Ica

[Alan Day]

A few years ago I rejoined the International Concertina Association.I had been a member many years before and met up with some legendary concertina players including Tommy Williams.My impressions then was that it was more a localised club and not really International as the name implied. I thought recently that it was moving in the right direction, becoming much more of interest to those who were not in easy reach of London and more representative of the Concertina Community as a whole and I rejoined.

In this mornings post I received an excellent newsletter and a music supplement.Interesting and entertaining.

The archives for both written and sound are becoming more of interest , almost daily, with many recognising the importance of the archive information and are sending in donations to increase this section of the organisation. Much of the old playing is on tapes that are disintegrating daily and it will be too late to save them if left much longer. Please do something about them.

With a new Web site,links with America and a foreward thinking committee, the ICA are getting to become the really important organisation they should be in the Concertina World.They still have a way to go, but at least they are pointing in the right direction.

Al

[Dirge]

I paid up some time ago now, chiefly to get my hands on the music in the library, if I'm honest, but also because I had a lecturing along the lines of 'Someone like you OUGHT to be a member of the ICA' (I can't remember any more, it was a long night, but I remember being severely ganged up on.) That in itself perhaps proves that it's getting more respectable, Al?

 

I'll tell you later if I approve generally, so far my impression is of nice enthusiastic people and not much more, but (and here I hope that someone with influence on the ICA reads this) the Librarian doesn't officially have a scanner. (he's got one at home) This means that every time someone asks for a piece of music he has to find it, photocopy it, and post it. If you happen to be in NZ (That's 'international', I believe) it takes for ever. To his great credit he's volunteered to have a go at scanning and emailing music to me using his own machine, but that's not the point.

 

If library material was scanned once then emailed, or printed off as hard copy if required, from the computer files thus created, the originals need only be exposed to the handling and vicious light of the copying process once and for all. Sending a piece to a member would be the work of an instant. It would save on librarian time, delivery time, damage to the original and cost. It needs to be done.

 

(The pieces I am particularly looking forward to, in case you're interested, are Stanley arrangements of 'The Light Cavalry' overture (Von Suppe) and 'The Whistler and his Dog' (Dunno but it was on the radio when I was very small), but poor old Mr Bissitt has a list as long as your arm to dig out, photocopy, etc.......)

[Chris Timson]

Well, if you want someone to shout at, I'm on the committee. Whether that makes me someone of influence only others can judge ...

 

Other members of the committee who are members of the forum are Jonathan Taylor and Pauline de Snoo. John Wild and Jim Lucas are ex committee members. There are quite a few members around too. Don't look now, but you're surrounded!

 

Chris

[wes williams]

Other members of the committee who are members of the forum are Jonathan Taylor and Pauline de Snoo. John Wild and Jim Lucas are ex committee members. There are quite a few members around too. Don't look now, but you're surrounded!

.. and as archivist (documents) I have to hold my hand up!

Dirge> I'll tell you later if I approve generally, so far my impression is of nice enthusiastic people and not much more, but (and here I hope that someone with influence on the ICA reads this) the Librarian doesn't officially have a scanner. (he's got one at home) This means that every time someone asks for a piece of music he has to find it, photocopy it, and post it. If you happen to be in NZ (That's 'international', I believe) it takes for ever. To his great credit he's volunteered to have a go at scanning and emailing music to me using his own machine, but that's not the point.

But the photocopier *was* supplied by the ICA. Going back a little to this event, Librarian Dave B. said he'd prefer a copier to a scanner. There are also other considerations not immediately obvious - for instance, back in those days of yore when the music was published, A4 paper size wasn't standard, so the music is usually too big to fit on a standard scanner. And also at the time we got the copier, broadband internet wasn't yet on the horizon, so the obvious 'just email it' of today wasn't a real option as mailboxes were small, and sending large emails terribly slow. It would be nice if the ICA could supply the latest technology to all its officials, but its only got a few hundred members, and as Al indicates in the thread starter, a lot of our funds go straight back to the members in the form of newsletters, music supplements, and printed PICA.

best wishes ..wes

[Pippa]

(The pieces I am particularly looking forward to, in case you're interested, are Stanley arrangements of 'The Light Cavalry' overture (Von Suppe) and 'The Whistler and his Dog' (Dunno but it was on the radio when I was very small), but poor old Mr Bissitt has a list as long as your arm to dig out, photocopy, etc.......)

 

 

You'll find find 'Whistler and his Dog' at

 

Cheers

Pippa

[Dirge]

I know the ICA's an amateur organisation of limited means, that the officers will be unpaid enthusiasts doing things out of the goodness of their hearts and that times change. It wasn't a snipe, rather a constructive comment that here was somewhere where people like me, a LONG way away could be given much better access to one of the major resources of the ICA with side benefits all round. I can't easily go and have a look at the library and choose stuff, remember. Scanners aren't pricey are they, and they often take A3 paper.

 

Doing anything by post is appalling. It regularly takes a week to get things to England, and it took two goes to get my subs there, we still don't know where the first cheque went. Now, if I have to email the librarian, Dave, he photocopies it, posts it to me, a week or so later it arrives, battered from its journey and folded, I then send him a cheque for a small amount, he gets it a week later... you see? It's excruciating. I could alternately receive things by email by return and print out a nice flat pristine copy while I'm still excited about whatever my latest discovery is.

 

I actually sent a £13 advance payment on account to circumvent some of this. Now if that vanished straight into a 'scanner' fund and I got emailed any music I wanted instead, I'd count myself well ahead on the deal, if that helps.

 

And please don't make too much of this. I am the new boy and well aware of it. I'm beginning to wish I'd kept quiet. I'm sure Dave and I will cope under the present system.

 

Thanks for the link Pippa; looks playable as it is on a quick inspection. I think the library version is 'arr. Stanley'; it'll be interesting to see how it varies from that. I might learn some tricks!

[jonmac]

Other members of the committee who are members of the forum are Jonathan Taylor and Pauline de Snoo. John Wild and Jim Lucas are ex committee members. There are quite a few members around too. Don't look now, but you're surrounded!

.. and as archivist (documents) I have to hold my hand up!

Dirge> I'll tell you later if I approve generally, so far my impression is of nice enthusiastic people and not much more, but (and here I hope that someone with influence on the ICA reads this) the Librarian doesn't officially have a scanner. (he's got one at home) This means that every time someone asks for a piece of music he has to find it, photocopy it, and post it. If you happen to be in NZ (That's 'international', I believe) it takes for ever. To his great credit he's volunteered to have a go at scanning and emailing music to me using his own machine, but that's not the point.

But the photocopier *was* supplied by the ICA. Going back a little to this event, Librarian Dave B. said he'd prefer a copier to a scanner. There are also other considerations not immediately obvious - for instance, back in those days of yore when the music was published, A4 paper size wasn't standard, so the music is usually too big to fit on a standard scanner. And also at the time we got the copier, broadband internet wasn't yet on the horizon, so the obvious 'just email it' of today wasn't a real option as mailboxes were small, and sending large emails terribly slow. It would be nice if the ICA could supply the latest technology to all its officials, but its only got a few hundred members, and as Al indicates in the thread starter, a lot of our funds go straight back to the members in the form of newsletters, music supplements, and printed PICA.

best wishes ..wes

 

Dare I stick my head over the parapet - oh what the hell - getting shot down doesn't hurt all that much!!

Hello Dirge - and welcome - I'm sure I can work out who you are without too much trouble - but not to worry.

 

I appreciate what you are saying about having the music library in a scanned form - and Wes has given the main problems we faced when we considered this matter a couple of years ago - the physical size of the scores means that before we could scan the music - we would have to reduce it's size on the photocopy machine - and then scan that! My personal experience is that the scan that is then produced is often pretty poor quality - and honestly it was better just to supply the photocopy!

 

To get around this we explored the idea of having the entire library scanned professionally - but it isn't a very cheap process (if I recall, someone did suggest that they would pay for the scanning - but the price to the ICA would be that all the music would then be placed on the internet for free access to everyone ... rather a matter of chucking out the baby with the bathwater!) Even if we could afford to have the scanning done - and it would have cost something like the total income from subscriptions for a number of years - there would be the other small problems like storage of the images and the creation of a good quality database to service it - since with out the database the scans would be less use than the library. I also think that that scary word "Copyright" croped up a couple of times!

 

An interesting "cheap" alternative would be to divide the library up into small selections and have individual members scan them ... but oh the time to organise such a project - probably inversely proportional to the chance of it actually working!

 

So ... in our defense - we did consider the possibility - but reluctantly discarded it for most of the reasons I've listed above. Now, if there is anyone reading this who can tell us how to change a library of scores into a database of clear usable electronic images and a negligible cost and even less effort - please, please tell us! More so if they know the copyright rules well enough to convince us that we wouldn't be breaking the law. Just to make it a little harder - I would like the images to be stored in .tif format, be of good contrast black and white with the stave strictly horizontal - so that I can use my music OCR software directly on the image..

 

...and while I'm here, may I thank Al for his kind comments - our next publication PICA 4 is currently being set out and contains some very interesting items (I haven't had time to read them all yet!) - including - we hope - a review on the new English International - the three CD set due to be launched in the very near future as a follow up to the woderful 3 CD set Anglo International..

 

For those who are members of the ICA - or are thinking of joining (please do) remember we, the committee, are only a small collection of volunteers - and while we are all crazy keen (OK I talk for myself) - we don't have a huge organisation of paid staff to do the work for us - it's all done by the same few crazy keen volunteers! At the moment we are running as hard as we can to stay still - so along with ideas, kicks, praise we are always looking for helping hands.

 

An organisation like the ICA is only as effective as the collective enthusiasm of its members - and seemingly small contributions can produce great benefits to all - for instance the last two music supplements were essentially created by two members - Roger Digby and Peter Dyson - the latter being in the USA

 

Kind regards

[jonmac]

I know the ICA's an amateur organisation of limited means, that the officers will be unpaid enthusiasts doing things out of the goodness of their hearts and that times change. It wasn't a snipe, rather a constructive comment that here was somewhere where people like me, a LONG way away could be given much better access to one of the major resources of the ICA with side benefits all round. I can't easily go and have a look at the library and choose stuff, remember. Scanners aren't pricey are they, and they often take A3 paper.

 

Doing anything by post is appalling. It regularly takes a week to get things to England, and it took two goes to get my subs there, we still don't know where the first cheque went. Now, if I have to email the librarian, Dave, he photocopies it, posts it to me, a week or so later it arrives, battered from its journey and folded, I then send him a cheque for a small amount, he gets it a week later... you see? It's excruciating. I could alternately receive things by email by return and print out a nice flat pristine copy while I'm still excited about whatever my latest discovery is.

 

I actually sent a £13 advance payment on account to circumvent some of this. Now if that vanished straight into a 'scanner' fund and I got emailed any music I wanted instead, I'd count myself well ahead on the deal, if that helps.

 

And please don't make too much of this. I am the new boy and well aware of it. I'm beginning to wish I'd kept quiet. I'm sure Dave and I will cope under the present system.

 

Thanks for the link Pippa; looks playable as it is on a quick inspection. I think the library version is 'arr. Stanley'; it'll be interesting to see how it varies from that. I might learn some tricks!

 

Don't ever "wish you'd kept quiet" - new boy or not - rock the boat - how else are we going to see new ideas, evaluate new suggestions - or even re-evaluate old ones? A quick look at the price of A3 scanners suggests that the lowest price one is about £70 - but I wonder if the scanned image is worth the effort - the next price bracket seems to be about £800 (and the really posh ones costing about £2,000+).

 

So, assuming we are convinced that the money is worth spending - for the amount of use it will get - we could consider such a purchase (of the £70 one!) but I would need to be convinced that the image would be of value! There is another small matter to consider - I am given to understand that David B's home is cluttered enough with the library contents and photocopier - and I'm not sure how popular a A3 flatbed scanner would actually be! I can just imagine what my wife would say if I tried to bring such an item into my home - a frightening thought!

 

Kind regards

Jonmac

[asdormire]

Then this means there is a US agent?

 

Alan

[Dirge]

Thanks for that, Jonmac, I can believe that there is a limited amount of usage of the library, and I can see that you can't know if making it more available will improve that. I can imagine the low demand might make a scanner uneconomic.

 

I can quite see that whether anyone is prepared to house the thing is a very important factor indeed!

 

I don't know much about scanners, except that they seem very good these days, and I suspect a budget one would be fine.

 

You've seen the library and I haven't but my impression is that the Stanley stuff, a fair proportion of it, is all hand written; I've got a couple of pieces, courtesy of Bob Gaskins' Maccan site (Thank you!), and it's an extra delight, once you have your eye in, to play from such beautifully hand-scripted music. Even on a copy, the link to the great days of the duet is palpable and pleasant. I can't see that you can expect a scanner to do any more than create a good facsimile of this so a wish to be able to 'crunch it' into a sterile format electronically is probably an extremely large 'something for nothing' wishful hope, and might well destroy some of the charm of the music.

 

Anyway, I'm now off to see if I can play 'The Whistler and his Dog'. Thanks for thinking about it.

[pauline de snoo]

A suggestion maybe that we can put to the librarian:

If anyone requests music that particular piece or pieces can be scanned and digitalized for future uses, thereby gradually at least digitalizing any music that has been requested. And we could also consider to put that particular music in the music supplement of the Newsletter at the same time.

Jon could help the librarian in that aspect maybe. It would be slow but cheap .....???

And thanks Alan for the compliment on the Newsletter.

There are a lot more interesting articles and interviews already coming in for next editions of December 2007 , March and June 2008.

Pauline

[Woody]

Don't ever "wish you'd kept quiet" - new boy or not - rock the boat - how else are we going to see new ideas, evaluate new suggestions - or even re-evaluate old ones? A quick look at the price of A3 scanners suggests that the lowest price one is about £70 - but I wonder if the scanned image is worth the effort - the next price bracket seems to be about £800 (and the really posh ones costing about £2,000+).

 

So, assuming we are convinced that the money is worth spending - for the amount of use it will get - we could consider such a purchase (of the £70 one!) but I would need to be convinced that the image would be of value! There is another small matter to consider - I am given to understand that David B's home is cluttered enough with the library contents and photocopier - and I'm not sure how popular a A3 flatbed scanner would actually be! I can just imagine what my wife would say if I tried to bring such an item into my home - a frightening thought!

You could just get a decent (3 megapixels+) camera & a tripod, & take a picture of the relevant page & email it. Cheaper than a scanner and smaller! You should be easily able to get a decent quality image suitable for reading & playing. Not ideal for archival purposes but a reasonably economical one. The question of course is how the expense in time & money required to achieve this compares with that of sticking with what you currently do.

 

There is of course also the question of what would you have left if the building storing the physical copies flooded or burned down? We had a house near us blow up a while back and the musician who lived there lost a lifetime collection of music manuscripts. If he'd had some form of electronic copy stored elsewhere he'd still have had something left for posterity.

[Chris Timson]

There is of course also the question of what would you have left if the building storing the physical copies flooded or burned down? We had a house near us blow up a while back and the musician who lived there lost a lifetime collection of music manuscripts. If he'd had some form of electronic copy stored elsewhere he'd still have had something left for posterity.

Very good point, Woody. Thanks. We definitely need to think about that one.

 

Chris

[wes williams]

There is of course also the question of what would you have left if the building storing the physical copies flooded or burned down? We had a house near us blow up a while back and the musician who lived there lost a lifetime collection of music manuscripts. If he'd had some form of electronic copy stored elsewhere he'd still have had something left for posterity.

Very good point, Woody. Thanks. We definitely need to think about that one.

 

Chris

As soon as the material is scanned, the answer is easy. Copies (CD or DVD) are circulated to committee members and other places. That's already in place for the document archive, but that was set up in recent years, so takes advantage of modern technology from the start. We've even been able to scatter copies over various different continents, so come the big bang.....

 

The Library Catalogue you see on the website represents the Library about five years ago (and don't forget the Library Search). Before that you had to ask the Librarian for a printed index, so we have been trying to make it more accessible to all (that alone must have saved Dirge a couple or three weeks). And since the web catalogue was published there has been at least one large donation, so more big boxes for Dave B. to store and catalogue.

 

But the real problem is from paper to electronic media. Your suggestions are very welcome (as are large cash donations, which might just get you elected an Honourary Member if they are big enough )

Edited July 11, 2007 by wes williams

[Richard Morse]

back in those days of yore when the music was published, A4 paper size wasn't standard, so the music is usually too big to fit on a standard scanner.

I suggest that you find another way to get them into electronic format. I often "scan" architectural "blueprints" in the course of my work with my digital camera. It's only an 8.3MB but I can make out every word, line and dimension of the 18"x24" size. At 12"x18" it works out to about 200ppi which is fine for transferring any information though won't look as crisp as the original. Surely you don't have sheet music larger than that!

 

Personally, I don't need a copy that looks identical to the original. I just want the "information" to play it. And I'd order lots if I could have it very quickly and inexpensively.

 

I think it's well past time to get caught up to where the internet world was several years ago. A 300ppi standard size page crammed with music notation is only 100k in .gif format. That's small enough to send in a regular e-mail over a phoneline with 56k (and slower) connection. Or just have a link for people to download. 200ppi is just as good for transfering the information and even less size.

 

Consider having minimal quality scans for free downloads (with a suggestion of donation via PayPal) and a link to order a great res copy for a price?

It would be nice if the ICA could supply the latest technology to all its officials, but its only got a few hundred members, and as Al indicates in the thread starter, a lot of our funds go straight back to the members in the form of newsletters, music supplements, and printed PICA.

You could save a LOT of money by dispersing the newsletters, music supplements by e-mail. The money saved could go towards a scanner and other supplies/equipment. Really.

I would like the images to be stored in .tif format, be of good contrast black and white with the stave strictly horizontal - so that I can use my music OCR software directly on the image..

Why .tif? It's got horrible compression! The exact same file can be saved in .gif. You can convert them back and forth with ZERO loss (if they're bitmapped - no "greyscale'). As such the same identical sheet of music which is 7MB in tif is only 165k in gif. Sheet music doesn't need a zillion colors and shades. B/W is fine. If you really want nuance do it up in 256 levels of grey which will add another 100k or so.

 

-- Rich --

[Chris Timson]

Another fair point, Rich. GIF is a lossless compressed format. Its disadvantage is a maximum of 256 colours, but this is not an issue for monochrome music score. And compared with TIF the filesize is tiny.

 

Keep the ideas coming - it will make for an entertaining committee meeting

 

I think that this establishes at the very least that the ICA's committee is around and is listening. We want the ICA to be more than just a talking shop for a few hundred people. So do our membership and so, it is clear, do you. The more people who do join, the more funds we will have for making good, useful and interesting things happen. And in an electronic age you have a chance to say what you want and hold us to account whether or not you make it to the AGM (currently always held in the UK, of course, but with non-UK members on the committee and an expanding international membership who knows what might happen in the future as the ICA lives up to the whole of its name).

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

 

PS that funding point is an important one. If you want to know what is different about the ICA and why it's worth supporting, then I would say the ICA is the only concertina organisation that actually has funds it can do things with and an international viewpoint. In that it differs from local groups, event-based organisations like C@W and web sites like this one.

[jonmac]

Another fair point, Rich. GIF is a lossless compressed format. Its disadvantage is a maximum of 256 colours, but this is not an issue for monochrome music score. And compared with TIF the filesize is tiny.

 

Keep the ideas coming - it will make for an entertaining committee meeting

 

I think that this establishes at the very least that the ICA's committee is around and is listening. We want the ICA to be more than just a talking shop for a few hundred people. So do our membership and so, it is clear, do you. The more people who do join, the more funds we will have for making good, useful and interesting things happen. And in an electronic age you have a chance to say what you want and hold us to account whether or not you make it to the AGM (currently always held in the UK, of course, but with non-UK members on the committee and an expanding international membership who knows what might happen in the future as the ICA lives up to the whole of its name).

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

 

PS that funding point is an important one. If you want to know what is different about the ICA and why it's worth supporting, then I would say the ICA is the only concertina organisation that actually has funds it can do things with and an international viewpoint. In that it differs from local groups, event-based organisations like C@W and web sites like this one.

 

Hi Everyone ...

 

After posting my last reply at quite a early hour of the morning - I had "further thoughts" very much along the lines of Rich Morse and Woody (thank you for your suggestions) . I shall go away and experiment - a very quick attempt indicates that it is highly possible (though we might need to create some means of holding the music flat!

 

It would be the digital equivalent of a microfilm! I'm certain it would be possible - how usable is an interesting point.

 

Oh - and my desire for .tif is simple - the software "sharp eye" uses .tif at 300 dpi - but in truth .gif or .jpgs could be used - they would just need to be converted

[Dirge]

Just to underscore Pauline's point, it never occurred to me that as a result of my moaning the whole library would be scanned. I, too, expected that stuff would be recorded (scanned, photographed,) as it was requested so that the librarian hopefully does little more than he was doing before, but would be saved the effort if that particular piece of music was ever needed again.

 

Can ordinary computers (run by wavering luddites) deal with gif files? If you choose a file type that's anything other than completely accessible you've removed some of the point of this. (assuming it gets taken further)