusicplus.