Marking music can help – or hinder – music reading. Inexperienced music readers write too much information on sheet music instead of learning to read music notation. Sheet music already contains 95% of the information needed to play the piece. Cluttering it up with English is a crutch, and makes it more difficult to read, not easier. Continue reading Marking music
Tag Archives: Alanna Teragawa
Recording permission and mechanical licenses
Making recordings in any form is one of the rights assigned exclusively to the copyright holder under copyright law. This is partly what the notice “All rights reserved” means. Although technology has changed rapidly, copyright law has not. We’re still bound by the laws on the books, however laxly enforced. If you haven’t already read my articles on Performance royalties and copyright, as well as Photocopies and “fair use,” you may find them helpful in understanding these issues. Today’s article covers audio recording licenses; I’ll write another time about video recording, as well as broadcasting via YouTube or other media. Continue reading Recording permission and mechanical licenses
Memorization
Memorizing music frees you from the distraction of following notes on a page and allows you to relate to your performance partners and your audience while expressing the music to the fullest extent. Movement, even dance, is a key part of solo ringing, and you generally don’t see dancers with paper in front of them during performance. Having a binder of music (or worse, several binders of music) propped up in front of you prevents the audience from seeing the bells fully and may also block the sound. Even laying the music flat on the table draws your focus away from where it belongs: on the bells and your audience. Continue reading Memorization